Doubling up speaker cable, improvement I've noticed

[inogen]

Do you believe those Van Damme cables have different capacitance?

Or do you believe those cables are identical, and they just print different numbers on the sides of them?

They will have different capacitance and therefore each one more suitable for different applications, but the bits about frequency roll off in isolation from that is BS.

They're just trying to sell 2 or 3 cables to mugs instead of 1. They nearly all do it.

My favourite instrument cable is a Fender one that they marketed for electro acoustic guitars. It's a nice colour

 

[JasonM]

They will have different capacitance and therefore each one more suitable for different applications, but the bits about frequency roll off in isolation from that is BS.

They're just trying to sell 2 or 3 cables to mugs instead of 1. They nearly all do it.

My favourite instrument cable is a Fender one that they marketed for electro acoustic guitars. It's a nice colour

So lets go back to using those cables as an interconnect.

If they have different capacitance, and we know that capacitance changes sound. I at least believe this anyway, and the person in the video I linked believes this.

If we had an identical length of say Lo-Cap 55, and Mid-Cap 90 cable.

Given it's an analogue signal that's passing down the cable, why would you expect no change in the sound.

We can't have it both ways, someone can't say capacitance changes sound, and then say the cables with different capacitance sound the same. Part of this statement has to be wrong.

 

[alex24]

Yeah, I agree with this sentiment, however, given that the science behind how loud speakers and electrical conduction work are perfectly well understood and leave no uncertainty regarding the subject at hand, it would rather be up to someone to prove that facets of modern physics theory are wrong, rather than up to anyone to prove they're right.

It's rather like Russell's teapot. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell's_teapot

In this case, please cite and explain the fundamental physics that governs this so that we may be enlightened. My (very limited) understanding is that some of the electrical properties of cabling can be frequency dependent, so it would be entirely theoretically possible that if those properties were different between cables, this could selectively affect sound reproduction.

 

[inogen]

In this case, please cite and explain the fundamental physics that governs this so that we may be enlightened. My (very limited) understanding is that some of the electrical properties of cabling can be frequency dependent, so it would be entirely theoretically possible that if those properties were different between cables, this could selectively affect sound reproduction.

The fundamental physics is that if the cable is capable of carrying the current from the amplifier unimpeded, then that's exactly what it does. If it doesn't, then it doesn't.

Here's the science. https://soundcertified.com/does-speaker-wire-affect-sound-quality/

And here's some more. http://www.tonestack.net/articles/speaker-building/speaker-cables-facts-and-myths.html

 

[JasonM]

In this case, please cite and explain the fundamental physics that governs this so that we may be enlightened. My (very limited) understanding is that some of the electrical properties of cabling can be frequency dependent, so it would be entirely theoretically possible that if those properties were different between cables, this could selectively affect sound reproduction.

What inogen has said about getting current to the amplifier unimpeded is correct.

To whole point of a sound system, is to get electric from the mains (battery if car stereo) to power your speaker. A speaker is an air-pump. So when you listen to music, think of the electric energy flowing the entire way from the power source, all the way into those speakers coils.

So the entire chain of the sound system is trying to convert that electric energy to reproduce sound in a desirable way.

The last part of the chain (before the speaker) is the speaker cable. The most important property is lower resistance, copper is a better conductor then aluminium, so copper cable is preferred. An even better conductor is silver, however the costs of making silver speaker cable would be ridiculous, however silver plated copper is used on interconnects. It's also know that electrodes travel on the outside of cables, this is why speaker cables normally have lots of strands twisted together. There are other factors effecting cable such as impedance and capacitance, however resistance is the main consideration. These things on are not voodoo, there are channels on YouTube where people have measured speaker cable, and shown how different frequency ranges of effected.

So Alex24, going back to when you said one speaker now sounded louder, this is because using a better cable reduced resistance, this allowed current to flow less impeded into the speaker coil.

The reason Edifier use those cheap aluminium speaker cables, is everything is costed, and if they can save 50 cent on the dollar and give you a cheaper cable that they think won't effect sales they will.

