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(Stewart Pinkerton) writes:

On Thu, 08 Jan 2004 18:19:25 GMT,
wrote:

Your first
paragraph implies that bell wire can be heard, which goes
some short way towards answering my question, but where is
the limit of detectability for that sort of sillyiness? How
little resistance -- in particular current dependent
resistance -- can be detected? How much
inductance/capacitance?

It does depend on the listener, but experience suggests
that level differences around 0.5-1 dB can be heard by
most listeners.

Thanks. I suppose it depends a fair bit on the amplifier and
speaker as to what effect a series resistance has on the
shape ultimate output.

I have no idea what you mean by 'current-dependent
resistance',

Like a varistor or for that matter a light bulb. If you put
10A through a piece of really thin wire it will warm up, so
its resistance will increase -- so one could argue that such
wire might not sound the same as a pure series resistor.

but capacitance has no effect in a speaker cable,

... at the sort of levels you might expect in wires? I think
if I put a 100ÂµF capacitor in parallel with the speaker
terminals something might be noticed :-)

and inductance simply rolls off the highs, although I've
not actually heard any difference even with a 3dB droop at
20kHz, which is a *very* extreme situation.

That is interesting. I /would/ have expected that to be
detectable (although not by anyone my age, alas).

--
JÃ³n Fairbairn