geoffkait,
One more question: once the signal leaves the amplifier it still needs to get to the speakers. The speaker cables introduce additional velocity differences in the signal since the high frequencies travel closer to the surface of the conductor where the resistance is less, no?
This is an excellent question that I'm glad you asked.
The difference is that one is a non-symmetrical phase error and the other is a symmetrical phase error.
Symmetrical phase errors are tolerable because they "screw up" the positive and negative wavefronts identically. while it is not ideal it won't modify the location of an object the way that a non-symmetrical phase error can.
A
non-symmetrical phase error can alter the phase more on one of the pos/neg wavefronts which will introduce velocity errors (the positive wavefront may arrive faster (sooner) than the negative wavefront)
This puts a constant wrinkle in the time domain.
So in the case of your speaker wire.Indeed high frequencies travel closer to the surface (skin effect) but this happens equally to signals traveling in both directions .
In an active stage. The likelihood of a non-symmetrical phase error created by a non-linear event injects what looks like a poor connection into the chain.
The connection will lean towards a diode effect meaning it conducts better in one direction than the other. This phenomenon will always cause the location information to be scrambled or diffused and the holographic view to collapse.
Roger