 

[alex24]

The science (we should get clearer about that definition - mine would be peer-reviewed publications in a recognised scientific journal) linked actually supports that my crappy Edifier cable could sound worse and quieter than my copper cabling. I would expect the resistance to be higher as it's so thin and the connections have never been re-terminated, so probably are a little corroded. Still don't know if it actually is an audible difference or I am imaging it, though. I could maybe test the sound level with a sound meter. As for the difference in sound quality, I'm less sure.

 

[Kei]

Cable capacitance plays a more significant role in interconnects as the impedance is much higher.

Try a low pass filter RC calculator. 8 ohms with a cable capacitance of 100pF and you get a cut off frequency of 199MHz which is well beyond anything you can hear. Up the cable capacitance to 500pF and the cut off frequency (-3dB point) is still almost 40MHz. By contrast, if you set the resistance/impedance to 10K like most unbalanced line level interconnection are, suddenly the 100pF cable capacitance has a cut off frequency of 159KHz. (still plenty high enough for audio) Increase the cable capacitance back to 500pF and the cut off is down to 32KHz which will have some effect. Just for an extreme example, if I up the speaker/cable resistance up to 16 ohms and the cable capacitance to 10,000pF, the cut off frequency is still 995KHz. (even a bat cant hear that high)

Obviously this is slightly over simplified as you also have cable inductance to take into consideration along with the load itself too. I can say that turntable cartridges are sensitive to cable capacitance and need to be loaded appropriately. But, again, this is a high impedance device and is far more susceptible to this phenomenon.

Usually, any problems pertaining to speakers and their connecting cables is actually the connections at either end. Unless the cable is physically damaged or of terrible quality, it should easily pass both the frequency range and the nominal power levels used in a domestic environment.

 

[no_sleep_til]

ages ago a forum member, i can't remember who, posted up some info on cable capacitance and loss over distance. and at the time i'd been using not expensive speaker wire for the two rear surround speakers i've got hooked up to my AVR.

and after i read the article posted up i thought i would invest in some better quality/more substantial speaker wire and it did make a difference to the output. although rear surrounds aren't very loud anyway. my AVR also has the option for 6.1 (there is a separate output, but the surround back speaker just has the two surrounds matrixed) and that also had a bit more presence about it

because of my waffle i seem to have not actually commented on the point which i initially intended to. it's this: i don't know if having extra speaker wires will make much difference, but the output from my surrounds was definitely more pronounced so theoretically there may be something in the concept of having more. bearing in mind the law of diminishing returns

 

[JasonM]

but the output from my surrounds was definitely more pronounced so theoretically there may be something in the concept of having more. bearing in mind the law of diminishing returns

When you changed the cable, you likely went for a better cable with less resistance.

Less resistance would make the sound more pronounced.

 

[JasonM]

For anyone who still believes interconnects make no difference, I have a video that could help convince you otherwise.

Thanks to YouTube auto-suggestion the following video appeared.

Going back to my Van Damme Silver cables, these are guitar cables that are being used as HiFi audio cables, so this video is totally relevant.

Someone is recording samples using different cables, the differences should be distinguishable on good audio hardware. The differences in sound that can be heard on this video, is very similar to the differences between my Van Damme interconnects and a cheap generic interconnect.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6jyutMh6bk

 

[no_sleep_til]

When you changed the cable, you likely went for a better cable with less resistance.

Less resistance would make the sound more pronounced.

it was much better quality cable, but what pointed me in that direction was the article the unknown forum member posted. and it contained a load of good quality info relating to speaker wire and the loss to be expected from a specific diameter wire over a certain distance.. i did scrimp on the speaker wire first time around. the overall length of my sitting room is only about 12-14" or so and the cables were laid out in a pretty much direct line. in fact to call the pathetic material i had before 'wire' was an exaggeration of the highest order

i think the reason used it in the first place was because i bought this AVR off Ebay and it turned up on a Saturday and i had no intention of hitting the town to buy more speaker wire.

buy cheap buy twice