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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
nonoise's avatar
nonoise
10,805 posts
 
You're going to catch some flak for that. 😄

But, I agree that basic measurements are one thing, and just that. Something like an Em diagram would be a much needed step in the right direction. 

People tend to forget that the data, or graph, is not the music. It's a crude representation of the event. A guideline, for sure, but it can always be massaged.

All the best,
Nonoise
celander's avatar
celander
1,503 posts
 
My head hurts. I am glad I don't need an aerospace engineering degree to enjoy my audio system.
rocknss
130 posts
 
"AES/EBU is an analogue output."

Confused about this as well.

geoffkait's avatar
geoffkait
23,365 posts
 
As fate would have it cables are not subsonic, sonic or supersonic. They aren’t even hypersonic. They’re light speed. So are power cables. So you can’t apply fluid dynamics or finite analysis or Schlieren photography. You need to apply the laws of electromagnetism and analyze how vibration and magnetic fields interact with electromagnetic waves. And how electromagnetic waves travel through solid metal conductors.
taras22
412 posts
 
@ razorbraun

Had to think about it a bit, dredge up a lot of grad school era stuff, flip some things around, and turn other things inside out, but yeah that is pretty well sorta absolutely kinda bang on you nailed it....

And also is a great way to look at the why and how of chaos, or rather what our relatively simplistic math/analytical tools describe as chaos....and why it reefs our relatively simplistic math based theory thingees and why we humans can simply ride it out...or to paraphrase you, at base, life, writ large, is an art form...  

Damn that was good.......to loosely paraphrase my late dad, jeez your eyes are totally wide open....and then some pretty wicked extrapolations from your observations...wicked....just wicked....
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