"Pooh Bear" wrote in message
...


Trevor Wilson wrote:

"Stewart Pinkerton" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 08 Dec 2005 13:57:04 GMT, "Bill Lorentzen"
wrote:

Are you guys saying plain stranded copper cable sounds as good as
"audio"
cable? I'm not arguing, I am just curious if you have ear-tested
experience
on this?

Yes, absolutely, no question. In the serious audio newsgroups, there's
even a $5,000 or so pool of money for anyone who can demonsrate an
ability to hear differences among cables. That money's been on the
table for about six years now, and no one has even *tried* to collect
it. You see lots of wild claims about 'cable sound', but no one steps
up to the plate. It's not even a bet, you just prove your point and
collect the prize!

**FIVE GRAND!!! Where can I get me some of that?

I reckon I can hear the difference between two speaker cables (of my
choosing) with the following equipment:

Cable 1: Goertz MI-1
Cable 2: Naim speaker cable

Cable length to be 20 Metres

These are the speakers I choose to use:

www.rageaudio.com.au/accu.jpg

So that'll be 10dB down @ 15kHz on an SET amp - LOL !

**Actually, at the end of 20 Metres of Naim speaker cable, it won't matter
much what amplifier is driving them. Naim cables are hugely inductive,
whilst the Goertz is hugely NON-inductive.


--
Trevor Wilson
www.rageaudio.com.au

"Trevor Wilson" wrote
**An Accoustat. I can't recall the model number. Any of the large
Accoustats
will do for my test. I just gotta figure how I will spend the 5
Grand.

Firstly on providing the speakers. Secondly on getting them and
yourself to the venue in USA, and on your return flight.

Scott Fraser wrote:
Are you guys saying plain stranded copper cable sounds as good as
"audio"
cable?

In my personal experience, yes. Some years back I inherited a bunch of
very fat Monster speaker cable from a defunct hi-fi store. Swapping
back & forth between it & 14/2 SJ cable provided no audible difference
whatsoever. This with a high end Carver amp & KEF speakers, so it was a
system capable of defining any distinctions had they existed.

Scott Fraser

I use to run plain old speaker wire simular to line cord wire from my
Hafler 500 to my ESS AMT-1D speakers at home. When I switched to
Audioquest Flatwire with solid strands, I noticed it made the highs
smoother an silkier and tightened up the bass a little.

Stan

I use to run plain old speaker wire simular to line cord wire from my
Hafler 500 to my ESS AMT-1D speakers at home. When I switched to
Audioquest Flatwire with solid strands, I noticed it made the highs
smoother an silkier and tightened up the bass a little.

How long was the wire?

Could the speakers have benefited from being shaken up as you moved them to
change the wire?

On Fri, 16 Dec 2005 19:01:31 GMT, "Trevor Wilson"
wrote:

"Stewart Pinkerton" wrote in message
.. .
On Thu, 08 Dec 2005 13:57:04 GMT, "Bill Lorentzen"
wrote:

Are you guys saying plain stranded copper cable sounds as good as "audio"
cable? I'm not arguing, I am just curious if you have ear-tested
experience
on this?

Yes, absolutely, no question. In the serious audio newsgroups, there's
even a $5,000 or so pool of money for anyone who can demonsrate an
ability to hear differences among cables. That money's been on the
table for about six years now, and no one has even *tried* to collect
it. You see lots of wild claims about 'cable sound', but no one steps
up to the plate. It's not even a bet, you just prove your point and
collect the prize!

**FIVE GRAND!!! Where can I get me some of that?

I reckon I can hear the difference between two speaker cables (of my
choosing) with the following equipment:

Cable 1: Goertz MI-1
Cable 2: Naim speaker cable

Cable length to be 20 Metres

These are the speakers I choose to use:

www.rageaudio.com.au/accu.jpg

Can I put you down for a few Squid?

I bet you $100,000 that you can't tell the difference between these
two cables - once you've added a small series inductor to the Goertz
MI to meet the basic prequalifier of matching to +/- 0.1dB at 1kHz
*and* 10kHz. Had you forgotten that requirement? :-)

--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering

On Fri, 16 Dec 2005 19:22:19 GMT, "Trevor Wilson"
wrote:


"Stewart Pinkerton" wrote in message
.. .
On Sun, 11 Dec 2005 14:59:18 -0500, yawn wrote:

You consider my Krell/Apogee system to be '****'? Interesting. But
irrelevant, since you can use any system you like.

**Cool. It'll be like taking candy from a baby. Sign me up. Where can I go
to collect my 5 Grand?

Anywhere you like - but you have to meet the level-matching criteria
of +/- 0.1dB at the speaker terminals, at 1kHz and 10kHz. This is
about magical mystical high-end claims, not LCR...............

--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering

"nowater" wrote in message
. ..
"Trevor Wilson" wrote
**An Accoustat. I can't recall the model number. Any of the large
Accoustats
will do for my test. I just gotta figure how I will spend the 5
Grand.

Firstly on providing the speakers. Secondly on getting them and
yourself to the venue in USA, and on your return flight.

**Those would be my problems. All are solvable.


--
Trevor Wilson
www.rageaudio.com.au

"Stewart Pinkerton" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 16 Dec 2005 19:22:19 GMT, "Trevor Wilson"
wrote:


"Stewart Pinkerton" wrote in message
. ..
On Sun, 11 Dec 2005 14:59:18 -0500, yawn wrote:

You consider my Krell/Apogee system to be '****'? Interesting. But
irrelevant, since you can use any system you like.

