Good, Neutral, Reasonably Priced Cables?

Threads like this really amaze me, regardless of who contributes to them and how much or little they've spent on their systems and cables.

Having said that, there's obviously a LOT of different concerns regarding cable selection being voiced in this specific thread with sound quality and design integrity only being a small part of them. Brand recognition, resale value, status amongst audiophile peers, etc... are also raising their heads. While nobody wants to "lose their shirt" when buying / selling gear, selecting products that are properly designed in the first place typically negates many of the problems associated with having to worry about resale value.

Smart people realize that interconnects can change "flavours" when you change their positions within the same system. As such, the cable itself doesn't have a "flavour" or measure of "neutrality", it becomes part of the component to component interphase. What you hear is the result of that specific synergy / summation of complex impedances and how the specific components react / load up / transfer power into those specific impedances.

If a cable maintains the same sound in every system in every component to component interphase, it is doing something so wrong that nothing else will overcome that colouration / design flaw. I'm not saying that a cable can't display similar characteristics when mating various component configurations, but that those characteristics may vary in intensity somewhat due to the specific combo's used.

Hopefully, some of you folks will learn this sooner rather than later i.e. before you go broke and are very unhappy with your systems. I know that some get the basic idea as i can see it in their posts. Having said that, speaker cables are another story. There are specific electro-mechanical design characteristics that allow some cables to work more universally than others in well designed systems. Systems that are less than well designed / put together may require lesser cables to act as an "electrical band-aid". Sean
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PS... How does a cable achieve "greatness"? Is it by the manufacturer providing a bunch of freebies to reviewers and getting them to list them in their "reference system" in glossy mag reviews? Or is it achieved by building up a bunch of hype on the net via on-line reviews and end user commentaries? I've tried a bit from all three camps and quite honestly, some of them are horrid sounding AND so electrically backwards that its' not funny.

My experience is that "great" cables come with "great" price tags. That's because someone has to pay for all the freebies / discounted cables that the manufacturer went through just to gain the public notoriety that they've achieved. Just remember that the grass is always greener on the other side and there's always a "better" / "most amazing" cable that will be available next month or the month after that.

Compare profit margins between cables and components and you'll see why there's SOOOO much hype surrounding this part of the market. This isn't to say that there isn't a difference in cables, only that much of the differences are in the component to component interphase, not the cables themselves.

You asked about specific cables, so i'll share my thoughts on them in the order you listed them.

To me, Kimber's silver cabling has all of the "bad" connotations that one reads about silver. That is, it comes across as being lean, bright and edgy. Even with months worth of burning, i can't tame these cables. Having said that, their Copper / Teflon cables are quite respectable in most cases.

I am not a fan of the sonics of AP cables or their design at all. As such, i would pass on them. I don't think that they would be a good match for your system anyhow.

I think that the Cardas could work well with your specific system.

I'm not familiar with the Wireworld stuff, so i'll shut my mouth here.

Outside of those and with the components that you have listed, i would probably shoot for Pulsar's as IC's and Goertz MI-2 Veracity speaker cabling. I don't know how much you've played with the tubes in your gear, but if they are basically stock, you should be in good shape with this combo. If the Pulsar's don't do it for you, try looking for some used Music Metre interconnects. Using the Pulsar between the CD & Preamp and a set of Music Metre Calibre's between the Preamp & Amp ( or vice-versa ) might work well also. Sean
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Psychic: I don't what to say about your theory of building a system around a series of passive components ( cables ). In fact, i think that someone joked about this in a thread a while back i.e. "I have Brand X cables. What components and speakers would go good with them?". While I can understand how / why someone would joke about something like that, i truly can't understand how someone could consider wire more important than the active components within a system. This is especially true when you have hundreds of traces / solder connections / pieces of wire running inside of each component.

Sounds like a planned trip to hi-fi hell.... Sean
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Mprime: I can't give you any specifics about interconnects. As i've stated before, "interconnects are a mystery" as far as component to component interphases go. That's because the spec's from component to component vary so widely.

What i will say is that i hope to start doing some testing in this area sometime shortly. I've finally got all the equipment that i need to really look at this subject in-depth. I do have some ideas as to why some designs are better than others, but at this point in time, they are stricly theories. Obviously, the use of high quality conductors, materials with low DA ( Dielectric absorption ), geometries that are lower in capacitance, etc... I could add a few more criteria that i personally think are important, but i'll save it for later : )

Other than that, much of what we hear has to do with the stability of the circuit loading into the cable. The more stable the circuit, the less variance from cable to cable and mating component. One thing though. Common electronics theory states that you don't want the output impedance of a device feeding into another device that is lower in impedance. This "loads down" the circuit due to increased current draw and can play games with bandwidth, tonality, transient response, etc...

With that in mind, a device with a very low output impedance is much more likely to be more "versatile" / open to variations amongst cables than other devices with higher output impedances. After all, most interconnects will have a nominal impedance that is 50 ohms or higher. I picked 50 ohms as that is a common impedance used for standard coaxial designs. Obviously, a source component or preamp ( tubed most likely ) with an output impedance of 200 - 600 ohms can be quite finicky when you introduce a cable with a low nominal impedance as part of the load that it sees. The end result of such a situation is typically high end roll-off ( lack of "air" and "shimmering highs"), congestion in the midrange and muddy, ill-defined low frequencies. This is what happens when there's not enough current to get the job done.

The opposite can be said of low impedances trying to load into very high impedances i.e. a lack of bass and warmth, loss of dynamics, etc.. but this situation is typically not nearly as degrading as the other way around. That's because current flow is choked and you can't load up as much voltage as might be needed.

Maximum power transfer and optimum transient response occur when all the impedances i.e. output from the source, cables carrying the signals and input to the loads are all equal. There's only one manufacturer that i know of that builds a system like this though and that gear probably isn't real compatible with other brands of gear.

Flex: Some manufacturers of "esoteric" wire have told me that you can have cables built to identical spec's from different manufacturers and they will all sound different. This is true even though they might measure identically. This tells us that there is obviously something more going on inside the conductors / dielectric than just impedances, etc... John Curl posted some info about the "non-solid" parts of metal conductors varying with current flow i.e. conductors actually change shape ( and probably conductivity too ) as various levels of energy are fed through them.

As far as "backwards" cabling goes, that would be speaker cables that are highly inductive, interconnects that are highly capacitive, cables that use very low grade conductors, cables using very lossy dielectrics or dielectrics that don't protect the conductors from pitting / oxidation / corrosion, poor geometries that are highly susceptable to RFI / EMI, cables that have nominal impedances that aren't good matches for the component interphase that they are involved with, etc...

I will only comment on one of your listed. That is, mechanically damped cabling. I've had some cabling here that is PHENOMENALLY microphonic i.e. it is VERY susceptible to both air-borne and floor-borne vibrations. Most of this is due to the type of conductors and geometry used, making the cable very rigid. If the vibrations are strong enough and the cable is coupled to the devices quite sturdily, it's possible to resonate the chassis of the components that are connected to this cable. Given that some designs, such as precision devices like turntables, CD players / transports and even tube gear can be affected by such things, i wouldn't want ANY cabling like that in my system. While not as common, even SS line level and amplification gear can be microphonic / highly sensitive to vibrations. Much of this could be related to brittle solder connections and / or defective capacitors, especially on older gear exposed to high heat levels.

Roofus: Great suggestions. I agree whole-heartedly with your recommendations and the order suggested.

Tommywall: While i thought i was going to hate that website, i actually liked it. Their testing showed the Goertz cables as having the widest bandwidth with the lowest inductance and least skin effect ( yellow charts at top of page ). These are all points / design advantages that i've been preaching about for years and i'm glad to see that a "third party" actually verified this. Having said that, i would have said "neutral third party", but i do agree that these guys have an agenda. Then again, i'm no "fan" of the high end cable market as a general rule either : )

If we look at the Goertz MI-2's without the Zobel attached in figure 5 ( no far end termination ), you can see that the response at the amplifier and at the speaker are perfectly in phase out to appr 1.8 MHz. Obviously, this is WAY beyond our audible range. Above this point, there are phase shifts that take place and at appr 10 MHz, there is a huge resonance / phase shift at the end of the speaker cable. As such, using this cable without the Zobel creates a high frequency oscillation. This is what i've warned people about when using Goertz or other VERY high capacitance cables ( like Chris VH's 27 pair CAT 5 design or Polk "Cobra Cables" ). I'm sure that many of you will recall me stating that these cables SHOULD NOT be used without Zobels. Now you know why and can see it on the graph. It should be noted that this is SOOO high in frequency that most amps would never notice though, due to their limited bandwidth. Some of you will also recall that i'm a fan of "fast" amps that are "wide bandwidth", so that's why i'm overly cautious about this when recommending this cable.

If we look at this same cable with the proper terminations at the speaker end i.e. Zobel network with the right values used as in figure 6, the output of the amp is identical / remains in-phase with the signal at the speaker. As such, you can't get much better than this. In fact, the output of the amp and the signal at the speaker remain in-phase out to FOURTY MEGAHERTZ!!! Whether or not any of this is audible is a moot point. The fact of the matter is, no other cable comes close to the wide-bandwidth & linearity that this cable delivers while retaining low series resistance.

If we look at this same cable using the factory supplied Zobel's or "impedance compensation networks" that Goertz includes with their cables in figure 7, we can see that the signal at the amp and the signal at the speaker remain in-phase with each other out to appr 2 - 2.5 MHz or so. Between appr 2.5 MHz and 15 MHz, the signal at the end of the speaker cable is slightly out of phase with the signal at the amp. At appr 15 MHz, the output of the speaker cable and the signal at the amp begin to track relatively closely again out to appr 40 MHz or so.

