The reason for the insulated multi-strand wire design (some with a teflon or nylon rod at the core) has to do with solving time smear, and began with Bruce Brisson's (owner of MIT) original design for Monster Cable. The cables consist of two or more different gauges of wire, with the thinner wire wrapped around the heavier wire, which means that for a given length of cable there's a longer length of thinner wire than fatter wire.
Why do this? It became known that HF favors traveling along surfaces and/or thin conductors, and at a higher propagation speed than LF, which tend to favor thicker gauge wire and travel slower. So by making the thin wire longer than the thick wire, the faster HF has to travel further than the slower LF and so they meet up at the other end of the cable at the same time. This leads to better image and soundstage and better rendition of timbres and overtones. Eliminating time smear is the holy grail of cable design.
With cables designed like Straightwire, Monster, MIT (and probably 90% of all other brands) it's essential that all the various wire sizes (which are insulated from each other along the cable itself) be tied together electrically at each end. Otherwise, the high and low frequencies may not take their intended route(s), thus defeating the built-in time smear correction.
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Why do this? It became known that HF favors traveling along surfaces and/or thin conductors, and at a higher propagation speed than LF, which tend to favor thicker gauge wire and travel slower. So by making the thin wire longer than the thick wire, the faster HF has to travel further than the slower LF and so they meet up at the other end of the cable at the same time. This leads to better image and soundstage and better rendition of timbres and overtones. Eliminating time smear is the holy grail of cable design.
With cables designed like Straightwire, Monster, MIT (and probably 90% of all other brands) it's essential that all the various wire sizes (which are insulated from each other along the cable itself) be tied together electrically at each end. Otherwise, the high and low frequencies may not take their intended route(s), thus defeating the built-in time smear correction.
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