**Cool. It'll be like taking candy from a baby. Sign me up. Where can I go
to collect my 5 Grand?

Anywhere you like - but you have to meet the level-matching criteria
of +/- 0.1dB at the speaker terminals, at 1kHz and 10kHz. This is
about magical mystical high-end claims, not LCR...............

**So, your words: "since you can use any system you like." Are not quite
correct.


--
Trevor Wilson
www.rageaudio.com.au

"Stewart Pinkerton" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 16 Dec 2005 19:01:31 GMT, "Trevor Wilson"
wrote:

"Stewart Pinkerton" wrote in message
. ..
On Thu, 08 Dec 2005 13:57:04 GMT, "Bill Lorentzen"
wrote:

Are you guys saying plain stranded copper cable sounds as good as
"audio"
cable? I'm not arguing, I am just curious if you have ear-tested
experience
on this?

Yes, absolutely, no question. In the serious audio newsgroups, there's
even a $5,000 or so pool of money for anyone who can demonsrate an
ability to hear differences among cables. That money's been on the
table for about six years now, and no one has even *tried* to collect
it. You see lots of wild claims about 'cable sound', but no one steps
up to the plate. It's not even a bet, you just prove your point and
collect the prize!

**FIVE GRAND!!! Where can I get me some of that?

I reckon I can hear the difference between two speaker cables (of my
choosing) with the following equipment:

Cable 1: Goertz MI-1
Cable 2: Naim speaker cable

Cable length to be 20 Metres

These are the speakers I choose to use:

www.rageaudio.com.au/accu.jpg

Can I put you down for a few Squid?

I bet you $100,000 that you can't tell the difference between these
two cables - once you've added a small series inductor to the Goertz
MI to meet the basic prequalifier of matching to +/- 0.1dB at 1kHz
*and* 10kHz. Had you forgotten that requirement? :-)

**I thought we were looking for differences in speaker cables. I reckon I
could readily hear differences in speakers cables, given my above
requirements. What you are saying (if I may paraphrase) is this:

"There are measurable and audible differences in speaker cables, under
certain conditions." Is that more or less correct?


--
Trevor Wilson
www.rageaudio.com.au

Which, of course, has been demonstrated
elsewhere as being
an essentially bogus argument
under most circumstances.

Bogus unless you actually TRY it! Everyone can argue theory until they
are blue in the face, but fact is if you hook up your speakers with
bell wire I guarantee they will sound like crap. But, if you start to
theorize you immediately come to the conclusion that wire size doesn't
matter. I mean think about it. The force on the speaker cone is
determined solely by the CURRENT in the voice coil. You can force any
amount of current down any size wire (until you melt it) so QED. wire
size is of no importance. Right?

But any quick bell wire test shows that the theory is flawed somewhere.
And the flaw can't be related to losses in thin wire. You can run tests
at the same volume without getting near the maximum levels of the gear.
So then where is the problem?

Well, what you notice is that with thin wire, especially in long runs,
the sound seems all "loose and floopy" somehow. With heavy wire the
bass seems to tighten up and the sound gets a definition that wasn't
there with the thin wire. The problem has to be that somehow with
heavy wire the amplifier is reining in some of the natural speaker
vibrations that are muddying the sound. In other words (to use an "old"
term) speaker damping.

In other words the theory about current and speaker forces is actually
wrong. The reason it's wrong is that when the speaker moves it
generates voltages and the feedback system of the amplifier can use
those voltages to correct spurious speaker vibrations. The more
resistance there is between the amplifier output and the actually
driver, the more these motional signals get lost and the less the
amplifier corrects them.

If this idea is correct then it's clear that one COULD run speakers on
bell wire and have them sound good, BUT you'd have to have a 4 wire
system where 2 wires drive the current and two additional VOLTAGE
SENSING wires return to the amplifier feedback network. In that case
my guess is that you'd not hear any difference with wire gauge.

That's my theory and I'm sticking to it!

Benj

wrote:
[snip explanation of concept of damping factor]

If this idea is correct then it's clear that one COULD run speakers on
bell wire and have them sound good, BUT you'd have to have a 4 wire
system where 2 wires drive the current and two additional VOLTAGE
SENSING wires return to the amplifier feedback network. In that case
my guess is that you'd not hear any difference with wire gauge.

Correct. It's been done, decades ago. It doesn't work too well at high
frequencies because the feedback arrives too late and the amplifier
oscillates, but that can be compensated for, roughly speaking by putting
a capacitor between the power wire and the voltage sensing wire. The
result is an amplifier+cable output impedance that's like a small
inductor with near zero equivalent series resistance. The damping factor
is thus good at low frequencies where it matters.

(You still don't want the current-carrying wire too thin or you'll lose
maximum power capability though voltage drop)

The technique is still used with DC power supplies that have remote
sense wires separate from current-carrying output terminals.

The idea doesn't seem to have caught on in a big way commercially for
audio amplifiers: a popular modern approach to the problem is to have
active speakers where the wire length (and hence resistance) is negligible.

There have also been designs with negative output resistance, to
compensate for the speaker's voice coil resistance as well as that of
the wire. You can imagine how they behaved when tested with a wide
variety of different speakers :-) - but the technique is sometimes used
in active speakers where it's obviously more predictable.

And there was the "motion feedback" idea (Philips, I think) where a
separate winding on the speaker fed back the cone movement so the
feedback loop could cancel out cone movement distortion to some extent.

