Cable lengths

I should mention that the data I posted is for one side of the speaker cable only. The data for the other side is similar. Therefore, the numbers can be doubled for a quick approximation. For instance, at 10 kHz, instead of a 40.44% increase in resistance, you will actually have an 80.88 percent increase, etc.

When I did my experiment, the coiled wire had a higher inductance and capacitance. For instance, at 10 kHz, the straight cable had 3.96 uH inductance and 227 pF capacitance while the coiled cable had 5.26 uH inductance and 249 pF capacitance. Instead of listing all of these values, I have only provided the "effective resistance." I would be happy to email a spreadsheet with all of the data to anyone who wants it.

Wow, nice Bufus, I never would have thought it made that much of a difference (furtively slinking away to uncoil his cables). :-)

Greg

Okay... so what is worse, coiling one speaker cable or having one side shorter?

Before we move on to deciding which is worse, coiling one side or having one side shorter, I want to mention one more thing about the data. I made a mistake with my percentage calculations. For instance, notice at 10 kHz, the "effective resistance" increased from 49.47m to 80.14m. That is actually about a 62% increase instead of the 38% that I listed. At 300 kHz the jump from 255m to 505m is about a 98% increase !!! This series of measurements is interesting because it points out that side-by-side speaker wire is generally not that great. It is not as linear over the listening range as we would like. All of our other equipment costs alot of money and is linear. So why would we think that spending more money for speaker cables is a waste? How much more to spend is the question. Hey, if anybody has cables they want measured, send them to me. It will give us some data points for comparison.

Thank you all: I am convienced, the purchase of even length speaker cable is well worth the money when optimizing our systems. A special thanks to Bufus for takeing what we suspect and coming up with just facts.