Speaker cable lengths.

I did say I wasn't going to reply to this thread ......as but

the lunatics seem to have taken over the asylum ....


firstly ...lets all see the fag packet math .......


secondly only one person has answer my question

but who does run cables of significant different lengths ie a ratio of lets say 10 to 1


nor

has anyone commented about running dissimilar types of cable on left and right channel ......ie qed 79 strand on one side and lets pick some thing at random a chord offering be it equal or unequal lengths ....


yes ....I've done it ...
yes you can hear the difference
yes its demonstratable......[assuming you have the gear of sufficient music resolution, and ears to match ]


like the old adage says ...just because one person can't hear something does'nt mean that its not there, it just means that they can't [wont] hear it !



An anecdote ...........in the dim past I had a long discuss with a contributer about ic cables ....basically I can hear a difference and they could not ....[which is ok as far as I'm concerned .. but they wanted to convince everybody otherwise] so I sent off a very nice set of silver cables ......

I had a nice letter back saying there appeared to be no audible difference between the cable he was currently using and mine ......ok I though nothing more of it .......but hay six months later on a different forum ...this person goes into great detail about his setup ...pics and everything .....

well blow me he was now using silver cable ..and extolling there virtues ......
just goes to show !

now I'm not going to out anyone for hypocrisy .....but you know who you are !

just remember all those who take the stance that .......things ie cable lengths , having amps with equal length signal paths , conductor metalurgy , cleaning cd's etc the list is endless, can't possibly make any differences. Are often
doing something completely different in there own cosy listening rooms ....


again like the chap who argued that his setreo sounded better down the hall in the kitchen [when it was in the lounge] !....yes I bet it did !

ps ...thats not a rant ..but humour of a sort ..so please just wipe your eyes and stop blubing

pps remember things said on forums are only opinions often sincerely held ...but still just opinions [unless demostratble !]



ppps I'm also not an advocate for expensive cables ....my current ones cost less that £15 worth of copper wirewrap wire and a couple hours of my time. on a system cost the thick end of 15k.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
zanash said:
I did say I wasn't going to reply to this thread ......as but

the lunatics seem to have taken over the asylum ....


firstly ...lets all see the fag packet math .......


secondly only one person has answer my question

but who does run cables of significant different lengths ie a ratio of lets say 10 to 1


nor

has anyone commented about running dissimilar types of cable on left and right channel ......ie qed 79 strand on one side and lets pick some thing at random a chord offering be it equal or unequal lengths ....


yes ....I've done it ...
yes you can hear the difference
yes its demonstratable......[assuming you have the gear of sufficient music resolution, and ears to match ]


like the old adage says ...just because one person can't hear something does'nt mean that its not there, it just means that they can't [wont] hear it !



An anecdote ...........in the dim past I had a long discuss with a contributer about ic cables ....basically I can hear a difference and they could not ....[which is ok as far as I'm concerned .. but they wanted to convince everybody otherwise] so I sent off a very nice set of silver cables ......

I had a nice letter back saying there appeared to be no audible difference between the cable he was currently using and mine ......ok I though nothing more of it .......but hay six months later on a different forum ...this person goes into great detail about his setup ...pics and everything .....

well blow me he was now using silver cable ..and extolling there virtues ......
just goes to show !

now I'm not going to out anyone for hypocrisy .....but you know who you are !

just remember all those who take the stance that .......things ie cable lengths , having amps with equal length signal paths , conductor metalurgy , cleaning cd's etc the list is endless, can't possibly make any differences. Are often
doing something completely different in there own cosy listening rooms ....


again like the chap who argued that his setreo sounded better down the hall in the kitchen [when it was in the lounge] !....yes I bet it did !

ps ...thats not a rant ..but humour of a sort ..so please just wipe your eyes and stop blubing

pps remember things said on forums are only opinions often sincerely held ...but still just opinions [unless demostratble !]



ppps I'm also not an advocate for expensive cables ....my current ones cost less that £15 worth of copper wirewrap wire and a couple hours of my time. on a system cost the thick end of 15k.
Click to expand...

Zanash,

I am afraid anything you say about cables is tainted by the fact that you make (or at least made) foo cables commercially.

Of course you are going to say that cables make a difference. You cannot even begin to prove it, though, can you.

Chris
 
zanash said:
the lunatics seem to have taken over the asylum ....

<snip>

but who does run cables of significant different lengths ie a ratio of lets say 10 to 1

<snip>

An anecdote ...........
Click to expand...

- We let the lunatics out on day release a while ago and they haven't returned.

- I use 7m on the right speaker and 5m on the left. Even different colours for easy ID ;)
But to answer your question, cables are generally sold in stereo pairs of equal length and a ratio of 10:1 would produce some odd system layouts. Then of course there is misinformation spread by cable sellers that put unfounded doubts into the minds of users.

- An anecdote...... doesn't cut any ice in the circumstances. Unless you forgot to mention that the evaluations were done blind?
 
"firstly ...lets all see the fag packet math ......."

c=300000km/hr = 300,000,000m/hr, speed of sound at sea level = 340.3m/s
Allow a velocity factor of 0.5 (pessimistic)
 velocity of voltage change in a cable = (300,000,000x0.5)m/hr = 150,000,000m/hr
 time for signal to travel 0.5m = 0.5/150,000,000 = 3.3x10^-9 s
 time for signal to travel 10m = 10/150,000,000 = 6.7x10^-8 s
 the signal will reach the loudspeaker at the end of the 0.5m cable (6.7x10^-8-3.3x10^-9) = 6.3x10^-8 secs before it reaches the loudspeaker at the end of the 10m cable.
 In 6.3x10^-8seconds, sound travels 340 x 6.3x10^-8 = 2.15 x 10^-5 meters = 21.5 microns < 0.001".

