CEntrance Reserve Series Speaker Cables Discussions | Drop

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CEntrance Reserve Series Speaker Cables

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CEntrance Reserve Series Speaker Cables

AudioKeith

Nov 12, 2015

If you look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skin_effect you will see the formulae for skin effect and resistance. You will see that even at 20kHz or even extend that out to 25kHz (which is above the limit of human hearing), skin effect is negligible. From DC to 25kHz you can pretty much rely upon three things in a piece of wire -- DC resistance (since AC resistance (impedance) has the formula 2(Pi)fL [2 Pi x frequency x inductance], even at 25kHz it remains low), and capacitance across the cable (for Ac, the formula is 1/(2*Pi*f*c) which you can see increases as you approach DC (0 Hz). The third factor is ability of the cable to reject RFI/EMI interference.
clearly you want DC resistance to be as little as possible. Even in a 8 foot cable of 16 AWG copper wire, the DC resistance is only .064 ohms (16 total feet - 8 foot positive wire, 8 foot negative wire). That means at 100 watts (30V RMS), the actual "loss" in the cable due to heat is pretty much unmeasurable, and certainly the thermal losses would not figure into any equation.
The same pair of wires, presuming the wires are in close proximity would be about 120 pF (.12nF) maximum (since ordinary lamp wire has 10-20pF per foot) so at 20kHz, the capacitive reactance would be about 55,000. To have a 1% loss in that pair of wires at 20kHz with a 100 watt amplifier (which would have a voltage of about 30v RMS), you'd have to have total capacitance in the cable greater than about 3000 pF.
Bottom line is that the "losses" in the cable, including skin effect are negligible and I'd challenge anyone in a double-blind test to be able to consistently determine which one is "better"
That being said, a good 16awg or better cable will probably have some amount of emi/rfi rejection, if the wires are twisted or in close proximity. (the tradeoff is that as you bring the wires closer together, you cancel out the magnetic fields that run along the wires (and hence the RFI/EMI) and some of the inductance, but at the cost of higher capacitance -- hence the reason that the wires in Ethernet cables are twisted pairs, to cancel common-mode noise and pickup of emi/rfi).
Meanwhile these cables are certainly affordable enough to try them out and see if you like them over what you are using.

CEntrance

1151

Michael Goodman

Nov 12, 2015

AudioKeithThe word "negligible" is not a precise word and there in lies the crux of the matter. We strive for a complex scientific explanation and use smart-looking formulae, only at the end to conclude that something is "negligible", a highly subjective characteristic having potential to negate the entire logical path. If you say that 1% doesn't matter, that means that it doesn't matter to you. But do not project this to everyone. There are people in this world who can hear VERY well. We deal with them on a daily basis and they point out things in our equipment we didn't know existed.
Do not underestimate the discriminating ability of a trained ear. Remember these cables are dropped in the Audiophile section. The underlying expectation is that people care about small details.
DO try this experiment with a good recording of a cabasa and the difference will become obvious. Do NOT try this if the jitter in your DAC is above 10ps. Jitter, just like our ability to perceive auditory stimuli above 20kHz is another highly misunderstood, and often improperly measured concept. The difference due to capacitance, impedance linearity, skin effect is there, it's not HUGE, but it's noticeable. To mitigate these effects, we use three separate, differently constructed conductors in each cable. That's a lot of copper and it naturally increases the cost.