A hard look at the effect of cables

If the Meridian approach was a smashing commercial success, I guess it would be more popular among manufacturers. Market forces, whatever they may be, seem to dictate otherwise. I got a kick out of your analogy with the fashion industry - perhaps I have more in common with my wife than I thought...

Waffle35,

You missed a big part in that a lot of the fun in audiophile is finding those "magical" pairings.

I agree - "freedom to mix and match for sound is the main reason many people pursue this hobby"

An Active Speaker is like a "straight jacket" to those looking to tailor sound to their own tastes.

you can get similar anomalies just by using a single channel to amplify from dc to daylight AND expect a pair of passive boxes (speakers) to produce sound, accordingly from dc to daylight -- all of this in totally linear fashion. A tall order.

A tall order! Exactly. It is not so much what the cables are being asked to do! It is really what the poor amplifier and complex transducer system has to handle - it all comes together at the amplifier that is often being asked to handle a dogs breakfast of signals/impedances.

A full range speaker with four (and often more) drivers and three crossovers and a supertweeter is being asked to produce reasonably flat response from 20 HZ to say 35 Khz. All the complex reactance interacts. All the diaphragms are moving all the time and their movement and inertia induces electrical energy back into the shared circuit with all the other drivers. The bass woofer requires several AMPS to produce bass signals and yet the tweeter and supertweeter respond audibly to the tiniest miniscule signals.

Now couple this all together with some wires and all to the same browbeaten amplifier, typically a power amplifier with an on paper flat response from 20 Hz to 100 Khz (into a resistor 8 Ohm load of course!!!!).

This system now has a lot going on and Power Amplifiers are not supernatural machines that can respond to anything and everything without the slightest signal interaction. Delivering a huge bass signal of several amps at 40Hz to 80Hz without causing audible intermodulation distortion of a small tweeter signal of a few milli-amps (thousandths of an amp) is a tall order! Worse - the reactance of the system is complex....the load swings from low impedance to high impedance depending on what frequencies the amp is asked for. Worse - the drivers have inertia and are moving....these are making the complex load not just frequency variable but time variable too - depending on the drivers movement and position. Worse - as you get further into a track the drivers voice coil heats up and this changes the way it interacts with the passive crossover as well as changing its fundamental response due to its rising resistance. Worse - over half the amplifier power is dissipated as heat in the crossovers alone (it never reaches the speaker drivers).

The idea that a high tech speaker cable or bi-wiring might help solve some of these issues is kind of on the right track but it is largely wishful thinking, as the problem is really the overall complexity of the total interacting system. It is incorrect to simply extol a cable for any perceived improvement it makes...there are surely more problems going on if such a small change makes a dramatic difference - a mis matched amp and speaker for example! In some cases a particular type cable may improve the stability of a system in others it may not...all will depend on the particular gear combination and how or what kind of detrimental distortion is being produced through the complex interaction.

Dennis--very interesting that you have not noticed any differences in pwr cords --you have a great system that should be quite revealing--I have been amazed at the differences in pwr cords --just changed from mit ac-1 on my amps to bpt L10 pwr cords with much improvement-the mit's and my previous old marigo's were prob little change -have also noticed changes when an L10 was added to my furman ref15it--nothing short of spectacular --waiting on a more expensive pwr cord for my cdp to see whether it will make a diff --I also have oyaide outlets and thought they tightened up the bass--rich --any ? email me

Ras422, which AC1 were you using? Shotgun, Magnum,Oracle?