--
Anahata
-+- http://www.treewind.co.uk
Home: 01638 720444 Mob: 07976 263827

Stewart Pinkerton wrote:
On Fri, 16 Dec 2005 19:22:19 GMT, "Trevor Wilson" wrote:
"Stewart Pinkerton" wrote in message
. ..
On Sun, 11 Dec 2005 14:59:18 -0500, yawn wrote:

You consider my Krell/Apogee system to be '****'? Interesting. But
irrelevant, since you can use any system you like.

**Cool. It'll be like taking candy from a baby. Sign me up. Where can I go
to collect my 5 Grand?

Anywhere you like - but you have to meet the level-matching criteria
of +/- 0.1dB at the speaker terminals, at 1kHz and 10kHz. This is
about magical mystical high-end claims, not LCR...............

Most of those claims can be easily explained with LCR. You must realize
that a lot of the high-end cables are deliberately reactive in order to
deliberately change the sound in a subtle (and sometimes not so subtle)
way. Think of it as a replacement for tone controls.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

In other words the theory about current and speaker forces is actually
wrong. The reason it's wrong is that when the speaker moves it
generates voltages and the feedback system of the amplifier can use
those voltages to correct spurious speaker vibrations. The more
resistance there is between the amplifier output and the actually
driver, the more these motional signals get lost and the less the
amplifier corrects them.

If this idea is correct then it's clear that one COULD run speakers on
bell wire and have them sound good, BUT you'd have to have a 4 wire
system where 2 wires drive the current and two additional VOLTAGE
SENSING wires return to the amplifier feedback network. In that case
my guess is that you'd not hear any difference with wire gauge.

That's my theory and I'm sticking to it!

And it's a very sound theory. It's just like what is used with high-quality
laboratory DC power supplies.

Resistance in the speaker wires -- if it's more than maybe 3% of the
resistance of the speaker -- has long been known to affect sound quality,
not just loudness. (This is what we mean by the damping factor.) As you
say, speaker cone position responds to voltage. The more tightly the
amplifier can control it, the better. That's why the output impedance of a
good amplifier driving 8-ohm speakers will be something like 0.4 ohm.

"anahata" wrote in message
...
wrote:
[snip explanation of concept of damping factor]
snip
The idea doesn't seem to have caught on in a big way commercially for
audio amplifiers: a popular modern approach to the problem is to have
active speakers where the wire length (and hence resistance) is
negligible.

There have also been designs with negative output resistance, to
compensate for the speaker's voice coil resistance as well as that of the
wire. You can imagine how they behaved when tested with a wide variety of
different speakers :-) - but the technique is sometimes used in active
speakers where it's obviously more predictable.

Negative output resistance from an amplifier? OK.. I have built laser power
supplies for ion lasers that have to be able to control the plasma when the
laser exhibits negative resistance, but I have never heard of negative
resistance outputs from an amp.. please explain..

wrote:

When I switched to
Audioquest Flatwire with solid strands, I noticed it made the highs
smoother an silkier and tightened up the bass a little.

Stan

More likely you convinced yourself this was the case. Did you do any
blind testing back and forth by any chance?

C what I mean wrote:

Negative output resistance from an amplifier?
.. please explain..

OK, it's negative slope resistance, of course...
Amp produces a certain voltage unloaded. Draw current by connecting a
load to it: the output voltage increases slightly.

It's done by measuring the output current with a current sensing
resistor and feeding a signal proportional to the output current back
*positively*, mixed with the usual negative voltage feedback.

As long as the positive resistance of the load exceeds the negative
resistance designed into the amplifier, so the sum of the two
resistances (effectively in series) is positive, this is stable.

--
Anahata
-+- http://www.treewind.co.uk
Home: 01638 720444 Mob: 07976 263827

"anahata" wrote in message
...
C what I mean wrote:

Negative output resistance from an amplifier?
.. please explain..

OK, it's negative slope resistance, of course...
Amp produces a certain voltage unloaded. Draw current by connecting a load
to it: the output voltage increases slightly.

It's done by measuring the output current with a current sensing resistor
and feeding a signal proportional to the output current back *positively*,
mixed with the usual negative voltage feedback.

As long as the positive resistance of the load exceeds the negative
resistance designed into the amplifier, so the sum of the two resistances
(effectively in series) is positive, this is stable.

OK.. that is not what I would have ever called a negative resistance output
and I would doubt the term is technically correct. This is very much like
the IR comp on a DC motor drive. What you are calling negative resistance
is just another feedback loop. It this case it is positive feedback in
relation to current.

At least I do understand what you had in mind. Thanks!

I bet battery jumper cables would work great too!
And the big clamps at the back of the speakers would make a great, cool
looking conversation piece for the studio! :-)

snip

wrote:

Which, of course, has been demonstrated
elsewhere as being
an essentially bogus argument
under most circumstances.

Bogus unless you actually TRY it! Everyone can argue theory until they
are blue in the face, but fact is if you hook up your speakers with
bell wire I guarantee they will sound like crap. But, if you start to
theorize you immediately come to the conclusion that wire size doesn't
matter. I mean think about it. The force on the speaker cone is
determined solely by the CURRENT in the voice coil. You can force any
amount of current down any size wire (until you melt it) so QED. wire
size is of no importance. Right?

But any quick bell wire test shows that the theory is flawed somewhere.
And the flaw can't be related to losses in thin wire. You can run tests
at the same volume without getting near the maximum levels of the gear.
So then where is the problem?

Well, what you notice is that with thin wire, especially in long runs,
the sound seems all "loose and floopy" somehow. With heavy wire the
bass seems to tighten up and the sound gets a definition that wasn't
there with the thin wire. The problem has to be that somehow with
heavy wire the amplifier is reining in some of the natural speaker
vibrations that are muddying the sound. In other words (to use an "old"
term) speaker damping.

