Cable design is a lot like creating a pizza
If you look at the construction of an RCA cable it can be very simple or can be very complicated. Eg. Audio quest higher end interconnect cables are extremely creative, the diagram on their website is visually stunning.
Ultimately, Cable design in many cables involves coloring the tonal signature. Cooking a pizza is all about making all the ingredients come together so it tastes amazing. Some do it a lot better than others and Pizza is a lot cheaper.
For cables, There are conductors, drain wires, shielding, Airfilled tubes, different gauges, etc…. Then there’s the copper strands which can be very detailed and numerous and twisted. So much going on.
With pizza you have cheese and sauce and spices and the dough and it’s all mixed together with all kinds of variation. Ultimately the sauce makes or breaks the success of a pizza slice.
With audio cables, hi end Cable designers are endlessly trying different ways to do all this. In the end they find something that sounds kind of nice. They may not know exactly why it does sound the way it does.
So that’s my take on Pizza design and cable design.
@rodman99999 The time shows up as local time. Maxwell pretty much defined the theories that are used in transmission lines. But what part of a stereo systems is like a transmission line? |
"It serves to illustrate how ridiculous cable design is. Especially if they can’t explain what they’ve done Beyond marketing rhetoric. This also applies to preamplifiers and amplifiers. And here even more complicated, and many are profoundly confused as to why components sound the way they do." Agree 100%. It’s incredible how much money is made from cables transferring a low voltage audio signal. The recipe and ingredients are constantly changing in order to fleece the audiophile sheep of their disposable income. The more they spend the better they feel. Then there are the common sense, practical types who build their own cables with quality materials that get the job done just as well at a small fraction of the cost. They are often mocked however by the elitists who’ve spent a weeks pay with results no better. |
at first glance these two statements appear contradictory to me. They raise the question as to how do we know that cables are revealing the truth versus adding desirable distortion? Seems like there might be a place for measurement here. once we recognize that there is such a thing as desirable distortion then the question becomes what is the most effective way to add it when it is desired. I would think that DSP would certainly be competitive with cables as a means. If you want to learn more about desirable distortion I suggest you read some of what Nelson Pass has written about his First Watt amps. |
@holmz - Maxwell's equations weren't wrong, but: there's much more involved*, when we're dealing with retaining a plethora of frequencies/voices (instrumental and vocal), ambient/room information (height, width, depth) and placement of the afore mentioned voices, within that space. (iow: much more sensitive info, than what's contained in DC or AC). Even those involved in manufacturing PC boards for more the more sensitive RF systems, take into account the variables involved when choosing materials, as signal speed is dependent on their dielectric constants and possible frequencies to be encountered. We've engaged in this conversation before, so: I suspect your queries to be more argumentative, than inquisitive. Hence: this post is more for those extant, that are genuinely interested in the Physics of what's what with our wires. If I'm wrong: my apologies!
*http://www.audiosystemsgroup.com/TransLines.pdf
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