Needless to say, most all of their "complaints" about this cable on Audioholics are gibberish / not applicable to response within or anywhere near the audio passband. The only valid comment that is correct and "negative" about this cable is that the high capacitance per foot can cause some amps to get "squirrely". The use of a Zobel pretty much takes care of that though. The point about Goertz nominal rating of 2.5 ohms for this cable and Audioholic's figure of 8 ohms ( which is still WAY, WAY better than most other cables ) is also addressed in the text. That is, they said "Using classic SQRT(L/C) (which isn’t exactly correct, but this topic goes beyond the scope of this article) we calculate about 8 ohms while Goertz calculated about 2.51 ohms".

As one can see, Audioholics aka the "cable naysayers" basically confirmed what i've been telling you folks for several years now. That is, Goertz speaker cables are the widest bandwidth / most linear speaker cable on the market. That's why i said that if you didn't like how your system sounded with Goertz installed ( WITH the Zobel's of course ), you better start looking at your system, not the cable itself. Just remember, they tested the "old" Goertz cable using the original dielectric, not the newer design that is using a higher grade dielectric ( Teflon ).

Rooze: It is my opinion that price and cable quality have little correlation. While it is true that higher grade materials ( purer conductors, better dielectrics, higher grade / nicer to work with connectors, etc... ) do cost more, some cables that are less expensive actually use better materials than "sky's the limit" type cabling.

As far as interconnect selection goes, see my response above. Yes, it is pretty much "hit or miss" from component to component and system to system. As i've stated before though, choosing cables that take advantage of good materials and decent electrical designs puts you miles closer than if starting off with cabling using random designs and materials.

As to cable reviews being worth anything more than "entertainment", don't make me laugh.

Tommywall: IAR ( International Audio Review ) aka J. Peter Moncrieff did testing of speaker cables many moons ago. Moncrieff provided some rudimentary charts with subjective listening results. His observations were that cables using a very high capacitance / low inductance design both measured AND sounded the best. Like i've said before, spec's can reveal sonics IF the spec's / test results were properly obtained.

Other than that, Nelson Pass also conducted similar tests and the article that he wrote about the subject can be found in the Pass Labs website under the name of "Speaker cables: Science or Snake Oil". Nelson commented that the radical speaker loads that send less than stable amps into oscillation can be "tamed" by playing with speaker cables. In this respect, the cables that worked best were actually those that measured worst. That's because their poor electrical performance masked the problems due to high levels of loss / specific types of reactance between the cable and speaker nullifying each other. In effect, Nelson's article verified that speaker cables could be used as "band-aids" for improperly matched equipment almost 25 years ago. Once again, i knew that there was a reason that i love this guy and the products that he designs. That is, he's years ahead of most of his competition : ) Sean
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Good answer Drubin. I'll try not to type / think when i'm asleep next time. Or this time : ) Sean
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Robert: How much simpler would it have been if you had just said "Purity is measured by what percentage of impurities there are in the conductor. "Q" as i call it has to do with what type of impurities are involved. Not all impurities effect the performance of a cable in the same fashion. This is something that we pay attention to while other manufacturers seem to overlook this aspect of production".

This would have been a lot simpler, would have explained the point that you were trying to make while not giving any "proprietary secrets" away and would have actually made you look relatively intelligent with a short and educational response. Instead, you write another novel that still doesn't provide any specifics about your products whatsoever. Rather than provide any type of usable info, you spend your time to lambast me, who is simply asking for specifics about the products that you sell AFTER you brought them up in the first place. Figure it out for yourself why i get frustrated in situations like this. Is there any other business where you can call up / email / go to and ask them for technical assistance or spec's concerning their products and they tell you about the owner's background, the company, the goals of the company, etc... everything BUT what you asked for?

Albert said: "Does this mean that if I prefer my system with Purist Audio or Elrod rather than Goertz that all my equipment should be changed out rather than continue to listen to what is working? I have excellent gear, doubt it needs a band aid."

My answer to this is that one can use whatever they prefer to use. That doesn't mean that it is accurate, linear or low in distortion. It simply means that one has invested their money into products / a system that they like. As i've said before, buy what you like as you are the only one that will be listening to it on a regular basis. The only person that the system has to please is the owner. If the owner is happy with a specific sound and has specific sonic preferences, so be it. Who am i to tell them what they can / should enjoy? I simply post information to try and educate about what is technically correct. Whether or not someone wants to achieve "accurate musicality" is up to them.

Springbok asked the following questions:

1. Do you have to intellectually have a picture of what measurable specs you are listening to and what the physical characteristics of the components are before you can enjoy the music? (I think you've said an emphatic yes)

> Not at all. I can typically listen to a component and form an opinion of it rather quickly. Then again, when you are working with a collection of unknown variables, that opinion would be formed of the entire collection of parts used at that time, not of any given component / part being used. Having some background / point of reference as to what a component is technically capable of simply provides a more solid foundation as to what it may / may not be contributing to what you hear.

Having said that, i've heard many systems that i have enjoyed on certain recordings / types of music that i knew were not accurate at all. The problem with these systems was that their sonic imperfections are implanted on every recording, hence everything shares similar sonic traits. If you like that sound and can live with it long-term, so be it.

By using components that offer "accurate musicality", the results are both more consistent regardless of the source or type of music and are therefore more universally enjoyable. That is, unless one enjoys only a very specific type of presentation, to which i believe is their option.

This type of system building approach typically leads to constant upgrading though. That's because once they hear different aspects of reproduction that they like from other systems that their limited system lacks, they have to start all over again. Given that their system lacks any type of foundation to build upon other than the specific colourations that they initially enjoyed, they are in for a long and tedious up-hill battle. That is, if they are trying to attain greater neutrality and a more universal level of accurate and musical reproduction for a wide assortment of musical types and recordings.

2. When you say specs, do you mean running an oscilloscope so that you can measure dynamic range at each frequency?

> I don't have to measure anything. I'm more than willing to accept the test results / spec's of others so long as they were taken in a proper manner. As far as spec's go, there's no one or two spec's that will tell you everything that you need to know in order to interpret the sonic traits of that device. Even a large quantity of spec's may not give you enough info. The more spec's / test results that you have, the better of an idea one will have though. That's because these spec's, if properly derived and reported accurately, will tell you how uniform the operation of the device will be under various signal conditions and how well it should work with other components.

3. I accept that the appreciation of a stanza of music is an interaction between the brain and the ear, melding perceived sound, expectations, emotions, and past experiences to result in a net quantum of enjoyment/sadness/fulfillment/discord. None of us understand how that works, technically, exactly as none of us can explain physically or in terms of any measurable specs on any medical device, how anybody thinks. So it is with the appreciation of music, which is why there are so many thousands of differing posts on the same component, piece of music and composer. Are you saying that in your particular case you cannot or will not bypass the the "measuring/analytical/physicist" part of your brain to just listen to the music, because it is unacceptable to you intellectually to not understand why you are hearing something? If so, this is, IMHO, perfectly valid, but I think you are fairly unique in that respect. I personally dont give a rat's ass what makes the music sound good/exciting/bad/mediocre - its all in what I hear. Period.
I think many of us non Engineer-types are like that.

> As i stated above, i can listen to and enjoy music using anything from a transistor radio to a mega-dollar system. Whether or not i find either of them to produce "accurate musicality" and want to invest in either of them is another story. The reason that i have five different systems is that i know that we can't achieve "perfection" with any one given approach, so i've taken to building several different systems. Each offers their own specific perspective / transfer function while still seeking to approach "accurate musicality" i.e. "neutrality without sounding sterile".

4. I am ignorant of the known physics of sound conduction via interconnects. Is there a primer to read? Is there data on cables showing dynamic range, as there are on speakers, at different frequencies? What other data (forget about inductance, volts, amps, etc since there is no known (to me) sonic/auditory correlation)can you get on cables?

>I can't provide you with any "what's what guide to interconnects and signal propagation" type of manual. It is a complex issue that involves inductance, volts, amps, capacitance, input & output impedances, nominal impedances, etc... I wish it was simpler, but it isn't. As a side note, my comments about Goertz and the measured response / spec's pertained to their flat series of speaker cables, not their interconnects.

5A. Is it not unreasonable for you to expect a small (one-man) manufacturer to divulge his formula in a very competitive market-place, particularly against the big boys, who spend fortunes on marketing, when the bottom line is simply, to most of us, the result of the product? That is, how does it sound?

> I didn't ask for proprietary information, only basic electrical specs that a knowledgable manufacturer should know about their products. To be specific, i didn't ask for the specific molecular structure of the materials being used, where those materials are being purchased, if there were any proprietary chemical or electrical treatments being performed to the materials being used, etc... Given that someone can obtain a sample of these products through various means ( buy or borrow ) and reverse engineer it to obtain everything that i was asking about, the manufacturer wouldn't have been divulging ANY information that isn't already available to the public.

To take that a step further and answer another question that you asked elsewhere, once the figures were obtained, one could do computer simulations and / or perform deductive reasoning based on past experiences and arrive at what to expect out of the cable in terms of electrical performance and / or sonics.

B)The only, to me, reason to do so would be the physical reliability and longevity of the product; if it were made of a metal/conductor/insulator that has a half-life of a few months, then that would be a concern. This point is valid and rational, even to a non-measuring-dunce like me. That point should be addressed and guaranteed by any seller/manufacturer/inventor.

> I commented on this above. The only info that i have on these cables is that they are silver based and make use of a natural fiber ( cotton from what i understand ) dielectric. Given that silver corrodes when exposed to oxygen and cotton ( or other natural fibers ) do not offer any type of "seal" for the conductor, i pointed out that the sonic lifespan of this type of product may not be very consistent. This was not meant to single out Ridge Street products as being the only users of this type of design so much as to point out that this is something that others should be made aware of before investing their money into a product. On top of that, i also offered specifics as to what to expect out of such a design over a period of time and why i thought that there were better, more consistent ways to get around various issues surrounding DA.

