Can speaker cables be too thick?

Quote from Shadorne: "...group delay we are talking two or three hundred BILLIONTHS of a second." That is even shorter than the lifespan of a muon*!

* elementary particle

Chris

The fact of the matter is that pretty much any cable should be ok provided you avoid the obvious pitfalls...4 ohm speakers with 50 foot speaker cables of 20 AWG.

This is an independent engineers view. I have no axe to grind as I don't sell cables.

Shadorne my friend, just when I thought we were making nice progress on the cable front you take a few steps back.

I understand your zeal for the technical side of cables and measurements, but your mistake is assuming that any of that translates into knowledge about how they actually sound. If you'd spend half as much time listening to cables made with different conductors, dielectrics, gauges, etc... as you spent learning all the techno-theory, you'd find that you are incorrect in your assertions.

You do have an axe to grind in that you seem interested in convincing yourself and others that cables all sound virtually the same- and that's perfectly ok- but you're wrong:)

"He insists that a length of 10-15 feet is optimal, and that anything shorter than 10 feet is not good."

I've heard something similar (I think from Mapleshade) - that no run should be shorter than 8 feet. Can anybody shed light on this. I might be going from a stereo amp to mono blocks and assumed I would benefit from a shorter run than my current 3 meters.

Shadorne writes:

This is an independent engineers view. I have no axe to grind as I don't sell cables.

Do you perform listening comparisons?

Regards,

You do have an axe to grind in that you seem interested in convincing yourself and others that cables all sound virtually the same- and that's perfectly ok- but you're wrong:)

No problem Dave, I respect that you and many others disagree on the magnitude of the audible effects of different cables. I know some believe the effects to be extraordinary (this is where I strongly disagree). We won't settle it in a thread anyway and everyone has to decide for themselves.

As for an agenda, axe to grind, or a vested interest in promoting untruths - I honestly don't have any motive other than sharing what I believe/understand to be true. Engineers work under a strict code of ethics and it would be unethical for me to promote or sell extremely expensive audio cables if engineering principles have taught me to believe that the benefits are almost negligible. I do respect everyone's right to disagree and to buy, manufacture and sell the very best high performance cables they can. I respect that other engineers may disagree - we all work and follow our training, experience and conscience. For the record I make no claims at being an expert on audio cables design but I simply understand the basic scientific principles.