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Dick Pierce Dick Pierce is offline
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Default Audio Interconnect cable Performance - is Return Wire Diameter a Factor?

On Thursday, December 3, 2020 at 9:47:46 AM UTC-5, Peter Wieck wrote:
The typical patch-cord from an active pre-amp of modern design may carry as much as
twenty (20) Volts at some small fraction of an amp, and unless something is very wrong,
always AC. So, not many electrons (amps), but those few are moving REALLY fast at higher
frequencies.


Uh, no, they are not. The movement of the electrons themselves are described by their
"drift velocity", which is dependent upon the conductor material, the cross-section of
the conductor, and the current it is being asked to carry. Frequency plays no role.

Let's take an example: consider a small signal wire, say 24 AWG with a diameter of about
0.5 mm. Let's say it's being asked to carry 0.001 amp (one milliamp, which is HUGE for
a preamp interconnect: your unrealistic example of 20 volts into, say, a 100 k load would
be on the order of 0.0002 amps., but let's go with 1 mA).

The resulting electron drift velocity would be, what?

1000m/s? Nope.

100m/s? No way.

10m/s? Way too much.

Try 0.13 cm/hour. 0.00000082 miles per hour.

Independent of frequency.

Dick Pierce