C) Thanks for your attention. This is not a troll - I am interested in your answers.

> No problem. As i've mentioned before, i don't mind explaining my comments or why i say what i do. Just as i would like as much info as i can get about a product from a manufacturer to make an informed assessment of the suitability for use, the more background info that you have on the comments that i make, the more informed you are about the validity of the comments being made and how applicable they are to your situation or goals. After all, that is all that i'm doing i.e. sharing my own personal thoughts, observations, ideas, comments, etc... One can agree / disagree / question / correct / ignore the information provided as they see fit.

Transporter: I appreciate your concerns and share your sentiments. That is, when the manufacturer is willing to share and educate, not just pump up their business through exposure and familiarity in the forums.

Your example of Ray Kimber is spot on though, as Ray is both a very likable figure and a very knowledgable and helpful representative of a company. I was going to make a comment pertaining to what i said about "very few manufacturers willing to jump into the arena" with Ray being one of the few exceptions.

I respect Ray to a very great extent, for both his knowledge / experience / products AND his willingness to share / work with others in terms of education and development of technology. The fact that he donates a very large sum of money annually to schools in his area for band / music equipment speaks of his good heart, nobility and motives.

I'm not trying to put Ray on a pedestal or compare everyone to him, as not everyone has the time or financial resources that he may have available to make these things possible. At the same time though, it does demonstrate how a manufacturer can be helpful AND divulge specs / technical info and still maintain a great quantity of business success. This is outside of the respect that it helps build for them within the audiophile community.

Too bad others don't catch on to the example that Ray and a select group of business professionals have left for them. It's hard to "pick on" a manufacturer / representative / dealer that is both helpful and informative. Sean
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Tommy: Thanks for the kind words. I'm glad that your system and ears responded equally well to the Goertz. Both of those are good signs : )

As far as Goertz flat speaker cables go, it does less wrong than any other speaker cable that i'm aware of. The reduction of skin effect due to using a wide flat conductor, the lack of time smear from providing one straight path via a solid conductor, the benefits of proper impedance matching via their exclusive geometry, the lack of in or out of band phase shifts due to reducing inductance to a minimum, the advantages of low series resistance due to using heavy gauge conductors, the benefits of using low loss dielectric, the relatively consistent impedance / series resistance that the cable has regardless of frequency, etc... all add up to form one very complete and well thought out package. If one were to change ANY part of the design, the results achieved would not be anywhere near as good as they are. In effect, the results are due to having a "balanced package" approach to product design. One can do this when they know the parameters of a system that the product will be working within and the amplifier / speaker interface* is pretty cut and dried. On the other hand, interconnects have far more variables involved in terms of the interface that they'll be used in and that's why i've stressed picking the proper speaker cables first and then experimenting with interconnects. Otherwise, you have no point of reference and you have no idea as to what could be wrong or where to start looking. You have to form some type of a baseline to build your system upon.

In plain English, the amp can not only "load up" better into Goertz flat speaker cable, there is less information that is lost or distorted on the way to the speaker itself. As i've stated before, power transfer ( the ability to "load" the signal effortlessly ) and transient response are always optimized when the impedances match or there is very little impedance mismatch involved. As you can see in the independent testing performed on the Audioholics website, Goertz MI-2's provided somewhere between a 2.5 - 8 ohm nominal impedance with the Zobel's in place. As such, the cable itself is basically the same impedance as the speakers being used.

What this accomplishes is multi-fold. That is, the amp is no longer seeing a multitude of complex impedances ( the cables reactance, the speakers reactance and a combo of the two ) to load into, it basically sees the loudspeaker. That's because the electrical traits of the Goertz flat speaker cables have been optimized to fall WAY beyond the audible range. In effect, the Goertz cable becomes "electrically invisible" within the system. Now you get to hear just how well the system is matched and whether or not the amplifier can control the speaker. Since many systems consist of poorly designed gear and / or amps that aren't capable of properly controlling the speakers in use, many folks blame the Goertz cables as being "junk". The fact of the matter is, the Goertz cables simply revealed that the "junk" is somewhere in the rest of the system.

By minimizing skin effect, maintaining the proper impedance over a very wide bandwidth and minimizing phase shifts that are directly related to inductance, you no longer have time smear and reflections ( ringing ) to deal with. In effect, getting rid of the time smear allows the notes to unfold as they normally would i.e. it is no longer "disjointed". This allows you to hear the actual harmonic structure in a far more natural form, increasing the natural "liquidity" of the notes.

Getting rid of the signal reflections that would normally occur due to impedance mismatches allows the amp to deliver cleaner sound i.e. less ringing, smearing and error correction ( negative feedback ). This too contributes to the cohesive presentation that one encounters with this cable in a well thought out system.

Obviously, there are many other factors involved here which i covered over in the AA thread that you mentioned, so i don't want to repeat it all here. Suffice it to say that i didn't get a lot of rebuttal / negative comments on that thread because it's hard to refute verifiable facts.

Tvad: Most Military / Government gear uses proper filtration in the power supply. This negates much of the need for "fancy" power cords and / or power line conditioning. If you remember, i've always said that the better the power supply is designed, the less difference one will notice when trying various power cords. On top of that, the cleaner that the AC is coming into your system from the mains, the less difference one will notice when trying various power cords. To be blunt here, most "high end" audio gear is WAY under-designed in this respect, hence the market for "fancy" power cords. Having said that, most of these power cords are just as inadequately designed as the gear that audiophiles are connecting them to.

Flex: The first cable that came to mind is neither massive in diameter or heavy in terms of weight. It is simply very rigid with a lack of pliable, self-damping jacket material. This combo makes it an excellent conductor of vibration. This cable in raw form is currently being used as both a power cord and speaker cable by more than a few regulars of this and other audio forums. As such, it can do twice as much damage to the system i.e. the directly coupled mechanical vibrations from the speaker cabinet being pumped back into the amp and the acoustically coupled air-borne vibrations from the speakers being coupled to the gear through the mechanically resonant power cords. One can literally "knock" on this cable at one end and feel / hear the vibrations quite easily at the other end 6 - 8 feet away. Needless to say, i'm not using this cable in any of my systems, even though it has quite a bunch of merit to it in terms of electrical design integrity. This just goes to show that even the best design ideas can be implimented in a less than optimum manner. Sean
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Flex: A good yet "basic" power supply would consist of parallel RF bypasses across the incoming AC line, an EI type transformer ( NOT a toroidal ), fast recovery diodes ( or snubbers across standard diodes / rectifiers ) and a staggered array of multiple value filter caps. None of this is that hard to do. Just these things in itself would be a big step forward for most designs.

Quite honestly, toroids are crap compared to a well designed EI type transformer and that's why i specifically stated the old "iron core" type transformer. Since toroids are much cheaper than an EI, guess what most mass produced and even the majority of "high end" gear uses??? That's right. The cheap junk that is touted as being " a technological advancement".

In case you think that i'm making this up or are wondering why i said what i did about the toroidal type transformers, a really good toroidal will offer about -85 dB's of high frequency isolation from line noise. Some would consider this "excellent" and more than enough. That's because they are used to working with spec's that have been shoved down their throat as being "acceptable" by the industry and have come to believe them to be "as good as it gets". Not even close.

When you compare this to a really good EI type transformer, you're looking at an isolation factor of appr -145 dB's. In plain English, the difference figure between the two transformers is -50 dB's of attenuation. This means that the toroid could potentially allow 60,000+ times more noise through than what the good IE "iron core" type transformer would AND it would still be doing its' job "as expected". Now can you folks understand why i said that toroidals are crap???

While some may doubt the figures that i've quoted here, do some research. As far as the validity of the -145 dB figure on the iron core, it is achievable. If you doubt this, ask Larry aka LAK. He's using some transformers that have this spec that i helped him locate for his AC filtration system. You might also want to look at some of the comments that John Curl & Bob Crump of CTC Builders have made pertaining to toroids vs iron core's. That is, they have both flatly stated that toroids offer nowhere near the isolation / noise filtering capacity that an iron core does. This is besides the distinct advantage that they have in terms of low frequency "punch".

If one wanted to take that all of that a step further, you could install a zobel network to reduce the ringing of the transformer and lower the noise floor and / or install some type of low-pass filter. This would require a very specific orientation of the AC plug for proper operation since the energy that was "trapped" by the filtering would be shunted to ground. If one wanted to really get adventurous, they could build a resistive trap rather than shunting it to ground. Only problem is, you have to use resistors that can dissipate enough power and provide heat-sinking for them. Once again, this raises the cost of production and increases the complexity of the design. You'll NEVER see anything like a resistive trap in an audio circuit though. The primarily reason is that it costs too much and the second reason is that most audio engineers have never seen or heard of such a design. Maybe back in their textbooks or in school, but never in the real world.

What would make this even more effective would be to use the chassis as a "Faraday shield" i.e. where the chassis completely isolated from the circuit path and is tied to Earth ground. Many circuit designs tie the chassis into the circuit path, which is phenomenally stupid as far as i'm concerned. This is done because it is FAR cheaper and faster as far as production is concerned, so the bean counters tend to like these type of cost-cutting production short-cuts. Removing this from the design means a lot more point to point wiring and / or increased complexity of the circuit board design. Since one means more labor and the other means more parts, the bean counters don't like that approach.

As far as you question goes about cable resonances and damping, my specific comments were based on a relatively popular cable in use. I have to assume that since people are using this design, there are other similar designs on the market too. As i mentioned, this cable is VERY rigid even though it makes use of stranded conductors. If you were to conduct simple tests using both your hands, you would understand where i'm coming from. That is, you could "flick" the cable at one end and literally feel, let alone hear the "thunk" at the far end. NO actual measurements are needed as the results are blatantly obvious.