In other words the theory about current and speaker forces is actually
wrong. The reason it's wrong is that when the speaker moves it
generates voltages and the feedback system of the amplifier can use
those voltages to correct spurious speaker vibrations. The more
resistance there is between the amplifier output and the actually
driver, the more these motional signals get lost and the less the
amplifier corrects them.

If this idea is correct then it's clear that one COULD run speakers on
bell wire and have them sound good, BUT you'd have to have a 4 wire
system where 2 wires drive the current and two additional VOLTAGE
SENSING wires return to the amplifier feedback network. In that case
my guess is that you'd not hear any difference with wire gauge.

That's my theory and I'm sticking to it!

Certain specialist systems such as used in industrial control do indeed use
remote sensing feedback to get over the kind of problems you mention.

The trouble with doing it for audio speaker runs is the difficulting in
acheiving a stable wide bandwidth feedback path under conditions that very
wildly - like the length of the cable and the effect of same - notably
inductance on the combined transfer function at high frequencies..

Graham

anahata wrote:

wrote:
[snip explanation of concept of damping factor]

If this idea is correct then it's clear that one COULD run speakers on
bell wire and have them sound good, BUT you'd have to have a 4 wire
system where 2 wires drive the current and two additional VOLTAGE
SENSING wires return to the amplifier feedback network. In that case
my guess is that you'd not hear any difference with wire gauge.

Correct. It's been done, decades ago. It doesn't work too well at high
frequencies because the feedback arrives too late and the amplifier
oscillates, but that can be compensated for, roughly speaking by putting
a capacitor between the power wire and the voltage sensing wire. The
result is an amplifier+cable output impedance that's like a small
inductor with near zero equivalent series resistance. The damping factor
is thus good at low frequencies where it matters.

(You still don't want the current-carrying wire too thin or you'll lose
maximum power capability though voltage drop)

The technique is still used with DC power supplies that have remote
sense wires separate from current-carrying output terminals.

The idea doesn't seem to have caught on in a big way commercially for
audio amplifiers: a popular modern approach to the problem is to have
active speakers where the wire length (and hence resistance) is negligible.

There have also been designs with negative output resistance, to
compensate for the speaker's voice coil resistance as well as that of
the wire. You can imagine how they behaved when tested with a wide
variety of different speakers :-) - but the technique is sometimes used
in active speakers where it's obviously more predictable.

And there was the "motion feedback" idea (Philips, I think) where a
separate winding on the speaker fed back the cone movement so the
feedback loop could cancel out cone movement distortion to some extent.

Didn''t Philips' motional feedback actually use a piezo sensor ? The idea never
flourished though.

Graham

mc wrote:

In other words the theory about current and speaker forces is actually
wrong. The reason it's wrong is that when the speaker moves it
generates voltages and the feedback system of the amplifier can use
those voltages to correct spurious speaker vibrations. The more
resistance there is between the amplifier output and the actually
driver, the more these motional signals get lost and the less the
amplifier corrects them.

If this idea is correct then it's clear that one COULD run speakers on
bell wire and have them sound good, BUT you'd have to have a 4 wire
system where 2 wires drive the current and two additional VOLTAGE
SENSING wires return to the amplifier feedback network. In that case
my guess is that you'd not hear any difference with wire gauge.

That's my theory and I'm sticking to it!

And it's a very sound theory. It's just like what is used with high-quality
laboratory DC power supplies.

Resistance in the speaker wires -- if it's more than maybe 3% of the
resistance of the speaker -- has long been known to affect sound quality,
not just loudness. (This is what we mean by the damping factor.) As you
say, speaker cone position responds to voltage. The more tightly the
amplifier can control it, the better. That's why the output impedance of a
good amplifier driving 8-ohm speakers will be something like 0.4 ohm.

I doubt you'll find many solid state amplifiers with output impedances that
high.

More likely to be 0.1 ohms.

Graham

"Pooh Bear" wrote in message
...

Resistance in the speaker wires -- if it's more than maybe 3% of the
resistance of the speaker -- has long been known to affect sound quality,
not just loudness. (This is what we mean by the damping factor.) As you
say, speaker cone position responds to voltage. The more tightly the
amplifier can control it, the better. That's why the output impedance of
a
good amplifier driving 8-ohm speakers will be something like 0.4 ohm.

I doubt you'll find many solid state amplifiers with output impedances
that
high.

More likely to be 0.1 ohms.

Sorry, my age is showing

As you say, a good modern negative-feedback amplifier can achieve extremely
low output impedance.

On Sat, 17 Dec 2005 07:56:49 GMT, "Trevor Wilson"
wrote:


"Stewart Pinkerton" wrote in message
.. .
On Fri, 16 Dec 2005 19:22:19 GMT, "Trevor Wilson"
wrote:


"Stewart Pinkerton" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 11 Dec 2005 14:59:18 -0500, yawn wrote:

You consider my Krell/Apogee system to be '****'? Interesting. But
irrelevant, since you can use any system you like.

**Cool. It'll be like taking candy from a baby. Sign me up. Where can I go
to collect my 5 Grand?

Anywhere you like - but you have to meet the level-matching criteria
of +/- 0.1dB at the speaker terminals, at 1kHz and 10kHz. This is
about magical mystical high-end claims, not LCR...............

**So, your words: "since you can use any system you like." Are not quite
correct.

Sure they are, and you are just being disingenuous here, as the basic
rules have been posted at regular intervals for about six years. As
noted, this isn't about some braindead cheat like comparing ten feet
of 12 AWG with thirty feet of bell wire, it's about the bull****
claims of 'audiophile' cable makers (and their more gullible
customers).

