Dave,
Sorry for the caps - too much coffee this morning I guess,
As for moratorium on passive speakers....no I don't believe that. I agree that that the vast majority of the best speakers are passive.
I believe that for a well designed amp and for well designed speakers ( that are a suitable match) then the cables should have minimal effect (barely audible). I know many audiophiles vehemently disagree with this concept. I suspect the links in this thread to respected researchers who have discovered distortion when an amp and speaker complex load are coupled by a cable is intended to prove what many believe; speaker cables are a significant issue in home hi-fi and they dramatically affect the sound.
So my suggestion to those "cable worried people" would be to simply investigate Active Speakers - because this largely eliminates the problems with cable choice and matching amp to speaker load by leaving these critical choices to the designer with their skills and lab test equipment. I also gave justifications for why active designs will reduce this problem significantly . The most compelling argument, for those non technical minded, is to realize that the cable is almost eliminated altogether (it becomes at least 10 times shorter...an order of magnitude less important)
Sorry for the caps - too much coffee this morning I guess,
As for moratorium on passive speakers....no I don't believe that. I agree that that the vast majority of the best speakers are passive.
I believe that for a well designed amp and for well designed speakers ( that are a suitable match) then the cables should have minimal effect (barely audible). I know many audiophiles vehemently disagree with this concept. I suspect the links in this thread to respected researchers who have discovered distortion when an amp and speaker complex load are coupled by a cable is intended to prove what many believe; speaker cables are a significant issue in home hi-fi and they dramatically affect the sound.
So my suggestion to those "cable worried people" would be to simply investigate Active Speakers - because this largely eliminates the problems with cable choice and matching amp to speaker load by leaving these critical choices to the designer with their skills and lab test equipment. I also gave justifications for why active designs will reduce this problem significantly . The most compelling argument, for those non technical minded, is to realize that the cable is almost eliminated altogether (it becomes at least 10 times shorter...an order of magnitude less important)