As far as clarifying what i meant by "jacket", i didn't mean the dielectric material surrounding the conductors. To me, you have the conductor ( copper, silver, etc... ) and then you have the "dielectric insulation material" that sheathes the individual conductors. All of these insulated conductors are then housed in one larger container, which i'll refer to as the "jacket". The jacket simply acts as a container for all the various insulated conductors.

While the jacket is also a dielectric, i was trying not to confuse the issue between the jacket and the individual insulation for each strand of conductors. As such, using a cable with a very soft i.e. "rubbery" jacket can very definitely reduce the amount of vibration that is allowed to travel from one end of the cable to the other. I have a near identical design to the "very rigid" cable using the same gauge conductors, but with very different dielectric around each conductor and with a different type of "jacket" around those. The differences in how much mechanical energy that can be transmitted through these cables from end to end in a side by side test is rather amazing.

On top of all of that, the "mechanically lossy" dielectric material mentioned above is typically very good at absorbing higher frequencies. This tends to reduce the bandwidth of the cable and act as a passive filter in itself. As such, the use of "low loss" dielectrics ( like Teflon ) in a power cord is backwards as far as i'm concerned. That's because Teflon is both more rigid AND it is of lower DA ( Dielectric Absorption ) than many of the other options available to us for a project like this. With AC, you do NOT want wide bandwidth, you want very narrow bandwidth. Since damping mechanical resonances AND increasing the DA ( Dielectric Absorption ) of the power cord i.e. limiting the bandwidth can be achieved using softer, more "rubbery" types of insulation, you get two birds with one stone. On top of that, these materials are both cheap and plentiful, so going any other route is both senseless ( as far as i'm concerned ) and economically wasteful. This is NOT true for signal cables though, so don't think that cheap dielectric is "good" for speaker cables or interconnects. After all, power cords are dealing with a 60 Hz signal whereas music is generally considered to be from 20 Hz to 20 KHz.

Obviously, there are going to be a LOT of cable manufacturers that charge outrageous sums for their fancy power cables upset with me and wanting to disagree with this observation. As such, i'm more than open for debate on this subject. Maybe we can even get "Audioholics" to perform some "third party" tests on various AC cables and see who's right on this one too : )

Rhyno: There are different ideas as to what values should be used. Changing the values will not only affect the "hinge frequency" that the Zobels start acting as part of the load, but it will also alter how effective they are at damping reflections. Much of this deals with what is called "transmission line theory", which so-called "cable experts" say does NOT apply to audio circuits. Personally, i think that transmission line theory DOES apply to audio in many ways and that may be why my thoughts / beliefs about various cables don't fall inline with most "experts" on the subject.

As you saw in the tests, when Audioholics changed the values used for the Zobel's, this also changed how linear / in-phase the signal was at both ends of the cable and how much of a reflection they were able to measure. To be fair though, ALL of these "problems" that the Zobel corrected were well into the MHz range, which is measurably beyond what most people are using for audio amps. Then again, with all of these concerns about RFI entering the system, why would you want to use a cable that was capable of introducing RF based ringing directly into the system when all you would have to do is to use a few parts to make a Zobel with? This is yet another reason why i've stressed the importance of a Zobel with very high capacitance / wide bandwidth / low impedance cable.

My theory about Zobel's is a little different than most others. In the above article i mentioned that Nelson Pass wrote about speaker cables, he mentions a specific set of values that he likes to use and recommends for use with "low inductance" speaker cables. In that same article, Nelson Pass quotes Matthew Polk as suggesting a different set of values for the same cables. If you ask Jon Risch what values to use, he'll give you figures that are somewhere between what Pass, Polk and Goertz use. To be honest, they are all effective formula's, but some may be more suitable for specific designs than for others.

How a Zobel works is that you have two parts i.e. a capacitor and a resistor. These are wired in parallel ( across ) the circuit i.e. at the speaker terminals across the positive and negative binding posts. What happens is that at a certain frequency, the capacitor will start to conduct signal to the resistor. Below that frequency, the Zobel is basically "invisible". Once we hit that frequency, the resistor acts as a "dummy load" or "signal absorber", presenting the amp with a purely resistive i.e. non-reactive load. By changing the value of the cap, you change the frequency of where the Zobel starts to work at and as you change the value of the resistor, you change what impedance the amp sees above that frequency. As such, it is VERY important to use "non-inductive" resistors as part of the Zobel, as inductive i.e. "wire wound" resistors may not be of wide enough bandwidth to work properly.

This is where it gets tricky and why there are different ideas about what values to use. Since some amps are more / less stable than others, some folks want the Zobel to come in very quickly i.e. at a lower frequency. This can definitely increase the stability of the circuit, so some would consider this a benefit. Other folks believe that you want to avoid ANY interaction between the audible range and / or any of the harmonics of the extreme treble range, so they want the Zobel to come in at a much higher frequency. As such, each individual selects a capacitor value that reflects the frequency that they want the Zobel to start conducting at. Nelson Pass based his testing / comments on the results he obtained with earlier Threshold amps and Polk "Cobra Cables", Matt Polk based his suggestion on testing the "Cobra Cables" with multiple different amps, etc... so you can see how they arrived at different figures. Polk shot for a "universal" Zobel and Pass had specific figures for his amps in mind. Jon Risch's suggestions are also somewhat "universal" but take into account some other important factors too. In this regard, he and i tend to think somewhat alike. I'll get to why in just a bit though.

Another person that comes into this equation is Bob Carver. Due to past experiences with "low inductance" speaker cables and some of his past amps, he builds "impedance compensation networks" or "Zobel's" right into the Sunfire amps. His thoughts are that he wants to keep the amp as stable as possible ( which requires a lower hinge frequency ) but at the same time, he doesn't want the Zobel's interferring with the treble response of the amp. As such, he's selected 80 KHz as the point where his high frequency protection kicks in at. This may also have to do with the fact that the Sunfire's use a high frequency power supply and this frequency also worked well to keep power supply noise from being transmitted through the amp and out to the speakers.

As to the way that i like to do Zobel's, i take several factors into account. That is, the nominal impedance of the speaker cable being used, the nominal impedance of the speakers being used and the bandwidth of the amp being used. You can start by selecting a frequency that you want the Zobel's to come into play. Personally, i like to keep them above at least 100 KHz. On the other hand, i think that the Goertz Zobel's come in at about 150 KHz ( give or take ), which is still fine for most amps and would be even less intrusive sonically.

Now you have to look at the nominal impedance of the speaker cable and the speakers being used. Let's say that we have a cable that is 2.5 ohms ( as Goertz is rated ) and speakers that have a nominal impedance of 4 ohms. Only thing is, when we get WAY above the audio band, that 4 ohm impedance is going to be MUCH higher. As such, the Zobel is actually running in parallel with the higher value impedance that the speaker presents.

In this specific case, i would use something along the lines of a 5 or 6 ohm resistor. When you place one resistor ( the speaker WAY above the audio range ) in parallel with another resistor ( the Zobel ), you automatically get a lower impedance because we are splitting the signal / sharing the load. Kind of like wiring two 8 ohm speakers in parallel and getting a 4 ohm load for the amp. In this case, our 5 or 6 ohm resistor is in parallel with what is probably dozens of ohms, so the impedance doesn't drop all that much. What it does do is present the amp with something that should be close to what the nominal impedance of the speaker is in the audio band. It also keeps the nominal impedance slightly above that of the speaker cable itself, acting as somewhat of a "meeting point" between the two. In effect, i've created somewhat of an impedance transformer over a specific frequency range. By maintaining a relatively consistent impedance both in and above the audio band, the amp remains more stable under dynamic conditions and high frequency transients / harmonic overtones aren't "stifled". This would normally occur due to what would be a much higher impedance load being seen by the amp, which would result in less power transfer and more ringing due to the impedance mismatch.

As Audioholics noted in their testing, when they terminated the speaker cable with the Goertz Zobel's by themselves, there was an impedance mismatch and some visible high frequency ringing / oscillation WAY up high in the MHz range. According to them, Goertz used a 10 ohm load and they measured the cables as having a nominal 8 ohm impedance. As i've mentioned before, terminating a line with anything other than the same impedance results in reduced transient response, increased ringing, reduced power transfer, etc... You could see the increased ringing in their tests as a result of the impedance mismatch.

When they terminated the Goertz with an 8 ohm Zobel, which is what they measured the nominal impedance of the cable as being, the ringing was gone and the cables were perfectly in phase with the output of the amp. Even though we are only talking about TWO OHMS of difference in terms of impedance matching here, the results were quite obvious. Now can you imagine how much POORER audio gear performs when you've got a 50 ohm preamp loading into a 75 ohm interconnect feeding into a 10,000 ohm amplifier???

All of the Audioholics testing follows my previously posted theories, right? So far, it all looks good on paper, right? One problem here though. What did Audioholics forget?

They forgot that the Zobel is connected in parallel with the speaker load in a real world circuit. As such, Goertz' 10 ohm Zobel would have actually looked like a 7 - 9 ohm load ( depending on the high frequency impedance of the speakers being used ) under normal operating conditions. As such, the Goertz Zobel would actually perform much closer to their "perfect" modeled 8 ohm results than what they show on their charts. Adding the extra paralleled impedance of the speaker across their 8 ohm Zobel would actually produce a lower impedance with slightly different (probably more than good enough though ) results.