--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering

On Sat, 17 Dec 2005 07:58:56 GMT, "Trevor Wilson"
wrote:


"Stewart Pinkerton" wrote in message
.. .
On Fri, 16 Dec 2005 19:01:31 GMT, "Trevor Wilson"
wrote:

"Stewart Pinkerton" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 08 Dec 2005 13:57:04 GMT, "Bill Lorentzen"
wrote:

Are you guys saying plain stranded copper cable sounds as good as
"audio"
cable? I'm not arguing, I am just curious if you have ear-tested
experience
on this?

Yes, absolutely, no question. In the serious audio newsgroups, there's
even a $5,000 or so pool of money for anyone who can demonsrate an
ability to hear differences among cables. That money's been on the
table for about six years now, and no one has even *tried* to collect
it. You see lots of wild claims about 'cable sound', but no one steps
up to the plate. It's not even a bet, you just prove your point and
collect the prize!

**FIVE GRAND!!! Where can I get me some of that?

I reckon I can hear the difference between two speaker cables (of my
choosing) with the following equipment:

Cable 1: Goertz MI-1
Cable 2: Naim speaker cable

Cable length to be 20 Metres

These are the speakers I choose to use:

www.rageaudio.com.au/accu.jpg

Can I put you down for a few Squid?

I bet you $100,000 that you can't tell the difference between these
two cables - once you've added a small series inductor to the Goertz
MI to meet the basic prequalifier of matching to +/- 0.1dB at 1kHz
*and* 10kHz. Had you forgotten that requirement? :-)

**I thought we were looking for differences in speaker cables. I reckon I
could readily hear differences in speakers cables, given my above
requirements. What you are saying (if I may paraphrase) is this:

"There are measurable and audible differences in speaker cables, under
certain conditions." Is that more or less correct?

Under extreme conditions, of course there are - but those basic (and
in fact pretty gross) LCR differences are *never* the basis of all the
bull**** claims made about cables.

As noted above, I can match several thousand dollars worth of solid
silver Goertz MI to basic zipcord, with a ten cent inductor. Or, if
you're going to bitch about the inductor being added to the Goertz, I
can match the MI with buck-a-foot computer ribbon cable instead.

--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering

On 17 Dec 2005 00:09:39 -0800, wrote:

Which, of course, has been demonstrated
elsewhere as being
an essentially bogus argument
under most circumstances.

Bogus unless you actually TRY it! Everyone can argue theory until they
are blue in the face, but fact is if you hook up your speakers with
bell wire I guarantee they will sound like crap.

How much cold cash will you put behind that 'guarantee'? I'll bet you
$10,000 that you can't tell the difference in almost any normal
domestic setup.

But, if you start to
theorize you immediately come to the conclusion that wire size doesn't
matter. I mean think about it. The force on the speaker cone is
determined solely by the CURRENT in the voice coil. You can force any
amount of current down any size wire (until you melt it) so QED. wire
size is of no importance. Right?

Right.

But any quick bell wire test shows that the theory is flawed somewhere.
And the flaw can't be related to losses in thin wire. You can run tests
at the same volume without getting near the maximum levels of the gear.
So then where is the problem?

There isn't one.

Well, what you notice is that with thin wire, especially in long runs,
the sound seems all "loose and floopy" somehow.

Bull****.

With heavy wire the
bass seems to tighten up and the sound gets a definition that wasn't
there with the thin wire. The problem has to be that somehow with
heavy wire the amplifier is reining in some of the natural speaker
vibrations that are muddying the sound. In other words (to use an "old"
term) speaker damping.

Nope, that is simply not true, as Dick Pierce has pointed out on many
occasions.

In other words the theory about current and speaker forces is actually
wrong.

Oh dear, I guess we'd better alert all the Universities who've been
happily teaching it for a century or two.....................

The reason it's wrong is that when the speaker moves it
generates voltages and the feedback system of the amplifier can use
those voltages to correct spurious speaker vibrations. The more
resistance there is between the amplifier output and the actually
driver, the more these motional signals get lost and the less the
amplifier corrects them.

An old wive's tale, debunked decades ago during the great 'damping
factor' wars, where ever higher numbers were claimed by some Japanese
manufacturers. Fact is that speaker damping has virtually nothing to
do with drive impedance, although you can certainly get relatively
minor (but audible) FR response changes under extreme conditions.

If this idea is correct then it's clear that one COULD run speakers on
bell wire and have them sound good, BUT you'd have to have a 4 wire
system where 2 wires drive the current and two additional VOLTAGE
SENSING wires return to the amplifier feedback network. In that case
my guess is that you'd not hear any difference with wire gauge.

That's my theory and I'm sticking to it!

That's your choice - but it doesn't compare well to reality. BTW, the
four-wire system (which is commonly used in industrial measuring gear)
has been tried for amps, but it had stability problems and fell out of
favour.
--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering

wrote:
Which, of course, has been demonstrated
elsewhere as being
an essentially bogus argument
under most circumstances.

MOst telling about your post is the justaposition of your second and
last sentences, quote:

"Everyone can argue theory until they are blue in the face, ..."

and

"That's my theory and I'm sticking to it!"

The demomstrated fact that you are dismissive of theory suggests
the appropriate level of credibility of your "theory."

But enought of the generalities, let's examine the specifics of
your various assertions.

but fact is if you hook up your speakers with
bell wire I guarantee they will sound like crap.

According to you, if I hook up speakers with, say, 3 feet of
enll wire, you will "guarantee they will sound like crap."

