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Topic: Speaker Cable Test from 1983 (oldie but goodie) (Read 9695 times) previous topic - next topic
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Speaker Cable Test from 1983 (oldie but goodie)

There is an incredibly long thread on rec.audio.high-end concerning the audibility of speaker cable differences and an article which appeared almost 20 years ago in Stereo Review.  I was finally prompted to go digging around in my garage to find the original article, from the August 1983 issue of Stereo Review.

The article, by Laurence Greenhill, compares "New Monster Cable" against 16-gauge lamp cord and 24-gauge  cable using double-blind methods (a hardware version of Arny Krueger's PC-ABX comparator).

Three individuals (out of 11 total) were able to hear a difference (with a confidence > 95%) between the Monster cable and 16-gauge wire, probably by distinguishing a volume difference on the order of 0.16 dB (!) in pink noise.  Nobody was able to repeat this feat, though, using choral music.

http://ff123.net/export/cables.zip

I probably won't keep it there forever, though.

What did Citay distinguish in his volume tests?

ff123

Speaker Cable Test from 1983 (oldie but goodie)

Reply #1
Quote
Originally posted by ff123

What did Citay distinguish in his volume tests?


Ah, that old test, hehe.. it's here: http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/showth...=&threadid=1148

I think 96% (? dB) is also possible, i'd have to do another test...

Speaker Cable Test from 1983 (oldie but goodie)

Reply #2
Well, I ran some simulations, and the probability that at least one person out of an 11-listener panel would get 12 or more correct out of 15 trials is 0.17.  So really only one person (who score 13 correct) heard a difference with 95% experiment-wise confidence on the Monster-cable vs. 16-gauge pink noise test.

However...

If all the trials are combined from all listeners, that yields a score of 108 correct out of 165 total, which is highly significant (p<0.001).

So, there was a difference as shown by the aggregate score, but any particular individual would be hard-pressed to show this with high confidence.  That's an interesting result.

ff123

96% scaling is 0.35 dB

Speaker Cable Test from 1983 (oldie but goodie)

Reply #3
Quote
Originally posted by ff123
There is an incredibly long thread on rec.audio.high-end concerning the audibility of speaker cable differences and an article which appeared almost 20 years ago in Stereo Review.  I was finally prompted to go digging around in my garage to find the original article, from the August 1983 issue of Stereo Review.

The article, by Laurence Greenhill, compares "New Monster Cable" against 16-gauge lamp cord and 24-gauge  cable using double-blind methods (a hardware version of Arny Krueger's PC-ABX comparator).

Three individuals (out of 11 total) were able to hear a difference (with a confidence > 95%) between the Monster cable and 16-gauge wire, probably by distinguishing a volume difference on the order of 0.16 dB (!) in pink noise.  Nobody was able to repeat this feat, though, using choral music.

http://ff123.net/export/cables.zip

I probably won't keep it there forever, though.

What did Citay distinguish in his volume tests?

ff123


What is gauge? How to transform gauge into mm²?
The unit of cable thickness should be square metres or parts of it like mm².
Also acceptable is Ohm/km.
--  Frank Klemm

Speaker Cable Test from 1983 (oldie but goodie)

Reply #4
This article seems interesting indeed,  thanks for offering this gem!

I'm also intrigued by an idea someone posted on this board a while ago, about using a CAT-5 patch cable and connect more or less cables parallel. According to that person (i forgot who), the network cable sounded better than the "usual" cables.

In theory, the thicker the cable, the higher the internal resistance, the thinner the bass will sound. The idea is to use a cable as thin as possible and as thick as needed. That's why i want to experiment with a different amount of wires (of the 8 possible), or maybe i will buy cables with different diameters... is somebody willing to test this / has already tested it?


Speaker Cable Test from 1983 (oldie but goodie)

Reply #6
Quote
Originally posted by ff123
Well, I ran some simulations, and the probability that at least one person out of an 11-listener panel would get 12 or more correct out of 15 trials is 0.17.  So really only one person (who score 13 correct) heard a difference with 95% experiment-wise confidence on the Monster-cable vs. 16-gauge pink noise test.

However...

If all the trials are combined from all listeners, that yields a score of 108 correct out of 165 total, which is highly significant (p<0.001).

So, there was a difference as shown by the aggregate score, but any particular individual would be hard-pressed to show this with high confidence.  That's an interesting result.

ff123

96% scaling is 0.35 dB


1. 0.35 dB is audible when using the right music.

2. When using thick cables I found that the inductivity is more important than the resistivity.
It is important to hold both cores very close together to reduce inductivity. Especially fat cables
have huge inductivities because the core distance can be larger than 12...14 mm.

wrong: (+)------(--)

right: (+)-(--)

(+)


nonsense: two separate cables:


&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; (--)

3. You can reduce influence of inductivity using a RC correction circuit at the speakers box.

4. Biwiring increases cable effects, it do not reduce it.
--  Frank Klemm


Speaker Cable Test from 1983 (oldie but goodie)

Reply #8
Quote
Originally posted by Frank Klemm

2. When using thick cables I found that the inductivity is more important than the resistivity.
It is important to hold both cores very close together to reduce inductivity. Especially fat cables
have huge inductivities because the core distance can be larger than 12...14 mm.


