Heavy gauge speaker wire versus ACD technology

jcandy

virtualdean wrote: »

Jcandy, I don't know who you are or why you seem to rub believers the wrong way..not my business. I do know that a lot of people dont get your humor.. I found your article funny...and many of the hostile reactions puzzling.

Thanks. If you think about how much money and effort people have invested in their "gear", its not surprising that the reactions are hostile and personal. Early on, in my SDA2B measurement thread, I received a good deal of support from people, but only via PM. Its as though there's a fear of contradicting the "regulars", so support for me has to be "private".

Charlie Freak

jcandy wrote: »

Thanks. If you think about how much money and effort people have invested in their "gear", its not surprising that the reactions are hostile and personal. Early on, in my SDA2B measurement thread, I received a good deal of support from people, but only via PM. Its as though there's a fear of contradicting the "regulars", so support for me has to be "private".

Exactly. There's a small group of very vocal teenage hecklers who try to chase off anyone who dares challenge their ridiculous claims.

CoolJazz

jcandy wrote: »

SPL measures the only thing that your ears do: pressure.

A clear illustration of why the flat earthers don't get how music reproduction works! That it's not just about flat freq response! The huge leap in logic, glossing over the most important details as they try to boil it all down to a single number! Tone without time does not equal music!

EPIC FAIL!!

jcandy wrote: »

Its that simple.

But thanks for bringing your gospel over from the Audioholistic site to the unwashed masses. But no thanks, we don't want to be saved. We like our music! You can keep your sine waves and the measurements that prove you miss the point!

IMO...Measurements can prove when something is wrong, but can't prove what's right!

CJ

heiney9

Carl, did you have your aluminum foil hat on when you made these measurements? It makes a difference, ya know.

This thread is such a crock I can't stop laughing.

H9

Toolfan66

tonyb

This thread reminds me of the t-unit days. Spl's equate to sound quality ? Gotta love it.

Next He'll probably tell us all beer taste the same because your taste buds can only determine x differences. Is their a special rock somewhere these trolls climb out from under ? Kinda reminds me of the old sci-fi movie "Mars Attacks", with little alien trolls just going around saying "Yak,Yak,Yak ". Didn't work out too well for them in the end.

Toolfan66

Toolfan66

This is a pic I got off photobucket to show you the truth in cables and burn in, I really dont have the equipment to do it myself but google is my friend,and I find what I read to be true from people that are smarter and more edumucated then myself.

intangible

I am relatively new to audio gear and am trying to evaluate this thread objectively, but I'm having difficulty due to the complete lack of civilized discussion on the part of one group. Would you guys please stop the group think, attack the dissenter act for a moment and explain why measurements such as these are invalid? I want to learn about the subject. Otherwise intelligent appearing people appear to think so, but rather than explaining why they spout baseless one-liners e.g.

"Troll:use your ears."
Why is the human ear is better suited to this type of measurement than an unbiased recording device?

"Tone without time does not equal music!"
Your assertion appears to be that the variance of frequency over a time domain in a manner other than the frequency response curves shown above will make the two cables shown above behave much more differently. Why is that true?

"Spl's equate to sound quality?"
Why not? Your claim doesn't seem unreasonable to me, given that I have no idea how noise and distortion manifest themselves in a frequency response curve, but I would appreciate it if you would explain further, so that I might better understand.

Toolfan66

In that pic you can see how the soundwaves circle the skull, and The same pic comes up wether I use a $10 piece of Rat Shack wire or a $1000 dollar set of MIT's..

To sum it up we all wasted our money on good cables!!!!

tonyb

Because if none of it mattered, you wouldn't need to join an audio forum to begin with now would you ?

Toolfan66

intangible wrote: »

Why is the human ear is better suited to this type of measurement than an unbiased recording device?.

Because I know what "I hear", and I know what "I like". I don't need someone telling me what I am hearing is false, and that I wasted my money,I work for it and I will do as I please...

silvertuner

jcandy wrote: »

I guess you're an even sadder fellow than I imagined.

no, not really, im pretty happy-go-lucky for the most part. you guessed wrong sir.

Rev. Hayes

intangible wrote: »

I am relatively new to audio gear and am trying to evaluate this thread objectively, but I'm having difficulty due to the complete lack of civilized discussion on the part of one group. Would you guys please stop the group think, attack the dissenter act for a moment and explain why measurements such as these are invalid? I want to learn about the subject. Otherwise intelligent appearing people appear to think so, but rather than explaining why they spout baseless one-liners e.g.