So moving your head by one thousandth of an inch will have a greater effect on imaging and phase coherence, as stated.

Chris
 
"but who does run cables of significant different lengths ie a ratio of lets say 10 to 1"

My left hand speaker cable is about 1.5m, the right hand one about 4m. And it is cheap Maplin 79 strand stuff. Sounds just like any other electrically neutral cable.

Chris
 
Mescalito said:
In the situation where there are speaker leads of equal length, the effect of listening to a system with 1 cable is 0.5m and the other is 10m can be duplicated by moving your head by 22 microns (about a thousandth of an inch).

So, you can see, the imaging and phase coherence is going to be totally f*cked up by assymetric cabling!

Chris
Click to expand...

I am sure we are both singing from the same hymn sheet here Chris. But a 13metre difference could potentially alter the LCR characteristics to the point of it being audible, but as you rightly said this it is so easily negated that it is irrelavent.

I was just being a tiny bit pedantic. However keeping them the same length has some commercial benefits if at some point you wish to sell on.

I have cables of different lengths for all my speakers in our "play" room as I made them to fit after the room was built so selling on is not an issue
 
You could, if you think it will matter, electrically balance the cables by adding the appropriate resistor, inductor and capacitor to the shorter cable. I think you would struggle to find any that small in the case of 1m and 10m though.

I've used different cables for tweeters and woofers in speaker designs before, and it makes no difference. If what Zanash says is true, then you should use the same cables for tweeters and woofers or the sound would be un-matched where the drivers cross-over.
 
I don't think that's really fair to be honest, since according to his signature he doesn't sell cables anymore. I still don't agree with him though.
 
I must say, I haven't posted here for quite a while. Nor really read anything Hi-Fi related. Seems to be a bit of a shift (here anyway) in the whole cables thing. For the good I think. Are we finally sending the marketing men packing?

Is Russ Andrews still in business?!
 
Mescalito said:
"but who does run cables of significant different lengths ie a ratio of lets say 10 to 1"

My left hand speaker cable is about 1.5m, the right hand one about 4m. And it is cheap Maplin 79 strand stuff. Sounds just like any other electrically neutral cable.

Chris
Click to expand...


just goes to show ...no wonder !


79strand is not neutral ....... its sound thick warm and turgid, with an unpeasent hard edge imo. As for the generic stuff all my sample sound truley appalling ...may be you've been luck and got a good set ?



unless specialy treated copper and especially stranded copper canbe considered to have a hump [can't be true as cables can only take away not add ...but for the purpose of the discussion] in the upper bass often with a warm soft presentation

the higher the strand count the bigger the percieved hump in the upper bass...

silver plating the strand s will add a rising treble giving perhaps the very worst combination of both copper and silver propeties .

sold core and litz copper varrients keep the warm and rosy glow to the sound but have an extended bass or rather smooths the hump down through the mid to lower bass ....

silver ...in comparision is smooth buttery effortless though does lack bottom end add dymamic and natural but of course the down side is prohbitive cost

then again none of you can tell the difference anyway ......

one of the very best speaker cables can be bought from wilco...twin and earth
15amp type ......

I recently install four systems in a house ..all the components had been collected by the chaps uncle over the forty years ...upgrading amp and speaker regularly but never selling the old gear ....when cd came along he had a steady stream of different units ...anyway that set the scene .....

in amongst this cornucopia of gear .....were speaker cables of all vintages and costs ..79 strand qed and generic ..along with several gale types in that horid flesh coloured plastic .....

we set up the best system ..marantz 6001 cdp b&w dm2 rotel amp can remember the designation but only a couple of years old ....

so heres the rub ...the chap in to music but not hifi .....

we sat and listened .... he felt something was not right .....

swapping out the 79 strand for the gale .... differences were obvious to him ....

[when setting up gear I don't offer comments on the sound to the owner , but wil offer sugestions as to the dirrection to go to achieve best performance with the gear available and within a predetermined budget]

but still not right ......we tried a set of silver plated something or other qed spiral ? they didn't last long ...

so a quick trip to wilco and he's the happy owner of 2 x 5m of very nice solid core copper [note the eart was connected up to increase the crossectional area of the negative ..the difference is small but in this case worthwhile ]

moral of the story .....that obvious !

when we had the next two systems setup using slightly lesser gear marantz 5000cdp marantz amp of same vintage in a monster case and danish tangent speakers , and finally a ferrogaph amp with little warfdales on tall stands [diamonds ?] with an aging denon cdp ...

the qed and gale cables were used in those .

Back to the main system we dropped out the 6001 and swapped for my quad 99cdp2 ...he was gob smacked at the change he thought all cdp's were a muchness [like some on here !] ....then playing the same track for about the 30th time that day I fitted a set of ic using platinum conductors against the yellow paciffics [richer sound] .... even I was suprised ...gone were the harsh metalic notes no hard digitalness ........just very peasent and absorbing music .

so why is it that someone how only listens to music and is not hifi knowledgable...can hear what some members present say dosn't exist..can't exist ?

beats me
 

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