The Science of Cables

lols there are about 15 pages so there is no way I'll read through them all. But anyway, some conclusions are needed.

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YES, cables do make a difference and I think we (or most of us) would agree. If you don't agree with this, then might as well arguing about 2+2 = 4 and basic number theory.  

YES, we can measure cables and different cables will exhibit different "objective" set of measurement results. You may need some sensitive and expensive equipment from Agilent and not some cheap 24Kbit PC audio sound card running MS OS lols.

The part where it gets tricky is how to relate what we measure and what we hear. YES, we can get some basic "objective" measurements to correlate with some basic audiophile terminologies, but only up to a point since our hearing is really too complicated to understand even with the advent of today science (lols dark energy not withstanding). For example, if a cable has too much capacitance, the sound will lack dynamic. Or if a cable has too much inductance, there will be ringing so the sound will be a bit edgy, nervous. If the cable has too much resistance, it will also reduce dynamic (like putting a 1ohm resistor in series to the bass driver of your speakers). And of course some basic “LCR” can be measured so nobody will argue with this. But beyond some basic correlations between objective measurements and hearing, it gets complicated and we don't have any hard science to explain or at least not that I know of. Modern science has a lot of equations but I don't know of any equation that if you plug in your “LCR” parameters, it will tell you how musical the cable will sound.  So at the end, you have to rely on your own hearing, God forbids.

-------------- Entering a bit more “scientific realm”.

What is a “perfect” cable? A perfect cable is one that can deliver a signal from one end to the other with perfect phase and amplitude relationship (that is no phase shift or amplitude attenuation in all freq.) But since all audio cables are transmission line in theory, there is no such thing as a perfect cable. Some freq. (even at audio freq) will have some phase shift or attenuation with respect to some other freq. If you solve Maxwell equation, it works all the way down to DC so audio freqs get affected too even in theory and not just at RF freq.  So here you have three basic variables: phase shift, amp. attenuation, and freq.  Since these are analog, you end up with literally infinite number of combinations that your ears have to deal with.  And although all cables will only have these three basic variables, the number of permutations are infinite so there is zero chance that two cables will measure the same.   And you're in a bit of a bind.  And if you're an "objective" type, then you believe in theory.  And just as I said above, "objectively", all cables will measure differently (remember infinite permutation).  Heck, the same cable will measure differently at different times.  Therefore the conclusion is all cables will sound differently due to measurement.

A lot of measurements are way too overly simplistic. For example, I've read a lot of on-line measurements were done on a single frequency, @1KHz. The person who carried out this measurement and proudly proclaimed that since both equipment have the same jitter at 1KHz, therefore they should sound the same. The problem is these measurements were done at steady state (not to mention at a single freq), whereas our hearing is transitory. For example, if you play a C note on a piano, you get the fundamental frequency but also the ovetones which decays at lower (or higher) frequencies at specific timing interval and amplitude. If your audio cable somehow delays (as in phase shift) a certain overtone frequency or incorrectly attenuate an overtone amplitude with respect to the fundamental frequency (vs real life) then it does not reproduce the C note properly. It's very difficult to devise a test where you can measure this on a cable. Maybe there is but it's not easy and personally I don't know of such.

I once read The Art and Science of Motorcycle Maintenance and the guy said gravity is not that different from religion lols. Good thing I got some open minded head to know what's he talking about. Anyway, as someone already brought it up, the term “LCR” is kind of like gravity in that sense. It's just some made-up stuffs we invented so we can solve the Maxwell equations which are in themselves made up stuffs. And if you believe LCR is something that ends all then you're are just as bad – hiding behind your own misguided science.

Descartes, Hume, Kant

Do they know

Do you know

Nobody really knows

Except the shadows

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From the beginning

powerful method for improving an audio system?

So why not make IC’s out of Litz wire!? According to Schroeder’s hypothesis this should have the same benefits. Multiple conduction paths!