When is unequal, equal?

Honest1, I'm glad somebody else has their head on straight. Couldn't have said it better.

Well, GS actually did the analysis for resistance. If Honest1 would like to do the same for capacitance and inductance, then we might be getting somewhere. But just saying they're "important," without giving us any measure of how important, isn't saying anything. If all doubling the capacitance does is cause a 0.2 dB rolloff at 20 kHz, that won't be audible.

Pabelson, your thinking is not incorrect, but if you only consider these characteristics in relation to their effects (or lack of them) on frequency response curves, then you aren't going far enough.

One of the most important qualities of a good IC or speaker cable it that all frequencies arrive at the "destination end" of the cable at the same time. If they don't, then you get what is called "time smear" IE, a range of frequencies that started out together at the same microsecond at one end of the cable, arrive at the other at slightly different times. Time smear is the result of many factors, including capacitance and inductance as well as the construction materials and topology (the way the conductors are laid out.) Achieving low (or no) time smear is the holiest grail of cable designers. Its effects are not heard as sonics in the sense of frequency rolloff etc., but rather as a diminution of air, imaging, and and accurate holographic presentation of the sonic picture.

In the case of speaker cables (in addition to time smear) inductance can greatly affect damping factor (the ability of the amp to accurately control the woofer travel -- or more specifically, getting it to stop and "turn on a dime" at each end of its travel as determined by the signal. If it overshoots, you get muddy bass with no slam or (if you listen to mostly classical) musicality. Inductance not only produces an electromagnetic "drag" on the signal every time its polarity reverses, it also increases the "reactance" seen by the amplifier -- that's an equal and opposite signal generated back through the cable and caused by the movement of the speaker itself, acting like an electric generator. The amp has to work harder to drive the "real" signal against this electonic "headwind" and so the less it has to deal with the better. BTW, electrostatic speakers don't produce reactance, which is one of the reasons for their inherently good transient response (not just their lightweight diaphragms.)

As you pointed out, these characteristics are additive, and although typically small in value, have a tremendous affect on time smear (resistance and capacitance) and damping (inductance). People use all kinds of techniques to help reduce these effects (cable lifters, network boxes, etc.) but one of the easiest, especially with budget cables, is to keep the cables, particularly speaker cables, as short as possible.

Mang: When I was trying to make my own speaker cables and installing in an asymetrical setup, I found that a difference of 20% length between the two speakers did not seem to matter much, but when the difference was 50% (8ft. length vs 12ft. length) the difference was obvious. The un-equal length differences with flat (Nordost type) cables was less obvious but still noticeable.......also cutting one set of cables shorter will hurt future re-sale value, good luck, Mike.

Nsgarch, all that talk about back EMF might be true, but even a doubling of cable length would not result in an audible difference or a difference larger than simply moving one's head a few inches closer to one speaker. Keeping speaker cable lengths as short as possible is always a good thing, however, especially with tube amps.

BTW, electrostatic speakers might not suffer from reactance effects, but are affected by capacitance effects inherent in their design.

Bob P.