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Advice Needed: Interconnects/Speaker wire
wrote:
There is no such thing as scientific fact. All a scientist can do is prove
a theory -- with the knowledge and understanding we humans have at this
moment in time. Engineers apply such 'facts' in their designs, but all
this gives us is 'what we know now' engineering. Look back at human
history; 'facts' are shown to be flawed all the time.
Ah, but we do know three pieces of data about the human body and two
about the wire.
- The human body has a finite limit on how fast its neurons can fire.
This limits the resolution, much how we can't really see much beyond
50-60fps.
- The human ear has a specific range for frequency response. Now, not
everyone is that same, to be sure, but we all fit within a rough range
of ~20hz-20Khz.
- The same is true for dynamics. Your ears resolve tiny db differences
only to about .2db in the best circumstances. That's a side-by side
comparison, too - our minds will gloss over values almost ten times
that large if there is no direct comparison.
- We know the loss values for any given gauge of wire and length. That's
a given.
- We can easily translate that into db loss if we know the speaker's minimum
impedance. IME, .2 db is very close to this threshold, so you can safely
use 2% loss as a limit. I personally think the recommended 5% maximum is
too large, btw.
What does this all mean? Science can tell us exactly how large a wire
we need for a specific installation and impedance(speaker) in order for
any differences to be physically indistinguishable and beyond the
limits of our ears and mind.
For most 8 ohm applications, 12-14 gauge plain vanilla wire is well beyond
this threshold. For something like Electrostatics, though, and, say, a
long run, you might need to go as large as 4 or 6 gauge.
No myth, no theories - easily calculatable facts.
Can a $1,000 cable be 'proved' to be more musical than a $15 one? Who is
to say for certain?
Musical is a vague term. Do you mean makes you feel good emotionally,
or is sonically accurate and has no descernable effect on the sound?
I have no proble, personally, with either. If you want a specific look
for your audio system, or have a special need(like flat wire under a
carper), so be it. If you want transparent wires, that can be tested
and calculated.
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