Are there any constants in speaker wire designs?

Paperw8 - according to mentioned skin depth calculator 20 mils corresponds to gage 18. Skin effect is therefore not existent in interconnects but might with speaker cables. Using thick wire lowers resistance but also inductance. The same happens with stranded wires. Isolating strands doesn't help them being in each other magnetic field (doesn't reduce overall skin effect) but placing strands on the hollow core or flat woven pattern does.

I understand that you are sceptical about skin effect in audio (as I am) since we need couple of dB to notice volume change but on the other hand fraction of dB on the tone control can be perceived.

All cable companies go toward similar solution like flat cables (Nordost) or hollow tube cables (AQ, AZ). I tend to trust them and suspect that they don't do this for marketing purpose alone since most of customers have no idea what skin effect is. I can hear specific difference between speaker cables while other tell me I must be self hypnotized and that cheap Home Depot wire is good enough.

I don't know how to measure focus or soundstage depth or width but it exists and is affected by something. Can this something be simply measured by relation between R, L and C.
Can we say that all speaker cables that have exactly same RLC will have exactly same sound (focus, soundstaging, etc.)? What about R,L or C vs frequency - it might be complex relationship?

09-05-10: Kijanki
I don't know how to measure focus or soundstage depth or width but it exists and is affected by something. Can this something be simply measured by relation between R, L and C.
Can we say that all speaker cables that have exactly same RLC will have exactly same sound (focus, soundstaging, etc.)? What about R,L or C vs frequency - it might be complex relationship?

"focus" and "soundstage depth" are subjective evaluations - you can't measure that kind of stuff. but you can measure electrical characteristics that have relevance in cable performance. the measure that i would generally think to be of significance is resistance, maybe measured at different frequencies. this could give an indication of how transparent a cable is across the audio frequency spectrum.

for interconnect cable, there could be capacitance in the dielectric material between the core and the screen; you can measure that. even if they just report the data and don't tell you how to interpret it, at least then you could find that kind of stuff out and then you have data that you can use to evaluate the cables. it would be useful for reviews to provide information about the magnitude and phase response of cables.

i'm not saying that there is no role for subjective evaluations, but it would be useful to see whether objective data supports the subjective claims. a non-audiophile like me would be inclined to use the information to cut down the number of candidates that i might consider.

Kijanki, when talking about cables, I have also came across this: do two cables (branded, and a copy of it) which have identical L R C spec. will sound the same? I do not reject the idea that this only speculiation between these numbers, and their relationship between the system components AND the listener. All cables have different LRC, some manufactures give those numbers in their websites, so if someone just could make a copy of lets say Nordost Frey and compare them, that could make a significant step forward in this topic.

But when you overthink this again, then logic tells that there might be all variables involved - think about... shielding.. would be there a difference between two IC cables with same LRC BUT 0% and 95% shielding? And the list goes on..

>>Can this something be simply measured by relation >>between R, L and C.

Kij,
That's the way I've been leaning. RLC is a pretty gross description. Doing RLC measures at frequency than doing some kind of complex 3d charting....Maybe some derivation of a Smith Chart may eventually show a pattern worthy of some conclusion. But perhaps only after sufficient data is collected.
Just talkin' out loud, here.

Magfan,

Yes, RLC is just gross description. There might be even variables that we don't know yet. They claimed in 70's that new SS amps have to sound better than tube amps because they have wider bandwidth and much lower THD and IMD. They just didn't know about transient intermodulation (TIM) that was discovered in 70's. I know that wire is just a wire but shielding for instance (as I mentioned before) can be extremely complicated.

Mjordans,

I had a few AQ ICs and can say that Viper has better low frequency extension that Ruby. I cannot imagine how RLC can be used to describe this. Not likely placebo effect since I could tell easily which cable was installed and did not read any opinions/reviews. In addition there are many IC cables reviews where they mention bass extension. Midbass was about the same but Viper had better bass definition. How we can posssibly explain tighter bass in RLC? Capacitance or inductance values are completely irrelevant at these frequencies. My current IC has about 7pF/30nH - not significant at any audio frequency. What makes this cable to sound different from other cables of similar, not significant RLC. Shielding with non-magnetic shield works against EMI, as I described before, because of skin effect. But this is only if cable is very symmetrical (equivalent field inside is zero) and only at higher frequencies. There will be some frequencies at which skin depth will be too deep to contain induced interference to shield alone while cable will be long enough to be some antenna. Antenna works effectively at 1/4 wavelength and stops working perhaps below 1/10 but there will be still some pickup even at shorter cables. Single MHz frequencies can perhaps do that (bypass the shielding and be induced). Maybe they tend to do something to modulate output driver and that's why cables might be so system dependent.