6 Jan
2005
6 Jan
'05
12:17 p.m.
Eric Steinberg wrote:
Guys, guys! Don't waste money on
"oxygen-free" cables or other scams.
http://www.roger-russell.com/wire/wire.htm
Thanks a lot for that link!
I know that a lot of voodoo magic is spread (and sold) by sections of the audio
electronics industry. I had hoped that "Sound On Sound" could be trusted. I
will
send them the link and ask them for an explanation. To their credit they only
suggest to buy and use 30A 'cooker' mains cable" or "sensibly priced,
heavy-duty
speaker cable" - which does not really differ from the suggestions of Roger
Russell.
OT: If German readers are interested in a collection of home audio crap they
should have a look at this years January issue of "stereoplay". They have an
article about "sound differences" which allegedly result from using different
brands of writeable CD-Rs. They do not even try to explain why there could be
any sound differences at all. While printing a separate article about errors
which can be measured by certain test devices they do not even mention error
correction and error concealment (which are part of CD-technology since its
beginning). The funny thing is that they also print measurements of not
correctable E32 errors for both the expensive brand and a cheap one. Both are
visually undistinguishable close to 0 ! Another "test"-article is about bowls
made of gold or platin (the best according to the "test" are of cause the ones
made of platin which are twice as expensive as those made of gold. And one
should use not only one but several of those bowls,
http://www.fastaudio.com/INT/acsys100.html) And last but not least they run a
speaker cables-"test" on five pages in the same issue...
Cheers,
Andreas
----- Original Message -----
From: "Andreas Kuckartz" <A.Kuckartz(a)ping.de>
To: linux-audio-user(a)music.columbia.edu
Subject: Re: [linux-audio-user] Feasibility of Crestron like Linux
BasedWholeHouse
Audio System - Multisource / Multizone Capable????
Date: 5 Jan 2005 22:43:03 +0100
>
> Florin Andrei wrote:
>
> > But it might be ok, though, to run high-
> > amplitude analog signal over lengthy cables. I.e., speaker signal.
> > At those amplitudes and impedances, there's only a very low risk of
> > picking up noise.
>
> You do not pick up noise but the longer the speaker cables the higher their
> capacitance and their resistance. There also are other strange distortions
> happening due to cables. All of this can influence the sound:
>
> "Speaker cable needs to have a very low electrical resistance, so
> it needs to be
> fairly hefty and made from a pure material, such as oxygen-free copper
(OFC).
> Impure material can introduce nonlinearities (the
oxidised copper actually
> behaves as a semiconductor) that manifest themselves as increased
> distortion at
> low signal levels. There are many cables that qualify, including 30A
'cooker'
> mains cable, but a sensibly priced, heavy-duty
speaker cable is easier to
use
and looks
nicer. If the cable resistance is more than a tiny
fraction of an Ohm,
the amplifier's damping factor is compromised and also the loudspeaker's
frequency response can be affected. The reason for this is that a
loudspeaker's
impedance varies with frequency, but if this impedance is placed in
series with
a significant fixed cable resistance it acts as a potential divider, and the
power delivered to the loudspeaker at different frequencies will be altered
slightly."
(http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jan02/articles/faq0102.asp#Anchor-32729)
(It might be difficult to convince people who intend to buy expensive golden
speaker cables to use Linux and a little bit of digital hardware
instead but one
could try :-)
Cheers,
Andreas
--
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