Did you folks get all of this??? I know that some of it is kind of technical, but the more that you can learn, the less likely you are to be ripped off / talked into buying snake oil : ) Sean
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Tommy: As one goes higher in frequency, the signal tends to travel more towards the surface of the conductor. Consequently, as one goes lower in frequency, the signal tends to travel through a deeper cross-section of the conductor. By making the conductor very thin yet maintaining a very wide & flat surface, all of the signal is conducted evenly regardless of frequency. This reduces time smear and maintains a more consistent series resistance / impedance regardless of frequency. This is yet another factor as to why you could hear increased "liquidity" with improved harmonic structure and timing of the notes. That is, each note / frequency has a very similar electrical path, length, series resistance and amount of surface area to travel. We'll call this "equal rights for all frequencies" : )

While one can obtain excellent results as far as skin effect goes with very small gauge round conductors, the problem is that the smaller gauge increases series resistance. In order to get around this problem, now we have to run multiple conductors in parallel. We now run into the problem of which geometry to configure these conductors in, how do we maintain the same spacing / EM fields between the conductors of the same polarity and how do we configure the two different polarities using multiple different conductors and how do we keep all the conductors of the same exact length? As you can see, Goertz' solution is a very simple yet elegant solution to all of those questions. That is, they followed the old "KISS" rule ( Keep It Simple, Stupid ).

As far as Magnan goes, if you check in the archives, you'll find that i've made some positive comments about some of their interconnects. I've never used their speaker cables or their "conductive paint" interconnects, nor do i think i ever will. I wouldn't mind trying out their speaker cables though, but i sincerely doubt that i would run it "side by side" as they suggest. This increases the inductance, which reduces the bandwidth and creates more phase errors. Like i said, the Goertz flat speaker cable design is simple yet elegant and solves all of those problems. Sean
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Psychic: One of my colleagues has some radical ideas about power cords and AC filtration. He has made claims to me about what he can do in this area and i'm trying to work with him on this. He's not been real specific with me as he likes toying with me i.e. trying to get me to think about things on a different level. Only problem is, we have very different schedules and right now, our priorities are very much in other places. I'm quite eager to see what he has come up with though as he's the smartest guy that i personally know in terms of electronics and design theory. The fact that he has more test equipment than Toys R Us has toys surely doesn't hurt either.

Rooze: If unsure, i always recommend the use of the Zobel's with Goertz cables. Before making specific recommendations to you though, i called up Krell and spoke to Roger. He wasn't familiar with Goertz and had to ask the engineers there several technical questions to get answers for me. We ended up coming down to the same conclusion. That is, this specific amp should probably be used with the Zobel's "just in case".

As a side note, Goertz cables aren't like most other speaker cables in certain respects. That is, bigger isn't always better. You have to look at the output impedance of the amp, the speaker load that you'll be driving, etc... It's my experience that MI-2 Veracity cables may be superior to MI-3 Divinity cables in most installations. This is due to the electrical characteristics of most amplifiers and speakers involved.

Like i said above, you want to match the cables electrical characteristics to the devices that it is linking together. I know that "male syndrome" i.e. "bigger is better" / "more is not enough", etc... is a hard thing to overcome, but when it comes to things like this, you really can overdue it. Going to their heavier gauge cables can create an impedance mismatch, which would actually lower the performance capacity of the ciruit. Granted, this may not be as severe as going to other cables that create a more drastic impedance related issue, but at the same time, we're shooting for optimum results here.

The obvious thing that most people think of when looking at "bigger" speaker cables would be the heavier gauge with its increased surface area, power handling and lower series resistance. As such, i can see why one would normally want to shoot for the "top of the line" cable, but that doesn't mean that such a cable would always be the best suited electrically or economically to the situation at hand. This is especially the case when dealing with a manufacturer that actually has some design integrity built into the various products that they offer at various price points.

Having said that, i called up and spoke to the folks at Goertz about your specific installation. Their first recommendation was exactly what you ordered i.e. the MI-3 Divinities in bi-wire form. The other alternative would be to use two individual pairs of MI-2 Veracity cables, one cable for the low's and the other for the highs. This would give you the same cross section area as the MI-3's while maintaining ( what i think ) is the most appropriate impedance.

Here's another point about Goertz that i like. It just so happens that this subject is being discussed in another thread pertaining to cable models and the price structure of various manufacturers. That is, the MI-3 is equivalent to two pairs of MI-2's in terms of surface area & materials used. As such, the MI-3 bi-wires are exactly the same cost as two pairs of MI-2's. Makes sense, huh???

On top of that, there is a linear progression of their cables in terms of how / why they are designed as they are. That is, as one progresses from one model to the next to the next, you can see the exact steps taken in terms of gauge / series resistance / surface area / nominal impedance. Their MI-1's start out at 13 gauge, the MI-2's are 10 gauge and the MI-3's are 7 gauge. In effect, as you step up in their cable line, you double your surface area and power handling and at the same time, reduce the nominal impedance to pass more current. How many other manufacturers are as fair with their pricing and / or logical with their design philosophy / product line? None that i know of.

My suggestion is to try the MI-3's and see what you think. If you aren't over-joyed with them, send them back and pick up a quad of MI-2's. It's the same cost and you'll only be out the cost of shipping. This will let you know for sure whether or not you like this cable within the confines of your system and you can always return them if not satisfied. Sean
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PS... If i were buying these cables, i would be ordering them with their silver spades. I don't really care for their rhodium spades and their banana connectors are terrible. As a side note, they use "real" silver, so the connections will tarnish over time. While you should clean them periodically ( all connections should be removed and cleaned periodically ), this one is not exactly a big deal. Silver oxide, the corrosion that forms on the surface of silver, is actually more conductive than copper is when it is still "fresh". That doesn't mean that you should let them go to the point of turning black, but at the same time, if you forget about this over a period of time, it's nothing to worry about.

"In other words, does 'minimizing skin effect' actually mean 'maximizing skin propagation'?

Tommy: That's a GREAT summary. Only thing to remember is, you've got to have enough "skin" or "surface area" to keep the series resistance low. On top of that, the geometry of each "skin" used, the spacing between the skins and the dielectric used also dictates the nominal impedance and how lossy the cable is, so all of that is important too. Like i said over in the AA thread, it's the only design that takes ALL of these factors into consideration in an even fashion. Many designs try to stress specific attributes of proper electrical design, but they neglect other aspects of signal propagation, resulting in a cable that has various strengths and weaknesses. This is the only product that attempts to do all of them in an even-handed fashion, resulting in the most cohesive package possible. That's why the test results at Audioholics showed what they did. Even the "generic", "copy-cat" or "cloned" versions of Goertz ( like Electro-Fluidics ) don't get everything right. Sean
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Tommy: One more thing about the Magnan's that you linked to. That is, they appear to use the flat ribbon design but then make additional connections to a different type of conductor for termination at each end of the cable. This means for a standard pair of speaker cables, you've now got a connection from the binding post to the spade, from the spade to the "round" wire, from the round wire to the foil, from the foil to the round wire, from the round wire to the spade and from the spade to the amp. Now you've got the same thing for the other polarity. Compare those 24 ( !!! ) connections per stereo pair of speaker cables and the overall design of the cable to Goertz and see what you get.

First of all, the Goertz connects the ribbon to the spade directly. Secondly, the lack of connections maintains a more pure path / consistent path for the signal to be carried upon. Thirdly, there's only one type of conductor used per polarity, so there's no reduction of the benefits that we worked so hard to achieve in terms of trying to minimize skin effect. As far as the total connection count for a pair of Goertz flat cables, you've got the connection from the binding post to the spade, the spade to the ribbon, the ribbon to the spade and the spade to the amp's binding post. This is 16 connections per stereo pair. This results in a 33% reduction in connections as compared to the Magnan's, let alone retaining a higher level of signal integrity / signal path.

To be fair though, some folks consider ANY connection as being one too many. As such, they try to reduce the number of connections to as few as possible. As such, it would be possible to use bare Goertz ( that was stripped of its' insulation" and tie it directly to each binding post. This would result in two connections per polarity, for a total of 8 connections per stereo pair. This would result in a 50% reduction of connections compared to using spades with the Goertz or a 66% reduction compared to the Magnan's. I say this because i really don't think that you could safely use the Magnan's by directly connecting their very thin and fragile ribbon directly to the binding posts without tearing them apart / ripping the foil.

Like i said before, there's a lot of good ideas, but some ideas are implimented better / in a more practical manner than others. Sean
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Rooze: To make things easier on you, here's a link to a thread where i made my most recent mention of Magnan interconnects. It can be found in a thread entitled IC Advice Needed.

Psychic: Send him on over, along with all of the other manufacturers that want to join in. Since they didn't want to try and refute the facts over at AA when i first detailed all of this, they can come for a "swim" now. The water feels fine and there's actually some technical specifications provided by a third party that we can use for reference material. We can see just how much snake oil / misinformation one can fit into a thread and at the same time, see who can lie through their teeth without smiling or giving themselves away. Somehow, i get the feeling that there are VERY few cable manufacturers that would be afraid to enter even the shallow end of this "pool". If they do, they better bring their "inflatable water wings" like young ones use before they really swim. You might also want to let them know that this "pool" has sharks in it : ) Sean
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PS... How does one deal with the oxidation of a conductor when using a natural "non-sealed" type of dielectric? After all, oxygen is allowed to flow through a cloth fiber, which in turn oxidizes the conductor. Oxidation causes corrosion and pitting of the surface, resulting in increased skin effect, impedance bumps, irregular signal paths and higher resistance. Since this will take place over the entire length of the conductor due to a lack of dielectric protection, you've now got an entire length of potential signal variations.

The way to get around this is to use both the highest grade of dielectric that acts as a protective barrier AND the least amount of it. Yes, there may be a minute amount of signal degradation that takes place due to miniscule amounts of DA ( Dielectric Absorption ), but at least you've got a consistent conductor that is good for long term use that doesn't require constant maintenance due to corrosion.

For sake of comparison to other designs, the Goertz flat conductors have a very fine layer of dielectric plated directly onto the conductor and then another very thin film-like jacket over that to hold the two conductors together. The latest versions make use of Teflon, which is a material that has the lowest DA of any material known to man. Audioholics tested the older version, so the results may be even better with the current Goertz speaker cables due to the use of higher grade dielectric materials.

Ozfly: That "15 minutes" was a joke. You got it, right??? : )

As far as your amp goes, it's quite possible that it does a very fine job of filtering out unwanted noise. The power supply that i described was simply a basic approach. There are other ways to achieve very good results.

