Its funny how different folks opinions are when it comes to cables. One side thinks a tenner a meter is obscene, others don't move an eyelid when paying 300 quid for 1m pair, admittedly terminated though usually easily done by anyone with a modicum of hand control*.
I guess I am somewhere in the middle.
* MG say the termination is complex. This leaves me to believe the conductor is either litz or there is a resistor or other part in-line.
Can anyone clarify?
I have had private conversations with colin, discussing his design goals and related specifications of his current reference cable. Without going into too much detail, i will say that it is of litz type, may be twisted and its total loop resistance falls just under 20AWG.
I have researched transmission line theory and current understanding of audio electronics. It is true that what is said about audio cables. Differences should not be present. It becomes ever so more clear once you understand long distance transmission lines and what kinds of power losses happen with it. However, there are some misinformation or perhaps more correctly misdirection on what is and is not possible. Typically it is repeated how speaker cables cannot change the frequency domain characterisitics. Which they are correct. All measurements on audio transmission lines show very little attenuation when conductor resistance is taken out of the equation. What this means is that, the common transmission line losses other than typical resistance. Does not impact the frequency domain because the reactance losses are too small. Resistive losses does become an issue when conductor size becomes too small and resistive losses too high.
The issue however i believe, is with time domain distortion. We can definitely measure it, we can definitely show differences. However current understanding of human hearing suggests we should not notice this. But i believe we underestimate the human ears sensitivity to time domain errors and we may also not be using the right measurment techniques to expose such errors. One area of focus that is partly connected, is reconstruction filters for digital to analog converters. Many engineers believe in this problem but must confess that evidence suggests otherwise. But they continue to pursue regardless. Science does not lie, but it can be wrong. When it comes to science we must be objective, using current knowledge to interpret new data and develop our understanding. But also be subjective so as to identify new phenomenons which may or may not be explainable with current data or metric systems.
Of course i would not be in the beleif camp if i had not provided sufficient evidence for myself. Because i understand the influences of physcoacoustics, one must be careful to reduce or eliminate such problems. Thats why double blind is the standard. However, i see some significant flaws with such systems. First not everyone can differentiate small differences in acoustics, some like my parants or friends. Although they can notice more obvious changes such as bass amplitude or significant frequency domain shifts. They typically cannot tell the difference between similar but yet undeniably different sound. Especially with more complex fields with time domain. And whatever differences they can decipher, is usually with greater difficuilty. This is because not everyone cares about audio, although they like music. Their affection to the quality of such content is at the bottom of their priority. My dad for example thinks i am mad for my passion for high quality audio. There is also the issue that, not everyone can analyze audio the same. Now i am not talking about peoples natural ability to interpret sound better than others. Or as its so famously put "golden ears". No not at all. I am talking about ones self to learn and develop their ability to examine sound. I for one years ago could not point out specific content like i can today, this has been developed over time as i come to learn and understand what to look for and what is associated with it. This has a significant impact on the results from blind test research. Unless you decide not to use random trial subjects, i fear results will always be inconclusive. The same can be had with other areas of audio.
With audio cables, home testing is difficult. One cannot reliably compare cables and conclude which is technically superior. For myself i developed a high quality, engineered, application specific reference. This was costly and time consuming. It cost me $2 and under 10 minutes
This was a standard zip cord cable cut to under 10cm. This provides a reference to use to compare other cables and show how close to transparency it is. Apply that with a switching circuit and you have yourself a solid system. You can further this by employing a human to do the switching for you, now you have a blind test system.
I have done this, which with the right cables can confidently differentiate between. My cousin collected the data for me before i could see the results.
Few pages back there is a comparison study i done on various popular products for audio cables. What i found was that almost all other cables, deviated from the reference, more so than even a standard zip cord. This suggested to me that the more complex the design, the more it deviated from the ideal. From that i concluded that zip cord would be more appropriate for most situations and that a lot of manufacturers do not address the areas of concern. Many of them claim to address skin effect errors but measurements show to be no better than standard and often was significantly worse.
LS-25 was of exception however, in which i could not reliably tell the difference between this and my reference. The engineering also agreed with my understanding of transmission line theory. So i merely keep it for physcological satisfaction. However i would still be happy with a standard cable if my hand was forced. I have always felt though that the high frequency does roll off a touch, which the LS-25 appears to fill in. Though i do admit i could be imagining this.
There is no argument on my part however that there are differences to be heard, its just that the differences are almost always worse.
