What cable do you use

[clpetersen]

Originally Posted by audio bill

A classic example about measurements and audibility goes back to the 70's, when electronics manufacturers were in a very competitive race to lower the measured Total Harmonic Distortion (THD) in their amplifiers. They found that by adding feedback to the circuit they could significantly lower the measured THD so they employed more and more of it in order for their specs to be best. Critical listeners then complained that even though these amps had great measured specs they often sounded worse than the older models which had higher levels of THD. It was then later discovered that using so much feedback to lower THD resulted in much higher levels of Transient Intermodulation Distortion (TID) which was previously not a known entity nor being measured. So it's often now understood in engineering circles that if we can hear a difference in audio gear but can't measure that difference then we're likely measuring the wrong thing or don't even know what measurement represents a specific aspect of sound that we're able to hear.

Nice Post!

And for the deeply interested --original paper on TIM, attached.

[Antonmb]

Originally Posted by audio bill

A classic example about measurements and audibility goes back to the 70's, when electronics manufacturers were in a very competitive race to lower the measured Total Harmonic Distortion (THD) in their amplifiers. They found that by adding feedback to the circuit they could significantly lower the measured THD so they employed more and more of it in order for their specs to be best. Critical listeners then complained that even though these amps had great measured specs they often sounded worse than the older models which had higher levels of THD. It was then later discovered that using so much feedback to lower THD resulted in much higher levels of Transient Intermodulation Distortion (TID) which was previously not a known entity nor being measured. So it's often now understood in engineering circles that if we can hear a difference in audio gear but can't measure that difference then we're likely measuring the wrong thing or don't even know what measurement represents a specific aspect of sound that we're able to hear.

Great post. Jitter is another great example: in the early days of CD, we didn’t know enough to measure jitter. CD was perfect in all the measurements of the day, yet people heard differences. If many people hear differences in cables, there are a couple of possibilities: either we’re all deluded (there are a lot of us, mass hysteria?) or some day some bright engineer will say, “Aha! That’s what we’ve been missing, we need to measure for xyz.”

[audio bill]

Originally Posted by clpetersen

Nice Post!
And for the deeply interested --original paper on TIM, attached.

Thanks for your correction of the acronym to TIM and for sharing the technical paper!

[audio bill]

Originally Posted by Antonmb

Great post. Jitter is another great example: in the early days of CD, we didn’t know enough to measure jitter. CD was perfect in all the measurements of the day, yet people heard differences. If many people hear differences in cables, there are a couple of possibilities: either we’re all deluded (there are a lot of us, mass hysteria?) or some day some bright engineer will say, “Aha! That’s what we’ve been missing, we need to measure for xyz.”

That's another perfect example! It's taken several decades of continued improvements in digital recording and playback technology to reach a level of performance that can now meet and in some aspects exceed the performance of analog playback. Such technical advancements require the use of gear and measurements which either didn't exist or were not initially of high enough resolution to differentiate shortcomings in performance which were easily heard by most critical listeners.

[PHC1]

I’ll throw this into the discussion. Electric/electron flow or “current” and electric “energy” are two different things. Electrons travel relatively slow, “energy” travels fast.

Connect a lightbulb to a battery. Current flows from the battery through the filament of the bulb which changes it to light. The current returns to the other terminal of the battery but the battery is not recharged and instead is eventually depleted... The “energy” has been depleted or lost. The energy is not traveling back to the battery but the “current” is.


Electric current is a slow flow of charged particles. Electric energy is a fast moving “field”. The two travel at very different speeds...
it is said that an electron would take two hours to travel 15 ft of wire... But the energy travels very rapidly...

I can get a bit deeper here but it’s not necessary or if you are curious there are some good articles out there.

The important part is that the energy does not flow inside the conductor but just outside of it while the electrons make their way through the conductor. Copper is a good conductor but obviously the purity comes into play somewhat as far as we are concerned with audio. So does the so called “skin effect” hence the various designs of fancy audio cables.

Then getting down to quantum level things get really weird.... Let’s just say the electrons are NOT orbiting in neat orbits like we previously thought. That model is not accurate.

Neither does the sound travel in neat waves as we are used to visualizing the representation diagrams. Sound is not waves but “bubbles”....



Somewhere in there there is an answer but in the mean time, play around with different cables, have fun, listen closely but don’t lose your head and wallet in the process.

[PHC1]

One of the more amazing things I’ve witnessed when working in the field of MRI machines and their cryogenic superconducting cables is the fact that the energy from high current pulses would make those superconducting cables sing and wiggle so they have to be fastened down as they want to get up and boogie... Yes, they made a sound of their own.

[Antonmb]

Originally Posted by PHC1

Somewhere in there there is an answer but in the mean time, play around with different cables, have fun, listen closely but don’t lose your head and wallet in the process.

And that sums it up well.

[PHC1]

I’m surprised no one has brought up the different thickness or diameter of the conductor in audio cables. Two different schools of thought. There are anaconda sized cables and there is the opposite school of thought with very thin cables. I’ve witnessed both obviously. It has been noticed among the “hard core” audiophiles that the thinner cables work better with tube amplifiers while thicker and purer with solid state...... Mind blown...

Mapleshade audio, thin gauge, transparent jacket “cellophane”? wrapped Minimalist interconnects and cables do indeed sound very musical with flea powered SET amps.

How about wide and thin conductors? “The free electrons will try to arrange themselves so that they are as far from each other as possible (since they repel each other) and so that there are no electric fields inside the conductor.”

“When a wave is traveling though a conductor, the amplitude of the wave as you look inside the conductor decreases very quickly as you get deeper into the material. How fast this decrease happens depends of the frequency of the wave (how quickly the wave oscillates, usually given in cycles per second or Hertz)”

What about the skin effect? An extreme example of that is in a Tesla Coil demo. Tesla coil has really high frequency AC. So someone stood on the tesla coil, holding a wooden stick over his head, and the current flowed over the surface of his body and ignited the stick.... Mind blown again...

[PHC1]

Good one. Sarcastic but funny. Our hobby is too serious sometimes so a good laugh is never a bad thing. https://youtu.be/UoVixorZTDM

[SCAudiophile]

Great thread guys!