As far as the "Goertz being neutral in most systems", that's how / why it works the way that it does. The problem is that not all systems work well with everything being sonically exposed for what it is and / or some people simply prefer specific colourations. That's why they resort to "band-aid" speaker cables that introduce non-linear distortions into the system. They use those distortions to cover up / compliment other distortions.

As i've mentioned before, you have to have a baseline to start with. Otherwise, you can end up changing cables & components a million times over and simply spinning your wheels. If you can get the backbone of the system to where you want it i.e. the amp / speaker cable / speakers / room interface "right", you now have something to judge the rest of the components / cabling by. Otherwise, you end up with a dozen different colourations and you don't know where to start / which is causing what / how each colourations is interacting with the others.

Psychic: I'm not holding my breath in terms of waiting for a reply from any manufacturer. Other than that, was your wording of replacing the word "beyond" with "beyonce'" a Freudian slip or what??? : ) Sean
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Robert: Kudo's to you for "entering the arena". You are braver than most : )

Can you explain or clarify this specific part of your post for me?

"Whether your fancy is Copper, Silver, Gold, Platinum or Polyflatulent, purity is important. The quality factor of a conductor or "Q" as I've termed it for us is more important and is distinct from a conductor's purity. A high purity/low Q conductor will not sound as good as a lower purity/high Q conductor. The later is also a more expensive material. A higher purity/higher Q conductor is best...da! and is a more expensive material...da da!"

My question is, how do you judge "quality" or "Q" as you call it? Since you've stated that "quality" has nothing to do with "purity", what parameters are used to judge just how "good" the "quality" of a conductor is? On top of that, if "purity" has nothing to do with "quality", why would a more expensive conductor that was "purer" be "better" than a lower cost conductor of reduced "purity" if the "quality" was equal? If this is confusing to you, welcome to the club. Sean
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I know that the person that is responding here is named Robert, but are you sure that you don't work for Star Sound? You just told us everything we wanted to know about something that we didn't ask about, yet failed to address a single issue being discussed. You've basically painted a picture that introduced us to you, your company, said that most of the people that buy your product enjoy it and told us it is "better" without giving any specifics as to why / how you can make that claim. Like Star Sound, you've done this for multiple posts in a row, avoided the specific issues at hand, used terminology out of context to make your explanation seem more technical than it is and left us even more confused than where we started from. When asked specific questions about this, you defaulted. I don't know if you did this hoping that others might enter the fracas and draw attention away from the situation or for someone to tell me to shut-up and play nice. Only problem is, i don't think that there's anyone coming to your rescue and others have finally realized that you don't get honest answers by "dancing around" the subjects being discussed. They might not like my approach, but they know it gets results.

Maybe i'm wrong here and you might be a nice guy and all, but telling stories about how things should work and explaining why they do or don't and what makes your product different based on verifiable facts & research is what i was expecting. Psychic built you up as someone that could do all of the above, but i've seen no evidence to support his beliefs or expectation. If this sounds harsh, i'm just speaking plainly as i always do. Then again, i'm sure you knew what to expect before you entered into this portion of the thread.

As far as other manufacturers "jumping in", i wouldn't hold your breath. The mass majority of other cable manufacturers ( there are a FEW exceptions here ) are afraid to "lay it on the line". That's because they can't explain / don't understand what it is that they are trying to sell us. They build cabling, have cabling built to their spec or simply use off the shelf parts and hide the internals. They do most of this based on what they think will get the job done, be cosmetically desirable while returning a handsome profit on their time and money invested. That's primarily because marketing hyperbole is all that is expected out of them.

When it comes down to it, most speaker cables being made today lack the design integrity to do the job right. So rather than open their mouths and prove this point, the manufacturers remain silent and hope that their name isn't mentioned in a thread like this. Wearing a 10 gallon hat, big chrome & turquoise belt buckle, pointed toe boots that jangle or click with each step, etc.. may let you walk and look like a cowboy, but when it comes down to it, you better be able to ride that horse, rope that steer and brand that calf when the time comes. That's why most cable manufacturers leave their hats at home and won't enter the arena. The arena is way too visible and they know that all that they'll do is make a spectacle of themselves. Sean
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PS... I visited your website several times, but as you mentioned, there's nothing there for someone that wants to know the "nitty gritty" about your products. One thing that i don't know if you're aware of or not is that your "accessories" link takes FOREVER to download. I have a 3 meg connection and i gave up several times waiting for it.

Rooze: Forwardness, brittle treble, smeared transients, etc... could all be signs of an amp that doesn't like the load that it sees. That is, the Zobel may cure at least a portion of that aspect of the sonics. If your amp seems to be running hotter than normal, this is also a sign of the amp self-oscillating / having high frequency problems. If such is the case, the cables should be pulled until you can get the Zobel's. To be blunt, the amp CAN be damaged in such a situation. Why they don't ship the Zobels with the cables is beyond me. Economic reasons i'm sure.

The other part of this equation is that maybe you're finally hearing what your amp / system really sounds like. I know that's not what you want to hear, but i never promised that everyone would like what they heard. I only said that these cables were the most neutral that we can currently attain. Nobody wants to look in the mirror and see all of their flaws highlighted. Using that same logic, that's why many folks resort to "band-aid" type cabling i.e. they don't want to hear how much or how little musical accuracy their system is capable of.

As far as the lack of bass definition goes, that's something that i noticed when i tried switching from MI-2 to MI-3 in one of my systems. That is, the bass was muddier and lacked definition. This can be explained though as it is both logical and electrically based.

The MI-3's have a nominal impedance ( according to Goertz ) of 1.75 ohms, which is very low. As with any other electrical device, when you drop the impedance, you pull more current. As such, it is possible that your amp is being "loaded down" by the phenomally low nominal impedance of this cable. This typically results in a loss of bass control and / or output & transient response characteristics in the treble.

To help put this into perspective, think about the sonic differences of an MC cartridge as one "loads down" ( lowers the impedance ) that the cartridge itself sees. If someone isn't familiar with this type of situation, as one lowers the impedance that the cartridge sees, the tonal balance shifts from treble emphasis towards bass emphasis and transient response varies. Finding the right loading conditions will provide the proper tonal balance and transient response. Obviously, one can tailor the response to their personal preferences and / or "band-aid" the sonic flaws in their system should they choose to do so. Personally i prefer to find out what the problem is and correct it than to try and band-aid the situation. Even with band-aids, wounds like this won't heal themselves.

As such, this is kind of what i was afraid of and alluded to in my previous post. That is, you CAN get "too much of a good thing" if you're not careful. My suggestion would have been to go for two pairs of MI-2's. This would have been the same cost and presented the amp with a slightly higher nominal impedance. That's why i mentioned this both in the thread and when i spoke to Goertz on the phone.

With all of that n mind, you really do need to get the Zobel's into the system AND get used to what you are hearing. Believe me, no other speaker cable that you've ever used has allowed your amp to actually "load up" or deliver the power potential into those speakers like what you are using now. As such, you are probably hearing more bass than you ever have and it sounds "different" to you. I'm not saying that you'll like this combo when all is said and done, only that a window has been opened. You're used to looking through the glass and dealing with the familiar scents inside the house. Now you have a slightly different picture with other aspects of the presentation to excite your senses in a new and different manner. This can be both new and exciting or "scary", depending on one's perspective and goals.

As a side note, you really have nothing to fear due to Goertz in-home trial period. If you find that these aren't to your personal taste after getting the Zobel's installed, send them back. If you liked most of what the MI-3 offered, it's up to you to see if you can check out a pair of MI-2's WITH the Zobel's. Just bare in mind that i never promised anyone a rose garden or that their system would work well with these cables. Personally, I've never had ANY problems with these cables and everyone that has ever heard them has loved them. Then again, i've only installed them in systems that i've built for myself or helped build for family and friends, so that may have something to do with it. The criteria that i use for choosing components / building a system is probably VERY different from what most others use. Between that and diferences in sonic flavouring / personal preferences, it could make all the difference in the world. Sean
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Robert: My comments about the thread being interrupted were not geared towards your customers "coming to your rescue", but more-so as a general comment pertaining to a specific group of Audiogon regulars that dislike my "brutish" methods of communications i.e. those that have cried foul in the past about asking manufacturers, distributors, dealers, etc.. for pertinent facts, asking them to support their statements and / or asking for honesty and disclosure of affiliations.

As far as being a "watchdog", i call 'em as i see 'em. If it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, has webbed feet, etc... it's probably a duck. Just because i'm not shy about pointing the duck out to others and telling them what it is and how to identify it by its' characteristics, it doesn't make me a "watchdog". Having said that, if what i post helps someone to avoid making costly errors or explains why certain situations ( sonic or otherwise ) have arisen surrounding "duck-like" products, so be it. People can call me whatever it is they want to. You don't have to like me to understand or even respect the information and / or perspective that i provide.

With that in mind, i have NO idea of what your cables are like. I have third party information on them that is far less than technical in nature and that's all. Neither your website nor your posts here have given me or anyone else anything to go on. As such, i'm not attacking your product so much as i'm commenting on the lack of information available concerning your products and your unwillingness to provide even a few lines of information after 4 or 5 posts and thousands of words.

While it's quite possible i may be a great fan of your products once i had the chance to really get to know them ( technically and sonically ), the only way that i could do that would be to buy them, use them, disect them and analyze them for myself. Given that i'm not buying any more cabling from someone that won't tell me what it is that they are selling ( i've been ripped off enough as it is ) and i'm not about to "gut" someone else's property that might be kind enough to let me borrow them, the chances of that happening are slim to none. The bottom line is that more info specifically about the products themselves with less background about the company could result in more potential sales.