Let's look at your assertion form the view point of the reduction
in damping due to the DC resistance introduced by the bell wire.
We'll asume you mean 24 gauge copper wire. SUch wire has an
electrical resistance of 0.0257 ohms/ft, which means that a 3 foot
run of bell wire will introduce an added 0.155 ohms to the entire
speaker amplifier circuit.

Let's assume, reasonably, a speaker that consists of a sealed box
system optimized for a Qtc of 0.71, a 2nd order Butterworth alignment.
Let's further reaonsably assume a nominal 8 ohm impedance, a
voice coil DC resistance of 7 ohms, and that the mechanical Qmc
of the system is 2.5 (indicating a high0loss surround typically found
very high-quality systems, we ARE assuming a very high quality
system, yes?) and thus an electrical Qec of :

Qec = (Qmc*Qtc)/(Qmc-Qtc)

about .972. From Richard Small, we find that the Qec (which is, in
fact, the objective measure of electrical damping) is changed by
added DC resistance as:

Qec' = Qec (Re + Rs)/Re

where Re = voice coil DC resistance and Rs = source resistance.
Thus, in our case:

Qec' = 0.71 * (7+0.15)/7

or the Q has been raised to 0.725. The effect of this is to add a hump
in the response at resonance of 0.02 dB.

So, given this, and absent any concrete numbers from you to the
contrary, you're willing to gaurantee that these speakers "will sound
like crap," right?

But, if you start to
theorize you immediately come to the conclusion that wire size doesn't
matter.

No one other than you made that statement. Why did you make such
a foolish statement?

I mean think about it.

I might recommend that you follow your own advice, kind sir.

The force on the speaker cone is
determined solely by the CURRENT in the voice coil.

False. Absolutely 100% false. The total force on the cone is the
cevtor some of the the various forces excerted by the voice coil,
the force exerted by the reactive portion of the radiation impedance,
the mechanical compliance of the surround and centering spider,
the acoustical compliance of the air in the ennclosure and many
other factors. That's why the frequency response of a speaker is
NOT a direct function of the current through the voice coil.

What you MAY mean, and either you didn't say or didn't know to
say, is that the first order force exerted by the voice coil is a
function
of the product of the flux density in the voice coil, the length of
the
voice coil inductor immersed in the magnetic field, and the current
passing through the voice coil. Which is NOT what you said above.

You can force any
amount of current down any size wire (until you melt it) so QED. wire
size is of no importance. Right?

No, who on earth other than you makes such silly assumptions?

But any quick bell wire test shows that the theory is flawed somewhere.

Hmmm, interesting assertion. As I have performed quite literally
thousands of such tests, it would seem the theory is NOT flawed
somewhare, as it does an excellent job of modeling physical reality.

Nowe, by that I mean the actual theory that the researchers, designers
and technicians use, NOT the "theory" you state here, which is clearly
flawed.

And the flaw can't be related to losses in thin wire. You can run tests
at the same volume without getting near the maximum levels of the gear.
So then where is the problem?

The problem would seem to be, if you don't mind me answering your
question, is that you have a funcamental lack of understanding of the
theory and are relying instead on what appears to be assumptions nased
in anything from advertising hyperbole to high-end myth.

In other words the theory about current and speaker forces is actually
wrong.

An interesting assertion. Would you like the address of people such as
Beranek, Kellog, Thiele, Small, Benson and many widely acknowledged
experts in the field so that you can show them how they and others
have
been wrong for the last 100 years and you've been the only one who's
right?

The reason it's wrong is that when the speaker moves it
generates voltages and the feedback system of the amplifier can use
those voltages to correct spurious speaker vibrations.

Well, at this point, it's time to get down to brass tacks.

Simply stated, this is utter nonsense, and provably so. The existance
of the amplifier feedback has absolutely NOTHING to do with it. This
is trivially demonstrated by showing that the damping of a speaker
driven by an amplifier with feedback and an output resistance of 0.1
ohms is IDENTICAL to the same speaker with NO amplifier, terminated
by a 0.1 ohm resistor or even by a high impedance current source
amplifier with a 0.1 ohm shunt in place.

While your "feedback theory" you expound might seem nice and convenient
and even intuitively correct, it's just plain wrong.

The more
resistance there is between the amplifier output and the actually
driver, the more these motional signals get lost and the less the
amplifier corrects them.

Wrong, again. It's far simpler than that, as everyone who has ACTUALLY
studied the physics of the situation is aware. The damping of any
mechanically resonant system is propoertion to the energy stored in the

system to the energy dissipated. IN the case of loudpeakers, there
are three means of energy dissipation: Energy radiated into the room,
which has a minisule effect on damping, energy lost in mechanical
absorbtion, i.e., friction, and energy lost electrically, usually the
dominant
loss mechnism.

Small and others have shown that the electrical damping, stated by
the electrical Qe is proportional to the product of the total series
electrical resistance (INCLUDING THAT OF THE VOICE COIL!), the
mass of the driver divided by the square of the magnet system's
Bl product. The total damping on the speaker is the result of the
combined electrical, mechanical and acoustical damping, as stated
above.

Since it is the TOTAL series resistance we are concerned with, one
MUST account for the voice coil resistance in making any such
assertion. And unless you can point to actual pathological results,
AND account for this DC resistance, and since in all but the
pathological
cases, the voice coil resistance dominates the total series resistance,
your theory is, in a word, so much empty poppycock.

If this idea is correct then it's clear that one COULD run speakers on
bell wire and have them sound good,

It was demonstrated above that at least in one plausible example,
this is NOT the case. Since you have presented NO evidence, and since
you're "theory" seems to be lacking any substantive backing, ...