So what are your thoughts on using CAT5 patch cable (twisted pair) as speaker cable?

Speaker Cable Test from 1983 (oldie but goodie)

Reply #9
Quote
Originally posted by CiTay


So what are your thoughts on using CAT5 patch cable (twisted pair) as speaker cable?


Too thin. May be telephone cable: 16 x 0.25 mm² or larger.

Highender should use telephone cable for their US$ xx.xxx loud speakers.
--  Frank Klemm

Speaker Cable Test from 1983 (oldie but goodie)

Reply #10
yup...


Quote
Originally posted by Frank Klemm


Too thin. May be telephone cable: 16 x 0.25 mm² or larger.

Highender should use telephone cable for their US$ xx.xxx loud speakers.



Tweeter: 0.25 mm stranded.. silver..

midrange: 3 mm stranded.. tin plated 6x9 copper

Woofer:  6 mm (or bigger..) square.. solid-core 6x9 copper...


isolate the cables with 1a. 100% teflon  2a. aleminium-foil 


works for me...


Speaker Cable Test from 1983 (oldie but goodie)

Reply #11
Quote
Originally posted by CiTay In theory, the thicker the cable, the higher the internal resistance, the thinner the bass will sound.
What in the WORLD??? This "theory" makes NO sense to me... Do you have a reference for that? My experience is JUST THE OPPOSITE!

Speaker Cable Test from 1983 (oldie but goodie)

Reply #12
Quote
Originally posted by Frank Klemm
How to compute it?
I'm sure I will never learn such a table.
AFAIK gauge isn't a unit of measurement, so there's no way to convert it consistently; instead, it's a classification of various common diameters (or diameters that were common at the time the system was conceived).  So each gauge has a specific diameter associated with it, but the only way to find that diameter is to use a look-up chart.

Edit: Some more research turns up that it may (at least originally) be based on something to do with the weight of some standard amount of wire, but this would still make conversion without a chart a bit tedious.  The only detailed information I can find is on gun gauges -- they were based on the weight of the musket ball that fit in a barrel of that diameter.  Wire gauge may or may not be the same.  In either case it's a terrible, but standard in the U.S., way of doing things.

Speaker Cable Test from 1983 (oldie but goodie)

Reply #13
Quote
Originally posted by layer3maniac
What in the WORLD??? This "theory" makes NO sense to me... Do you have a reference for that? My experience is JUST THE OPPOSITE!


Oops, i mixed something up there... it should go, the thicker the cable, the lower the internal resistance and the higher the dampening, and the thinner and more "analytic" the bass will sound.

Kinda confusing myself now :insane:  but this should be right now

Speaker Cable Test from 1983 (oldie but goodie)

Reply #14
I just tried -0.5 dB on the intro to the live version of Layla (the same sample used for the 64 kbit/s test), and scored 14/16 (p=0.002) in an ABX test.

I chose this sample because I figure the closer I can get in real music to pink noise, the more sensitive I'll be, and this sample has applause at the beginning of it.

And another test, -0.3 dB, using the same sample:  27/40 (p=0.019).  This one is really right on the edge of my perception.  I oscillated back and forth across the p=0.05 threshold a number of times.

ff123

Speaker Cable Test from 1983 (oldie but goodie)

Reply #15
I use 12mm2 solid core copper cables, far from each other. No problem with the treble. It works well for anything. Better than QED Qudos.
Quite impossible to purchase : I asked the guys who were hanging it in the street for bits that were left at the end of their rolls

Speaker Cable Test from 1983 (oldie but goodie)

Reply #16
yup...


not one system is a like..

first rule of cabling..
"don`t read.. don`t think.. just listen.. "

(well.. some thinking is a must..)



Speaker Cable Test from 1983 (oldie but goodie)

Reply #17
Follow-up to my "theory":

Quote
The Maxwell Effect works at the other end of the Spectrum (bass) and is
a bit harder to explain. I will not even try.

Read the Paper Prof. Malcom Hawkesford submitted to AES (Audio
Engineering Society) if you feel like doing a bit of serious
mathematical self abuse.
The Upshot is that a thin conductor will also IMPROVE the LOW-END
performance. Hence the Conductor providing the widest bandwidth
(measured and subjective) all else being equal is the thinner one.
A thin conductor introduces a lot of resistance, giving us problems with
the Series Resistance in our Cable.

So we to use for example flat, thin and wide Foil Conductors to get the
resistance down to a sensible level for Speaker-Connections as
implemented for example by Goertz Cable, Sonolith and Magnan Cables.


This is from http://www.tnt-audio.com/clinica/diycables.html, they also seem to like the idea of CAT5 speaker cable... 

Speaker Cable Test from 1983 (oldie but goodie)

Reply #18
Quote
yup...

yup... to you too 

Speaker Cable Test from 1983 (oldie but goodie)

Reply #19
Ok, this ABX test was really at my threshold of perception.  0.2 dB difference:  52 correct of 82 total, p = 0.010.

Sometimes I thought I could hear it, just barely, and I would get into a groove, but then other times I would lose it.  0.01 was as low as I could get, and I stopped when I reached it.

ff123

Speaker Cable Test from 1983 (oldie but goodie)

Reply #20
Hmm, how about coax cable?
She is waiting in the air