PS... I don't have a "kingdom", nor am i a king. I am a working class pauper that can't afford your hundreds of dollars per meter products, so please take pity on me and throw me some of the scraps from your table. Maybe then i'll have some idea of the "flavours" that you and a few others make mention of since you won't even describe what it is on the table to begin with.

Psychic: I'm glad that you guys had an enjoyable and educational get together. These types of situations can be fun, but they can also be misleading. That is, unless certain precautions are taken to try and keep the playing field level. I'm NOT talking about DBT's ( Double Blind Listening Test's ) or anything like that, just similar conditions in terms of all of the gear being allowed to thermally and physically stabilize. This takes time though and most impromptu meetings / listening sessions don't really allow this.

With that in mind, one can get basic ideas about differences in performance and whether or not components interface reasonably well together, but i wouldn't say that such "testing" is all-inclusive in terms of the observed results.

On top of all of that, unless one has some type of baseline to compare things to, it's possible that none of the products being compared are actually "accurate". As such, which one was perceived as being "better" boils down to subjective opinons that are based on personal preferences. We all know how that works. Since there are no reference points to judge things by and even personal preferences change, the only conclusions that can be drawn from such impromptu listening sessions is what one liked at that time with that system in that room. Sometimes that's all that counts i.e. when you're listening in your room with your system and you're familiar with what to expect. Other than that, anybody not in the same situation is listening with a great handicap due to lack of familiarity and expectations. This handicap is exactly why most DBT's provide negative results. Obviously, this is just my opinion and others are certainly open to agree / disagree.

Albert: Certain measurements are "better" with mass-produced gear for certain reasons. That is, mass-producers build cheap components using low grade parts. They "band-aid" their circuitry so that it measures better by relying on inexpensive forms of error correction that introduce further side-effects into the equation. They do this trying to "fix" things, but in effect, make things worse most of the time.

As i've said before, unless you can see the whole picture and understand what the spec's mean and how they were derived, spec's can mean very little.

Having said that, a full array of spec's can tell you quite a bit, if the spec's were properly derived AND one knows how to interpret them. If such were not the case, i wouldn't have known that the Goertz speaker cables were going to "best" all of the others in that test. I knew what i did because the spec's that i read and understood confirmed what my ears had told me several years ago.

In this respect, the spec's are verified by the test results and the test results are verified by the sonics. That is, what you put in is what you get out. It's called measurable accuracy and it achieves this with no form of error correction applied. As such, the margin of error as to what the spec's say and what you actually hear is non-existent. That's why i've said "don't blame the cables" if you don't like what you hear. While you can shoot the messenger, that doesn't change the message. Sean
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I want to address / clarify my response to Albert. After posting what i did and thinking about it, i'm in the wrong here. That is, i tend to get "tunnel vision" at times and overlook certain factors. I'm sure that i do this on a somewhat regular basis too, so please "kick me" as a reminder when i get a bit overboard.

What i should have been saying throughout this whole thread is different from what i have said. That is, i should have said that the Goertz speaker cables are the most sure-fire way to achieve high levels of accuracy with minimal loss in the transfer of power from the amplifier to speaker interface. Using this approach, one is assured of the lowest distortion possible. With that in mind, it is quite possible that other cables may work nearly as well and could be quite acceptable for use in many systems. How close "good enough" is and whether or not one is willing to risk potential compromise when you already know what will work best is up to the individual.

My personal thoughts are that if one knows that a specific product will get the job done as best possible with the least potential for signal degradation, and it is within one's budget, there's no reason to look at anything else. In this regard, that's why i "zero'd in" on Goertz i.e. it is demonstrably superior in maintaining the widest bandwidth, lowest phase shift, offering a consistently low ( proper ) impedance regardless of frequency, etc... as compared to any other product on the market that i know of. This is where i probably went into "tunnel vision" mode and started to lambast all "lesser" cables, even though there are other cables that i do feel are "worthy" of use. Bare in mind that i'm speaking specifically of speaker cables here and not IC's, etc... As i've mentioned before, interconnects are a slightly different creature with far more variables to deal with. On the other hand, power cords are more like speaker cables in the fact that we pretty much know what the constraints of normal operation are composed of.

I'm sorry for being such a "strong-willed bonehead", but it seems to be something that runs in the family. If you think that i'm hard to deal with here at times, you should see what it's like when you get my Brother, Father and i in the same room discussing ANY serious subject : )

Hope that this "eases the tension" that i helped to create and better explains my point of view. Sean
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Robert: Many of the points that you bring up are valid. On others, i could respond point by point and waste my time, your time and that of anyone else that read it. Rather than do that, i'll keep it short and respond to two statements that you made:
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"Now come on Sean. You accuse me of writing a novel. I said what you said above here with less words! What I said was:

Purity has to do with the level of impurities. We all know that I think. Q has to do with levels of types of impurities.

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You forgot to mention that you did this AFTER posting four "novels" with no such information in any of them. Had you responded to the questions that were asked in an easy to read and respond to form, most of this would have never taken place.

As to the second comment, i'm surely NOT a liberal. Nor am i a CONservative. I'm a socialist, hence my concerns for the average citizen i.e. audio enthusiast. While "liberals" want to give the property of others away in order to "take care of the masses", socialists believe that everyone is responsible for taking care of themselves and earning their own keep. That's why i try to make the masses aware of the facts & figures involved in the equation. That way they can formulate their own educated answers to the questions and decisions at hand. Some will absorb that information right away and respond accordingly, probably saving themselves time, money and frustration in the process. Some will disregard and make their own decisions, with some of those decisions and actions being mistakes. Some of those that initially disregarded the facts & figures may come to realize that the information provided was of greater value than they initially though, but that would be at a later date, explaining why & how they made the mistakes that they did.

As i've said before, i'm planting seeds. Some seeds will grow, some will be stomped on, some will be carried away by the birds and deposited elsewhere, possibly taking root at a later date in an unexpected place. Obviously, i'm not the perfect farmer and the harvest represents that fact. My methods in some areas are quite lacking. As such, some will nurture those seeds, some will pull them up by the roots and others won't know whether they are a plant or a weed.

Another problem is, i think that i've been planting roses. That's because much of the beauty that i strive for has been marred by the thorns that i've left behind. As such, i apologize for the occasional hurt that those thorns have caused and hope that the beauty of the bloom that comes to flourish more than makes up for the damage done.

Thanks all for putting up with me. To those that recognize my motives and have tried to steer me back on course when i've veered, i appreciate your honesty and effort. This includes those that i've had words with too, as i know that at least some of their concerns were fair and just.

Have a safe and happy Holiday... Sean
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Ernie: Dielectric Absorption ( DA ) takes place to a far greater extent as frequency rises. This makes it a non-linear distortion because it doesn't absorb all frequencies at the same rate.

As such, one can turn the drawbacks of DA into an actual asset by taking advantage of this knowledge. That is, by allowing the low frequencies ( 60 Hz AC waveform ) to pass unhindered, and by absorbing a greater ratio of signal as frequency rises, one has developed a form of a low pass filter. This has been achieved at reduced cost and complexity due to the use of lower grade dielectrics without the added expense or drawbacks of any extra parts or active circuitry. Granted, the effects achieved through careful application of DA is NOT going to be a sharp slope or even a linear slope, but it will be beneficial none the less.

Where lower grade dielectrics run into problems is with "seepage". Many cheap dielectrics "bleed" i.e. their plasticizers are leeched out of the jacket and contaminate the conductors. I'm sure that some of you have seen this before i.e. taken apart a cable only to find a dark, smeary contaminant on the surface. The contamination process can be sped up via stress to the cable i.e. running it beyond its' thermal limits, mass exposure to UV rays, etc...

In this regard, Teflon is a much better dielectric. That's because it's more stable and can take a lot of heat. The way to get around the lack of stability and "bleeding" of plasticizers in order to achieve "Teflon-like" stability is to use a more stable dielectric AND keep ambient and operating temperatures low. By doing your homework, you can find a relatively stable dielectric that retains a higher DA. In order to keep thermal operating temperatures down, you can use multiple conductors to share the load. By sharing the load, internal coulomb friction is reduced and operating temperatures are kept to a minimum. The fact that many lower grade dielectrics are less rigid than Teflon also means increased flexibility with less potential for microphonic transfer of energy.

Another advantage to this approach is that multiple conductors for each given polarity means that you can now use specific geometries. These geometries reduce the radiation of EM ( Electro-Magnetic ) fields and at the same time, are not nearly as susceptable to RFI and EMI. This means that your power cord can now be placed closer to your signal carrying cables with less potential for sonic degradation AND your power cord has less of a chance of acting like an antenna for incoming signals. Yet another benefit is that certain geometries will lower the inductance of the cable, allowing the AC to feed the component on a more timely basis.

As a side effect / additional benefit of lowering the inductance through the use of specific geometries, you also increase the capacitance of the cable. By distributing the capacitance over the length of the cable, you in effect end up with a very mild parallel line filter. Devices like Audioprism Quiet Lines and the home-brew devices that Magnan recommends, etc... are all capacitively based parallel line filters. While the distributed capacitance of the power cord using specific geometries will not be as effective as the lumped sums of capacitance as found in the "plug in" filters mentioned above, every little bit helps.

As you can see, there is a method to the madness that goes into making a well rounded, thoroughly thought-out product. Most of this is based on the proper application of technology. That technology was gathered through various testing methods. By compiling the test results and properly interpreting them, one can pick and choose between the specific positive and / or negative attributes that each product / material brings with it. If done carefully, the end result is an organized presentation of those calculated strengths and weaknesses to achieve the desired goals.

As i've said before, nothing that we are doing here is a mystery. The only part that is a mystery is why more manufacturers don't make use of the information & technology that is available to them. The fact that most audiophiles aren't aware of all of the facts pertaining to various products allows these manufacturers to keep the public in the dark and charge the prices that they do. In this respect, most of the cable manufacturers and other parts of the high end audio industry fear an educated public. That would mean that their profit margin was gone, except for those that remained gullible enough to believe all of the marketing hype. Those that actually looked into and understood the facts pertaining to the situation / product at hand would no longer be at the mercy of those that are peddling snake oil.

