A New Believer

Shadorne:Interesting but the rise and fall time of the signal is relevant and therefore the impact of the impedance is also relevant even at "audio" frequencies. I suppose, by analogy you believe that there is no problem with CD sound because the 44.1 Khz meets the Nyquist criterean, and we cannot hear beyond 20 khz anyway, and that jitter and the steep Digital filter do not have effects on CD sound....

FYI the cables I suggested are, I believe, $80 an 8 foot pair more expensive than zip cord but I assure you better sounding and vastly cheaper than the hype out there.

Stops, I never said any of that. I simply took issue with the grossly inaccurate use of "complex load" to describe a few meters of copper wire at audio frequencies. It perpetuates the myth that cables are critical.

In our hobby in general, there is far too much exaggeration of the effects of cables when it is the active components (source, amplification) and passive components (speakers, crossover) and room (speaker placement, listening position, acoustics) that have, by several orders of magnitude, a much greater impact on the sound.

04-20-11: Stops
Shadorne: Interesting but the rise and fall time of the signal is relevant and therefore the impact of the impedance is also relevant even at "audio" frequencies.

Keep in mind that the risetimes and falltimes of the source material, the source component, the amplification, the speakers, and our ears are all limited, and with the exception of some amplification components do not extend into the rf region.

And even if "transmission line" or other cable effects that occur at rf or upper ultrasonic frequencies were somehow audible despite the limited bandwidth/risetime/falltime of everything else that is involved, there would seem to be no reason to expect those effects to be predictable, or to be consistent from system to system, or to be significantly correlated with price.

I certainly agree, though, that impedance can be important in analog audio cables. But the reason for that is because of the interaction of its constituents (resistance, inductance, capacitance) with the impedance and other characteristics of the components the cable is connecting. Those interactions are technically predictable. More importantly, pretty much any given set of impedance parameters is obtainable across most of the price spectrum.

Regards,
-- Al

Al: Thanks for the balanced comment. That is what I said in my original post. And that is why I recommended the Anti-cables. They are simple in construction and more likely to be a better match to the driving amplifier.

Shadorne: The point I was making is this. There is NOTHING that is absolutely understood in our hobby. The example I gave you was the one that supported "CD reproduction was perfect" It turns out that as envisioned it is not. Just because one cannot measure it or do not have an explanation of why a certain thing goes against the "Mainline Thinking" does not mean it does not occur. While I agree that all the other items you list are very important and should be optimized the bottom line is this.I also agree with you that there is a LOT of snake oil out there and if you are not technically savvy can get burned.

You have a CHAIN and every link in the chain right up to your ears modifies the sound. In my opinion the simpler these interfaces are the less likely that you will have a large interaction between them. So I would refrain in general with "grossly inaccurate" unless you have a very good grasp of the interactions of even a few feet of wire that has capacitance, inductance and resistance and a feedback amplifier with a speaker load.