A hard look at the effect of cables

Nothing is truly passive. Even what we call passive is reactive.

I still find it hard to fathom how a speaker cable can be so important, considering the inductors, capacitors and windings in the drivers of the speakers. It's almost comical after the mile of wire in an output transformer. Yet, I've heard amazing changes, at least once.

It should be noted that IC's are completely different and capacitance/inductance play a bigger role.

I'm disappointed that this thread isn't more controversial and misunderstood.

This article unfortunately reminds me of attempting to make good speaker cables using my Nakamichi AV10 as test amp. What finally sounded only OK on AV10 was poor on everything else. The weird loads with normal speakers is why I was so taken (and purchased) some TBI speakers as they are closer to resistive load than inductive. I have not seem many threads from people with successfull experience from 2 inch long speaker cable mono amp hook-up. How can we normal folks use this info ?

hi shadorne. there are two cable interfaces that you may be overlooking, namely the source to preamp and the preamp to amp. what about transport to dac

Since these are just signal cables (almost no power or current), they have a specifically designed buffer circuit at the input of each component in a chain (rather than a nasty complex load of a speaker). These cables are far less of an issue than speaker cables. The components can be designed to preserve signal integrity across interconnects to a much higher degree.

So 20 feet of shielded XLR with good components at each end is therefore much better than the equivalent in speaker cable connected to a nasty complex load.

Ngjockey makes some great points.

I don't believe the article was meant to blame cables but rather highlight the complex interaction of the system due to the cable's connection - and that the cables themselves also contribute to the overall effect to varying degree.

I don't feel I have any answers but I do know that I have experienced significant changes (relatively speaking) with different interconnects and power cords, as well as speaker cables. And not only that but in some cases, I've had significantly larger changes with different interconencts and power cords than I have had with different speaker cables. Not sure why but I have witnessed it with my own ears, which I trust.

But this would make sense too in the context of what Ngjockey brings up: how can a simple cable have such an impact when you are talking about inserting it in a system with huge capacitance and inductance all over the place?

It is amazing and humbling for me to witness the complexity of our universe. The more I try to learn and figure out, the dumber I realize I am.

Arthur

"It is amazing and humbling for me to witness the complexity of our universe. The more I try to learn and figure out, the dumber I realize I am."

Arthur, if only we all were as humble.