All of that is why i post the things that i do. The more that you know, the more effective your decisions will become. Sean
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Twl: You should contact Berning, Lowther, Sonoran, etc... and see if they just threw parts together at random till they got something that worked and shoved them out the door or if they actually did some R&D with test equipment to arrive at the level of performance and sonics that they desired and you seem to enjoy so much. You're applying a level of logic in the venom that you spew my way that you're not applying to those that made the products that you so love.

Just because one understands or desires to understand how & why a product works doesn't mean that one can't enjoy the music that it makes. Quite the contrary in fact. Knowing how it works can help one to attain even better results through making more informed decisions as to the suitability of components to achieve one's desired goals. As a side note, many of your analogies are quite flawed, but i won't bother pointing out why. I think that the above sums up my point of view well enough.

By the way, i'm glad to see you back, even if this is the manner in which you choose to return. Before you became a Star Sound clone, your responses were always cogent and helpful. I hope that you've brought some of that back with you now. Sean
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I agree Albert. After reading a thread like the one that Trelja started and thinking about the other disasters and turmoil that is taking place in Florida and other places around the world, all of this is petty bullshit. My heart goes out to those people suffering through those situations and i'm sorry for not having my priorities right. God Bless Us All... Sean
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Psychic & Audiofankj: The reason that i didn't "jump" on the offer to check these out is that i currently have four out of five systems down and torn apart. The only one that is running is my HT system, which is XLR based. On top of that, i've got all five speakers pulled apart for crossover upgrades and am using other speakers temporarily. As such, i can substitute these cables into this system, but it wouldn't really be an apples to apples comparison between an RCA based cable and balanced cables. On top of that, the speakers that i'm using aren't exacly a good match for this system, but it at least gives me tunes and movies for now.

Yes, i can "cobble" at least one of the other RCA based systems together, but it will be nothing that i'm used to and won't be nearly as "dialed in" as i'd like. Yes, i can get a "feel" for what these cables do, but it wouldn't be a fair trial of their potential.

For sake of clarity in case you're wondering how i could have so many systems down, i damaged one of the speakers in my office system, possibly to the point of no repair.

I sold / traded my amp in my tube system a while back. No other tube amps on the premises. Want to build my own tube amp for this system, but it will have to wait until i can get some of my other projects caught up.

I have the speakers in my bedroom system pulled apart for crossover upgrades. As with the speakers in my HT system, i'm letting all of the caps "form" and then selecting them one by one i.e. the cream of the crop once they are fully settled in. This involves charging the caps up to or near rated voltage, letting them discharge naturally and then cycling them up to voltage again, several times over. From there, i can check to see which are discharging faster than others ( due to higher dielectric losses )and compare their measured values in terms of matched values. Yes, i buy TONS of extra caps for any project, which allows me to pick and choose as needed.

My main system is down due to problems with my midrange panels. I'm thinking of scrapping them, but don't know if i want to attempt rebuilding them or if i'm going to try and replace them with something else i.e. a commercial offering.

Yes, i'm doing more work on the gear than listening lately. Given that i've also got a PA system that i'm building for a local band in my free time, my own personal projects are coming about even slower than normal and i'm not exactly "fast" to begin with.

Flex: Great post. Thank you for presenting another well thought out and reasonable summary of the situation.

Psychic: I agree to a certain extent. That is, much of the technology that we have today was derived through scientific research conducted for military purposes. If it didn't come from the military, it came from deciphering alien technology : )

Twl: standardizing input and output impedances on components wouldn't be hard to do and / or drastically compromize the sound quality of any given design. This would be a HUGE step forward and get rid of many of the variables that account for the difference in sonics with interconnects that many encounter.

As far as standardizing speakers, that would be a good one. No real way to do that as far as i can see. While you could have standardized impedances, etc... i think that the designers would be more worried about meeting the certification specs in terms of input impedances and levels of reactance rather than achieving the best performance possible. As you mentioned, speakers like this might be good for those that want a "plug & play" system, but would probably not be best suited for those seeking optimum performance. Sean
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Tom: What you bring up is a good point and something that most people never really think about. I have often wondered about the effects of "everything on one side of the line" type crossovers in the past. I have discussed this with my Brother at times, but we've never actually taken any type of measurements on stuff like this.

While most will argue that "it's an AC signal, so the amp sees the same load regardless of what polarity the crossover is on", that is only true of a Class A amp. That's because the Class A output stage is conducting both sides of the AC waveform. In comparison, a Class AB amp would typically have different types of output devices conducting each individual half ( positive and negative ) of the waveform being reproduced. As such, the Class B amp would see a non-linear load due to having all of the crossover components on the positive leg of the waveform whereas the negative leg has a shorter signal path with a reduced parts count / reduced reactance level to deal with. The ideal thing would be to divide the parts count evenly between both legs, providing both halves of the waveform with a reasonably common load.

Given the differences in electrical characteristics of the various devices used for each "rail" of the amps output polarity, it's no wonder that most amps, which are low level AB circuits, demonstrate different measurements ( levels of electronic stability ) and sonics into various loads. This could be part of the reason why Class A amps tend to sound "more cohesive" and less "disjointed" than Class B amps and do so more consistently with different loads. That is, a Class A output stage is always conducting and sees all of the load whereas an AB output stage sees half of the load without equal levels of the crossover network's reactance equally distrubuted between them. I would think that such an approach would help an amp to offer better stability into a wider range of loudspeakers AND reduce non-linearities in the amp when recovering from overload / momentary saturation.

There's a LOT to think about in the question that Tom brought up and the response that i just posted. I've never really seen anyone go into depth on the subject and it may help to explain a lot of things that are somewhat "unexplainable". That in itself is food for thought on a whole 'nother topic / thread.

None the less, maintaining a consistent nominal impedance for the entire circuit should theoretically ( and in my experience ) produce better results. The fact that most all of my amps operate in Class A for a longer than average period of time may also help things out. Others that have high bias AB or "pure" Class A amps are also in the same boat. Amps running in low level AB or straight Class B would probably be more susceptable to the aforementioned problems with "one polarity" crossovers coming into play. If you're wondering how this specific scenario applies to your system, if your amp idles anything below VERY "warm" to the touch with no signal applied, your amp is not a high bias unit. That would make it either a very low level AB amp or a straight B. This assumes that you're not running some type of "high efficiency" aka "switching amp", which typically idle cool as a cucumber.

With all of that in mind and as most that have read more than a few of my posts should know, i typically prefer "direct drive". That is, amplifier / speaker cable / driver with the crossover duties being taken care of upstream of the amplifier electronically. This removes the aforementioned "problem" out of the equation along with resolving all kinds of other situations. The difference between "direct drive" aka using a good quality electronic crossover and using the same amps / speakers with passive crossovers between them is pretty staggering to say the least.

Rooze: I see nothing wrong with what you want to do. Before buying anything else though, drop me an email with the specifics of what you need. I have some smaller sections of MI-1 that i may be able to help you out with. No promises though as i have to dig it up and see how much i have. I purchased some cables that were damaged and ended up trimming some short sections off during the repair. This "might" be enough for what you need to accomplish your desired goals.

Taking that a step further though, couldn't you just have Goertz build some inductors with the values that you needed with longer leads coming in and out of the inductors themselves? This would leave you with even fewer connection points and a more direct signal path. I don't know if you had considered this, but it would be the simplest and purest way to achieve your desired goals.

As far as "break-in" goes with this cable, i think it is more a matter of your ears adjusting to what you are hearing than the cables themselves "changing parameters". After all, you've only got one conductor per polarity with minimal amounts of a high grade dielectric. There's not much potential for the cabling to shift around internally, altering the impedances and / or the dielectric to change spacing or density, etc...

Out of curiosity, did you receive / install the Zobel networks? Sean
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Tom: This is a very interesting subject, but it would probably be best off in it's own thread. While speaker cables are involved in the amplifier / crossover / speaker interphase, we are getting WAY off topic here. Sean
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Mprime: Don't start bad-mouthing carbon or a certain manufacturer will start crying "foul" and calling you names.

It is possible that the carbon does act as a shield and at the same time, is less intrusive due to the lack of conductivity & magnetic properties. As i've mentioned for many years now, shielding is beneficial IF properly applied. Most shields are NOT properly applied. Minimizing the amount of shielding while still offering a small amount of "blocking" via the carbon might be a reasonable trade-off between a lower noise floor and a lack of dynamic amplitude related smearing. Sean
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"attempting to reconcile claims with physics is not bad-mouthing"

Tell that to the guys that cry every time you try to discuss "scientific facts" vs their "bold claims". Manufacturers that sell snake oil don't like facts or bright lights that expose them for what they are. After all, didn't you know that physics has no place in "high end" audio. Physics went out of date years ago : )

As far as shielding goes, the main factors are depth, coverage area and materials used. As you mentioned, one can smother a device in a given material, but that doesn't mean that material doing the smothering is actually effective as a shield. Then again, one can also use much less of another material, and if properly placed, achieve phenomenal results in terms of shielding.

These factors can be put to work for us though IF we know how to manipulate the variables properly. That is, some materials are quite effective at blocking RF but are near useless at base-band frequencies. Since we don't want our AC signals "contaminated" with RFI, and at the same time, we don't want to interfere with the normal rise and fall of the current induced magnetic field that occurs at low frequencies, it IS possible to have the best of both worlds. I'm not saying that one can do this with carbon or any other specfific material, i'm just saying that a "less efficient" shield isn't always "useless" under specific situations. Think about this as it is something that many manufacturers / DIYer's overlook. Sean
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Mprime: Nicely put. Let's hope that others catch on. Sean
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