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The Science of Cables

It seems to me that there is too little scientific, objective evidence for why cables sound the way they do. When I see discussions on cables, physical attributes are discussed; things like shielding, gauge, material, geometry, etc. and rarely are things like resistance, impedance, inductance, capacitance, etc. Why is this? Why aren’t cables discussed in terms of physical measurements very often?

Seems to me like that would increase the customer base. I know several “objectivist” that won’t accept any of your claims unless you have measurements and blind tests. If there were measurements that correlated to what you hear, I think more people would be interested in cables. 

I know cables are often system dependent but there are still many generalizations that can be made.
128x128mkgus
jhills
618 posts
 
@taras22
Not sure how gallium, indium and tin, a semi liquid goop, 1/15th the conductivity of oxygen free copper, is somehow superior to pure grade, oxygen free copper as a conductor for cables. I guess whatever makes a great sales pitch and you can stick the highest $$$ to.
 
While there are a lot of bogus claims of all kinds of miracle insulative coatings and shieldings for audio conductors, in reality, the best material, as an insulator for either data or audio signal conductors, is either PTFE (Teflon) or polyethylene, with as little shielding and protective covers as necessary, for a particular situation.

For audio cables and most everything else, I believe in sticking to the standards of proven technology and performance and the motto of KISS, JMO.......Jim

teo_audio
2,197 posts
 
Thank you for not being sure. Key point, there.
taras22
412 posts
 
@defiantboomerang

So you piled thru Jackson, congratulations....and solved all the problems, double congratulations. Tough sledding that.

Could you please do us all a big favour and take a peak at the following thread....

https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/doug-schroeder-method-double-ic

....and give us your ideas about what all the hub-bub is about.

Thanks in advance.
itsjustme
682 posts
 
While I largely agree with the direction of Dunlavy's post, I will give slight shelter to two claims:
For example, claiming that copper wire is directional, that slow-moving electrons create distortion as they haphazardly carry the signal along a wire, that cables store and release energy as signals propagate along them, that a final energy component (improperly labeled as Joules) is the measure of the tonality of cables, ad nauseum, are but a few of the non-entities used in advertisements to describe cable performance.
Any properly shielded wire can be directional. A Faraday shield should typically be grounded ONLY at the source.
And dialectic do absorb and release charge non-linearly. It is called dialectic absorption (closely related to dissipation factor) and can be read in any good data sheet.
The larger the physical form factor the less this is a meaningful concern, since the capacitance goes way down.
Not really defending the position of many cable claims, but there is a hint of truth in there if you look closely....
G
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