That's my theory and I'm sticking to it!

That much is obvious, despite:

1. Complete lack of foundation,
2. No adherence to a well-researched and supported body of
theory and evidence
3. NO mathematical underpinnings,
4. Lack of ability to predict actual measured behavior,
5. No measured behavior that supports the theory whatsoever.

wrote:

Slight mistake in the calculations. The electircal Qec resulting in the
system described is 0.99. The addition of 0.15 ohms of series
resistance will effect the electrical Qec directly, as stated:

Qec' = 0.99 * (7+0.15)/7

or a Qec of 1.01. But that's the electrical Q, not the total Q (or
damping)
which goes as:

Qtc' = (Wmc*Qec')/(Qmc+Qec')

or, in our example, Qtc' now becomes 0.719. And the difference in
frequency response resulting from the change in damping is less
that 0.01 dB, less than the original estimate.

If you care to dispute the figures, consider doing it in kind, i.e.,
with
a reasonable degree of rigor, rather than half-baked notions ill-
founded nonsense about feedback and more. It might help your
position, but only in the sense that it would force it to be seriously
revised.

In article ,
Pooh Bear wrote:



Didn''t Philips' motional feedback actually use a piezo sensor ? The idea
never
flourished though.

Graham

then there is always the
http://www.meyersound.com/products/studioseries/x-10/

Edwin

Edwin Hurwitz wrote:

then there is always the
http://www.meyersound.com/products/studioseries/x-10/


http://www.meyersound.com/products/studioseries/x-10/
the X-10 reproduces audio signals with astounding clarity, unequalled
depth of field and pinpoint imaging.

Pinpoint imaging? Is this a good thing?

wrote in message
oups.com...

wrote:
snip
False. Absolutely 100% false. The total force on the cone is the
cevtor some of the the various forces excerted by the voice coil,
the force exerted by the reactive portion of the radiation impedance,
the mechanical compliance of the surround and centering spider,
the acoustical compliance of the air in the ennclosure and many
other factors. That's why the frequency response of a speaker is
NOT a direct function of the current through the voice coil.
snip

I assume you meant vector sum and "cevtor some" is not something I have
never heard of before..... true?

BTW, great piece of work!

mc wrote:
Resistance in the speaker wires -- if it's more than maybe 3% of the
resistance of the speaker -- has long been known to affect sound quality,
not just loudness.

If may have been "long known," but that doesn't make it right. There's
a lot in the audio realm that's "well known" or "widely accepted"
that's
also wrong, damping factor being one of the more common examples.

A source resistance of 3% corresponds to a "damping factor"
of 33. The effects of this are fairly easy to derive. Below is a table
excerpted from a more extensive article I have posted in the past
a number of time. It's based on a real-world system using a sealed
box system nominally tuned to a Qtc of 0.707 whose voice coil DC
resistance is 6.5 ohms. (note: this table is best viewed using a
fixed-spaced font).

DF Rs QE' QT' Gh(max) Td
inf 0 0.925 0.707 0.0 dB 0.04 sec
2000 0.004 0.926 0.707 0.0 0.04
1000 0.008 0.926 0.708 0.0 0.04
500 0.016 0.927 0.708 0.0001 0.04
200 0.04 0.931 0.71 0.0004 0.04
100 0.08 0.936 0.714 0.0015 0.04
50 0.16 0.948 0.72 0.0058 0.04
20 0.4 0.982 0.74 0.033 0.041
10 0.8 1.04 0.77 0.11 0.043
5 1.6 1.15 0.83 0.35 0.047
2 4 1.49 0.99 1.24 0.056
1 8 2.06 1.22 2.54 0.069

Where
DF - damping factor
Rs - source resistance, the resistance of the cable
Qe' - Electricl Q as affected by source resistance
Qt' - Total system Q as affected by source resistance
Gh(max) - peak in response at system resonance resulting
increase in Qt'
Td - Response decay time in seconds due to damping

Even at a damping factor of 20 (source resistance is 5% of
speaker impedance), the result is only a 0.33 dB hump in
the response due to "loss of damping", and a negligable
increase in the decay time of the sstem at resonance..

If we take the criteria of requiring a 0.1 dB response change
to be audible, that drops us to a damping factor of 10!

The point that the respondants here are attempting to make
about the importance of damping factor simply ignores the fact
that THE controlling influence of electrical damping is NOT the
amplifier source resistance, it's the resistance of the winding
in the voice coil. The one poster who made the silly assertions
about "bell wire" either ignores or is ignorant of the fact that his
voice ocils are wound with many DOZENS of feet of wire that's
likely to be substantially smaller than bell wire!

Example: a 6.5" high-qiality woofer (the one used in the
example above) has 104 turns of 28 guage wire, totaling
34 FEET of wire that's less than HALF the diameter of bell
wire.

In fact, if one would take the time to actually study and understand
the mechanisms at work, you'd come to the conclusion, reasonably,
that "damping factor: is NOT a measure of how WELL the amplifier is
controlling damping, but how INSIGNIFICANT it's contribution to the
total damping picture it is: the higher the damping factor, the less
relevant it is in determining the total system Q.

Note: for the complete article, check out

www.cartchunk.org/audiotopics/DampingFactor.pdf

wrote in message
ps.com
mc wrote:
Resistance in the speaker wires -- if it's more than
maybe 3% of the resistance of the speaker -- has long
been known to affect sound quality, not just loudness.

