All you need is to run a sine sweep through a v divider.

Do you expect everybody to have a freq/sweep generator and know how to
plot
or interpret the returned values?

I think there are several people in here who know what a sine sweep is, and
they have access to either a laptop to run their amplifiers directly or can
burn a cd.

Perhaps you should expound upon your
premise and tell us all exactly how to set up this test. What should be
our upper and lower frequency endpoints? What should be our driving
voltage. What are the values for the two elements of the voltage divider?
Should they be two capacitors, two inductors or two resistors?.

Whatever is significant for the question at hand. You can run 20-20k,
noting first the value of the reactance of the resistor and using that to
calculate the impedance of the wire.

As for the
voltage divider, Is the proper method for finding the "unknown" value of a
passive component the "nulling bridge" or is it a simple two component
voltage divider? Please elucidate us.

It depends on the accuracy that you need. I provided an example of the
simplest means by which it can be done. Do you know of an easier way, that
doesn't require exotic equipment or circuit building skills? It's much
easier to burn a cd and read off an oscilloscope or voltmeter.


The upshot is that an
"RF" antenna can be made with any combination of L C and R. Your
alternator is a great source of RF. So, antenna + RF source = noise.
You did right by choosing a different RCA cable.

The reactance values don't differ enough for this to be an issue.

Please supply us with hard data, lemma or proof that your above statement
has foundation and merit.

I've measured the values myself. It's obviously not published. I can,
however, provide a J.AES article where reactance was measured for a number
of different wires, with different geometric properties, materials, and
supposed build quality (exemplified by price, I suppose).

http://www.geocities.com/audiotechpa...ractions. pdf

My assertion is that differences in the impedance values of the cables
tested in the Davis paper will not result in attenuation or phase distortion
or hysteresis or any other parameter enough to exceed the corresponding
psychophysical thresholds of a human observer when tested under actual
conditions, especially in a car (but not necessarily so). If you want the
"proofs" for the psychophysics, I could provide some other papers. You'll
need to give me some time to scan them in. Or I could just give you
references. Of course the psychophysics is much less consistent, but the
point is still well illustrated and sound.

If the reactance value differentials are so minute, then might I suggest
that you should always use either the cheapest RCA cables that you can
find, *ANY* old cable that is lying around or even parallel speaker cable.

You could, yes. But there are other variables at play as well. Most
notably, durability and flexibility.

I was merely pointing out that a poor quality, poor choice of cable type
or
bad cable can become an RF antenna and admit noise into an audio system.

Perhaps you should focus on the positives instead of arguing minutia. If
you can indeed prove me wrong that LCR combinations do not make an
antenna,
then I am more than willing to sit on a peer panel and review your proof
or
dissertation.

Arguing minutia? Sometimes arguing minutia is important. God is in the
details. Anyway, I didn't mean to sound like I was nitpicking what you
said. My post had two components: one that offered a simpler (though,
admittedly, less accurate) approach to make rough measurements of a
parameter. The other component was to refute your assertion that LC values
are significant enough to introduce a problem. I've never run into a
reproducable situation where this is the case, and I often use "cheap"
cables. And it doesn't make sense that the differences in reactance would
be substantial enough for the effect to be present in cable A but not cable
B, and for there ALSO to be a correlation between the effect you describe
and geometry/price/"quality".