"Troll:use your ears."
Why is the human ear is better suited to this type of measurement than an unbiased recording device?

"Tone without time does not equal music!"
Your assertion appears to be that the variance of frequency over a time domain in a manner other than the frequency response curves shown above will make the two cables shown above behave much more differently. Why is that true?

"Spl's equate to sound quality?"
Why not? Your claim doesn't seem unreasonable to me, given that I have no idea how noise and distortion manifest themselves in a frequency response curve, but I would appreciate it if you would explain further, so that I might better understand.

+1

I'm not sure what the OP's actual point was yet (though clearly some of it was meant to be humorous) so I'm really unclear on why you all think he is a "Troll." Weather or not his intention is to "convince" us of any thing this started out as a somewhat serious discussion and I'd also like to see it continues as such.

dragon1952

It was never serious. Maybe you two are relatively new to the hobby but this argument is as old as the hills and has been beat to death a million times. It's objectivists vs subjectivists, measurement freaks vs the so called 'golden ears', the ones who say all amps, all cables, all CDP's sound the same and the ones who say they can differentiate between them. The OP baited everyone and led up to his soda can joke...the new technology he invented obviously making fun of audiophile tweaks. He is a troll and he obviously picked this forum because most here would probably be considered in the so called 'golden ear' crowd and he's obviously from the 'other side'.
Click on his name and select 'Find more posts by jcandy'. You'll likely find most of them very similar.

Jetmaker737

Wow... another poser pretending to be an engineer by producing data on pretty charts. SPL's as the sole measure of SQ? I take it you're also an audiologist and neurologist too to back up your claims?

This fiasco isn't even worth the time it took to type up theses words.

virtualdean

dragon1952 wrote: »

It was never serious. It's objectivists vs subjectivists, measurement freaks vs the so called 'golden ears',

the ones who say all amps, all cables, all CDP's sound the same

and the ones who say they can differentiate between them. The OP baited everyone and led up to his soda can joke...the new technology he invented obviously making fun of audiophile tweaks. He is a troll and he obviously picked this forum because most here would probably be considered in the so called 'golden ear' crowd and he's obviously from the 'other side'.
Click on his name and select 'Find more posts by jcandy'. You'll likely find most of them very similar.

All amps, all cables, all cdp's sound the same??? ..Its ridiculous on its face..Can you post a link to even one person saying this? .Are you making a humorous joke like Jcandy?

Rev. Hayes

I agree, SPL as the sole way to measure SQ is complete nonsense. It flies in the face of all personal experience I've had. However it makes just as little sense to ignore "objective" measurements in favor of only "subjective" listening.

Measurement is a tool. It can be used properly to further ones understanding of what is going on in a system.

If the OP's premise or methodology is flawed then I would like to know how. Many of you know one way or the other and are capable of explaining it to those of us who do not. I understand if you consider that a waste of time due to your prior efforts and attempts to explain things to a "troll" that will refuse to discourse in a serious manner.

If you feel that the candyman was only trying to bait you into a pointless discussion that would no doubt end in mudslinging and closed minds then why bother responding?
(aside from the fact that at times this can be extremely funny and entertaining :biggrin:)

ANyway, I'm not on one side or the other here I just like to learn new things.

At the end of the day all I f-ing care about is if it sounds good to me.

Face

virtualdean wrote: »

All amps, all cables, all cdp's sound the same??? ..Its ridiculous on its face..Can you post a link to even one person saying this? .Are you making a humorous joke like Jcandy?

No, there's plenty out there who believe that rubbish.

It's called lack of experience.

cstmar01

Face wrote: »

No, there's plenty out there who believe that rubbish.

It's called lack of experience.

and the fact they always know more than those that like to sit and listen to music. :rolleyes:

I love how a measurement is going to tell me what kind of sound I'm going to like. Not everyone is the same.

sucks2beme

If SPL was all that mattered, we all would be running crown amps with
Cerwin-Vega speakers.

BlueFox

jcandy wrote: »

Its as though there's a fear of contradicting the "regulars", so support for me has to be "private".

Plus, it is a lot easier to claim anonymous support. I suspect if somebody does not have the courage (for lack of a better word) to post their ideas and beliefs on this subject then, at some level, they are unsure of those beliefs. Or they do not know what they are talking about, so they keep quiet.