If may have been "long known," but that doesn't make it
right. There's a lot in the audio realm that's "well
known" or "widely accepted" that's
also wrong, damping factor being one of the more common
examples.

A source resistance of 3% corresponds to a "damping
factor"
of 33. The effects of this are fairly easy to derive.
Below is a table excerpted from a more extensive article
I have posted in the past
a number of time. It's based on a real-world system using
a sealed box system nominally tuned to a Qtc of 0.707
whose voice coil DC resistance is 6.5 ohms. (note: this
table is best viewed using a fixed-spaced font).

DF Rs QE' QT' Gh(max) Td
inf 0 0.925 0.707 0.0 dB 0.04 sec
2000 0.004 0.926 0.707 0.0 0.04
1000 0.008 0.926 0.708 0.0 0.04
500 0.016 0.927 0.708 0.0001 0.04
200 0.04 0.931 0.71 0.0004 0.04
100 0.08 0.936 0.714 0.0015 0.04
50 0.16 0.948 0.72 0.0058 0.04
20 0.4 0.982 0.74 0.033 0.041
10 0.8 1.04 0.77 0.11 0.043
5 1.6 1.15 0.83 0.35 0.047
2 4 1.49 0.99 1.24 0.056
1 8 2.06 1.22 2.54 0.069

Where
DF - damping factor
Rs - source resistance, the resistance of the cable
Qe' - Electricl Q as affected by source resistance
Qt' - Total system Q as affected by source resistance
Gh(max) - peak in response at system resonance resulting
increase in Qt'
Td - Response decay time in seconds due to damping

Even at a damping factor of 20 (source resistance is 5% of
speaker impedance), the result is only a 0.33 dB hump in
the response due to "loss of damping", and a negligable
increase in the decay time of the sstem at resonance..

If we take the criteria of requiring a 0.1 dB response
change
to be audible, that drops us to a damping factor of 10!

If a DF of 20 gives a 0.33 dB hump, then it should take a higher, not lower
DF to get a smaller hump, no?

Just roughly extrapolating, it seems like a DF of from 60 to no more than
100 would be required for a smaller, 0.1 dB hump.

wrote in message

ps.com

DF Rs QE' QT' Gh(max) Td
inf 0 0.925 0.707 0.0 dB 0.04 sec
2000 0.004 0.926 0.707 0.0 0.04
1000 0.008 0.926 0.708 0.0 0.04
500 0.016 0.927 0.708 0.0001 0.04
200 0.04 0.931 0.71 0.0004 0.04
100 0.08 0.936 0.714 0.0015 0.04
50 0.16 0.948 0.72 0.0058 0.04
20 0.4 0.982 0.74 0.033 0.041
10 0.8 1.04 0.77 0.11 0.043
5 1.6 1.15 0.83 0.35 0.047
2 4 1.49 0.99 1.24 0.056
1 8 2.06 1.22 2.54 0.069
Even at a damping factor of 20 (source resistance is 5% of
speaker impedance), the result is only a 0.33 dB hump in
the response due to "loss of damping", and a negligable
increase in the decay time of the system at resonance..

If a DF of 20 gives a 0.33 dB hump, then it should take a higher,
not lower DF to get a smaller hump, no?

Sorry, the table is correct, but there's a typo in the text: it's
0.033, not
0.33 dB.

Just roughly extrapolating, it seems like a DF of from 60 to no
more than100 would be required for a smaller, 0.1 dB hump.

No, ignoring the typon, a DF of 20 results in a bump of 0.033 dB,
and a DF of 10 gives a bump of 0.11 dB. The lower the damping
the larger the peak, but you don't start hitting significant response
variatiuons due to damping until very low damping factors.

I assume you meant vector sum and "cevtor some" is not something I have
never heard of before..... true?

Maybe a cevtor is to a vector what a cepstrum is to a spectrum?

(Audio theorists, if you're not familiar with cepstrum theory, look it up.
It really is a swapped-around spectrum.)

On Mon, 19 Dec 2005 06:50:52 GMT, in rec.audio.tech , "Dr. Dolittle"
in
wrote:

Edwin Hurwitz wrote:

then there is always the
http://www.meyersound.com/products/studioseries/x-10/


http://www.meyersound.com/products/studioseries/x-10/
the X-10 reproduces audio signals with astounding clarity, unequalled
depth of field and pinpoint imaging.

Pinpoint imaging? Is this a good thing?

If you have a head the size of a pinpoint, sure.

--
Matt Silberstein

Do something today about the Darfur Genocide

http://www.beawitness.org
http://www.darfurgenocide.org
http://www.savedarfur.org

"Darfur: A Genocide We can Stop"

mc wrote:

I assume you meant vector sum and "cevtor some" is not something I have
never heard of before..... true?

Maybe a cevtor is to a vector what a cepstrum is to a spectrum?

(Audio theorists, if you're not familiar with cepstrum theory, look it up.
It really is a swapped-around spectrum.)

Guess one needs to run this stuff through an appropriate ~lifter~ .

Later...

Ron Capik
--

Ron Capik wrote:
mc wrote:

I assume you meant vector sum and "cevtor some" is not something I have
never heard of before..... true?

Maybe a cevtor is to a vector what a cepstrum is to a spectrum?

(Audio theorists, if you're not familiar with cepstrum theory, look it up.
It really is a swapped-around spectrum.)

Guess one needs to run this stuff through an appropriate ~lifter~ .

I don't see the borplem.

Yep. Be sure it's twisted Pair.

LeeSalter wrote:
Yep. Be sure it's twisted Pair.

Even if we knew to what Mr. Salter was replying,
it wouldn't make any sense.