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Separate conductors for separate frequency ranges in cables

On this issue, I'm both skeptical and open minded. I'm approaching this in a good faith manner. I saw an ad on Agon for PS Audio power cables and the description reads, "Inside the AC12 are three hollow PCOCC conductors for the treble regions, one massive PCOCC rectangular conductor for the midrange and multiple gauges of PCOCC bundled together for the bass." I read that and just thought to myself, what does PS Audio mean? There is no crossover within the cable that literally separates frequencies and delivers them to separate inputs of a component. I can understand how different types of conductor materials/geometries can optimize different frequencies, but I don’t see how this would work in a single cable. Not too dissimilar are “Shotgun biwire” or “single biwire” speaker cables, but at least in that application you end up with two separate connections at the speaker – one to the bass woofer, and the other to tweeter and midwoofer. Is there anyone out there that can more fully explain what PS Audio is trying to accomplish with this cable construction? Honestly, I’m just seeking to understand, not cast aspersions. I really dig a lot of what PSA does.


128x128blang11
randy-11
1,913 posts
 
it is BS

people who claim that skin effect is audible in interconnect or speaker cables do not understand electronics; that confusion is worse for AC cables

but why go thru all those equations using actual numbers when you can do a double-blind listening test?
kijanki's avatar
kijanki
4,428 posts
 
Blang11 - sorry for my long rant on speaker cables.  Perhaps my brain refused to even admit word "power" in your post  :)  

Most of linear power supplies draw current in narrow spikes.  These current spikes of very high amplitude contain a lot of harmonics.  That would suggest that cable should have very low inductance and resistance and many principles I described before (including skin effect) for speaker cables might apply.  On the other hand I suspect that small resistance and inductance can sometimes play beneficial filtering role. My power amp came with long plain factory cable, that I replaced with very short (8") teflon insulated cable, I made myself.  I cannot hear any difference.  Is it because it is plugged into Power Factor Correcting Conditioner or perhaps because this amp has regulated SMPS?  It is also possible that my hearing is less than perfect (and it is not going to get any better)?
almarg's avatar
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almarg
9,670 posts
 
Tony (Tls49), thanks for pointing out the reference to power cords, which I had missed.  Which just adds to the bewilderment, as Blang11 aptly points out.  Although as Kijanki alluded to, in some applications, especially in the case of power amps and integrated amps, frequency components as high as several tens of kHz may be drawn through a power cord by the component being powered.

Regards,
-- Al
 
sfall
346 posts
 
I've never seen a PC claim quite like this one, so I went to PS Audio's web site and had a look at the cable. Its definately an odd design, but the one quality that stands out most is the price. With 3 different types of conductors and whatever else they put in those things, I was expecting to see a much higher price than $129.99. I would have been a lot less suprised if they were selling for over 1k.
bpoletti
1,553 posts
 
I’m an unofficial non-paid non-actor spokesman for the Interplanetary High-End Audio Speaker Cable Manufacturers and Wire Recycle Association, LLC (pending). We feel that it’s a great idea to use very long runs of the most expensive speaker cable available and to use separate conductors of identical lengths for each individual driver in a speaker system.
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