Transparent Audio Speaker Cables - What's Inside the Network Boxes?

[jfrech]

Originally Posted by Steady339

jfrench, Thanks for your reply and acknowledgement of my intent for this tread.

I don't think your analogy of Yogo to Porsche really works in comparing high-end cables. Certainly the better high-end, non-TA speaker cables, implement superior technologies and materials and will not produce Yogo-quality sound. Maybe you are comparing TA cables to zip cord?

I will say, from some of the responses to this thread that TA has definitely found a niche market of well-heeled audiophiles who are willing to put out big money for their upper-tiered cables, some of whom don't seem to feel concerned over the extreme over pricing--but rather--buy into it.

Maybe Yugo vs Porsche was extreme. Fair point. Corvette vs Porsche..both have their advantages. Both are different. Both owners value something in a different way...both can be copied...but not duplicated.

As far as pricing...I feel the Transparent cabling betters most (not all) component upgrades. You may get a bigger bang for your buck upgrading cables vs something else...

Speakers: Rockport Altair 2
Preamp: Robert Koda K10
Amp: Nagra Classic Amp
Cables: Transparent Opus Gen 5 & Magnum Opus phono
Power Transparent Opus Power Cord (amp & pre)
Power Shunyata Triton v2/Typhon/DPC-6 v2, Anaconda Zitron cords (x4), Sigma HC & Analog (x4)
Digital dCS Vivaldi full stack w/ Transparent Reference XL Digital cables
Phono: Grand Prix Monaco TT, Spiral Groove Centroid, Jan Allaerts MC2 Finish, Nagra VPS/VFS/MPS
Racks: Grand Prix Audio Silverstone F1 (x3)

[rob]

I have the xl cables in my system. Its my understanding from Transparent at this level , the networks are not a simple filter. While it does limit the ultra high radio frequencies. it also matches the electromagnetic characteristics of the cable materials, the length of the cable, the inductance, capacitance, resistance, etc, and balancing left and right channels to the connected components. Its far more complicated, requires constant measuring, high tolerance of components used in the network, and therefore more costly to produce.

[Steady339]

Rob, as I understand it, the Transparent Reference XL speaker cable network boxes do use a simple--but precisely-tuned--zobel network. That is, this circuit can rightly be called simple, because there are only three elements--one coil in series to block RF frequencies, one precision value resistor, and one high-quality capacitor in parallel with the speaker. The purpose of the zobel is to minimize RF and lower the high frequency impedance of the speaker that the amplifier sees.

As others who have responded to this thread have pointed out, Transparent does carefully tune and test the values of the elements in the zobel to match different speakers and cable lengths, so it can be said that the implementation of the zobel is not simple.

Roger