04-12-11: Antipodes_audio
If the time relationships in a sound are unnatural then the brain is quickly fatigued trying to make sense of what it hears, and the music sounds confused. If the time relationships are accurate then the brain can make complete sense of what it hears, with singers/players/instruments occupying distinct and real spaces. These time-domain issues are two-fold; signal-smearing, and phase distortions...Unlike equipment design, cable design to get accurate timbre is not tough, but time-domain accuracy is hard, and every design is a trade-off.
Antipodes audio - I agree with you about the importance of time domain performance. You may be aware of this already, but there is a significant amount of science confirming that human hearing has very sensitive temporal resolution. Many estimates place the limits of human temporal resolution on the order of microseconds, and
some estimates place it as low as 5 μs. That is a remarkable level of sensitivity.
Of course, it does not necessarily follow that our extreme sensitivity to temporal differences is a significant psychoacoustic factor in audio. But like you, I believe that it is.
Having said all that, I am still unclear about what design choices in cables influence their time domain behavior. Is it the materials? The geometry? The dielectric?
I'm not asking you to give up your "secret recipe," but can you share any generalizations about the virtues and vices of various design approaches?
Thanks,
Bryon