Question for users of bare wire ends speaker cable

Sean: Karls, Bomarc and Bishopwill have some very good points regarding "skin effect" and other electrical claims. As an Electrical Engineer myself who is personal friends of Kimber's first cable (not Kimber), along being involved with some realistically priced proprietary designs that smoke most of the ultra expensive cables. I can say unequivioquly that you should NEVER believe any of the "electrical theory" which manufacturers write about cable design. Many (but not all) cable manufacturers feel the need to write mumbo jumbo claims, based on "electrical theory" such as "skin effect", just so audiophiles will think their particular design has a unique scientific basis.

There are quite a few decent cables out there, with quite a few more stinkers (one of the worst starts with a "T"). Just remember, that "sizzle sells".

As an industry insider I've learned to be very wary of the so called "electrical theories" of circuits, cables and the like. Once you get to personally know the designers, you realize that most of their marketing material that you read is just that, marketing material!

Correction to my last post: I meant to say: "personal friends with the designer of Kimber's first cable"

If "skin effect" has no effect at audio frequencies, try building some IDENTICAL geometry interconnects using identical materials BUT with the only difference being wire gauge. For the sake of comparison, you would have to use solid wire since stranded wire does not come in "micro" gauges.

For specifics, i'm talking about using some teflon jacketed solid wire of various gauges arranged in a twisted pair configuration. Start off small ( for instance, 26 gauge ) and then make a pair that is several gauges heavier ( 20 gauge ) and one other pair that is several gauges heavier than that ( 16 gauge ).

Given the fact that the materials are the same or very similar, the geometries are near identical, etc.. the electrical parameters should be "ballpark". Not exactly the same, but ballpark. The one that i know that you will mention is probably series resistance, but that should be less than 2 ohms total so long as the cable is not more than a few feet. Since the load that the source will see is in effect multiple thousands of ohms, this should have little to no bearing on the results.

Now hook one set up at a time and listen to them. Then swap to the next heaviest, and repeat the swap for the last set. You should instantly notice a difference in tonal balance, high frequency extension, the clarity and quality of high frequencies, etc... between these three cables. Overall, there should be a MARKED difference in treble performance.

If anyone HAS done "testing" like this, PLEASE post your results. Then try to explain why you think you hear the differences that you do. Keep in mind that "current limiting" has NOTHING to do with an interconnect, as we are talking the lowest levels possible. Of course, EE's and anybody else with a "theory" is welcome to join in. Just so long as you know and understand that it is a "theory" that we are discussing. Sean
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Sean, interesting test which I haven't done. But I will say that you're assuming way too much here, namely (1) that gauge can't possibly make any difference since the currents are so small (not necessarily so), and (2) that gauge and surface area are the only things being varied (certainly not so). In an earlier post, I postulated that capacitance, inductance, and insulation dielectric properties are all potentially important, and it is a virtual certainty that they are all varying as well in your hypothetical test setup. If you were willing to take the time to measure them all and manage to somehow hold all of them constant throughout the test regardless of wire gauge, then we would be getting somewhere. But that still doesn't rule out gauge as a possible influence. To do that, you would have to start comparing different conductor geometries, while still holding all the above constant (extremely difficult), or compare solid to stranded cable (which introduces a whole new can of worms which would be virtually impossible to neutralize). I don't have the time or the equipment to run such a test, so I can't say. What I can say, based on good sound engineering judgment, is that skin effect is probably very near the bottom of the list when it comes to the relative importance of factors which influence the "sound" of a cable. The Goertz cables, as an obvious example, are designed that way not for skin effect considerations, but to tune the impedance and capacitance characteristics to the designer's preference.

I and others have done identical comparisons with cables which we designed that measure the same but have different size conductors. Yes you are right Sean, there is a DEFINITE difference in sound. Here is where you are incorrect though; You are assuming this sonic difference must be associated with "skin effect". I now ask you, why does this difference have to be attributed with "skin effect"? There are MANY other things that could be going on here other than skin effect when you change the amount of conductors and/or conductor size in a cable. The transmisity differential between conductors, the inherent motor effects of different conductors beside each other, and the ratio of conductor to insulator materials, are just three things (off the top of my head) that have changed, in your wire change scenario listed in the above thread.

"Skin effect" is, has been, and always will be a marketing driven explanation for those who don't fully understand the minutiae of electrical theory, regarding electrical wave propagation, within a particular wire design. We are talking about tons of high level math here! I have over 6 years of graduate study math under my belt, and I am still not qualified to understand the calculations of the effects of wire topology differences.

Many years ago everyone assumed that "negative feedback" was a definate bad sonic culprit, so that's what some the high end manufacturers used to "hook" the audiophiles. Many audiophiles bought into this "low feedback" design concept, not realizing that this was most likey not the reason that the particular amplifier sounded different another non low feedback design. Just because I ate carrots every day this year, and was diagnosed with cancer last week, does not mean that carrots cause cancer! Please watch out where you learn your audio theory from. If it's from the audio manufacturers, look out! It took me almost a decade to "unlearn' what I thought I knew about the sonic "cause and effects", and the associated electronic theory to substantiate these cause and effects.