Back to the subject. So far the measurements have accomplished nothing. They show the SPL changes, and that means what? It means the SPL changes. I accomplish the same thing with my remote volume control and my Radio Shack SPL meter. Other than changing the SPL, it has diddly squat to do with the quality of sound. Other than for bass-holes, SPL really has little to do with how the music sounds.

On the other hand, this could have been a useful thread if it had been started for a reason other than trolling. For example, you are claiming the can on top of the speaker is affecting the SPL due to reflections from the tweeter. If that is so (and I'm not convinced yet you really know what you are doing to take your answer seriously) you could have done a series of experiments showing how knick-knacks on speakers affect the sound. I have seen more than one speaker where the top is used as a tiny end table holding decorative crap. Maybe if people had some data showing putting junk on top of the speaker hurts the sound they would take it off. Of course, then again, there is the possibility the junk on top is improving the sound.

But no, you could not make a useful contribution. Rather you had to troll and embarrass yourself. Oh well, what else is new.

Fongolio

I honestly think that most of the posters in this thread read the OP wrong from the start. I think he (she) was simply having a little fun but wrapping it in a pseudo-science package. The interesting thing is that it did show at least one true scientific fact and that is the can's effect on measured spl. When Geoff727 built my SDA 1C's he used anti-diffraction felt around the tweeters to limit the diffraction demonstrated by the OP.

I just don't get why so many of you take stuff like this so personally and end up attacking someone simply trying to have a little fun while demonstrating a known phenomenom. I applaud the OP's restraint (for the most part) in not dropping to the same level of many of the posters in this thread. The OP did make some statements that I would question (especially the spl = sq statement) but that won't make me go into full on viscious attack mode. I think many of the posters in this thread are far more guilty of trolling than the OP. Lighten up a little and have some fun. This was never intended to be so serious.

Kelvin

megasat16

jcandy wrote: »

This is a very odd comment. You can see clearly from the "Difference Comparison" plot that the wire acts like a pure DC resistance. Look at the magenta curve -- it shows that the SPL is reduced uniformly, exactly what would happen if a tiny series (DC) resistance was placed between the amplifier and speakers. The offset increases with frequency because the ZMV5 impedance decreases with frequency.

jcandy wrote: »

I have absolutely no clue what you are getting at. Sorry.

Ok! Forget the C and L in the AC characteristics of a wire. I say forget not because it does not exhibit C and L characteristics, but the number is small so it's effects are negligible in your case. So, let's just say wire is purely resistive R nature and assume DC characteristics of wire.

The R of wire depends on the length of the wire x width of the wire so the R varies from wire to wire.

So the power is lost occurs in the wire during the power transfer from an amp to the speakers. The power loss depends on the amount of R which varies with different type and length of wire. But it usually is small enough if you use the correct wire gauge and not longer length than you should so the power loss of wire is usually not considered in General.

But it does not mean it didn't happen. And you measured exactly just that and prove different wire has different power losses and the difference in power losses is almost negligible if the correct wire size and wire length is used.

Your measurements does not prove anything other than that. SPL measurements in General does not say anything about Sound Quality.

But the FR graphs combining with SPL measurements and the On and Off Axis measurement of speaker or driver says how well the speaker / driver can transmit / disperse the acoustics energy in directional and to the surroundings.

Now, do you wonder why most of the manufacturers does not publish any FR graphs for their speakers?

megasat16

Fongolio wrote: »

I honestly think that most of the posters in this thread read the OP wrong from the start. I think he (she) was simply having a little fun but wrapping it in a pseudo-science package. The interesting thing is that it did show at least one true scientific fact and that is the can's effect on measured spl. When Geoff727 built my SDA 1C's he used anti-diffraction felt around the tweeters to limit the diffraction demonstrated by the OP.

I just don't get why so many of you take stuff like this so personally and end up attacking someone simply trying to have a little fun while demonstrating a known phenomenom. I applaud the OP's restraint (for the most part) in not dropping to the same level of many of the posters in this thread. The OP did make some statements that I would question (especially the spl = sq statement) but that won't make me go into full on viscious attack mode. I think many of the posters in this thread are far more guilty of trolling than the OP. Lighten up a little and have some fun. This was never intended to be so serious.

Kelvin

I understand he tends to be funny and prove the can effects but in fact, the demonstration of SQ vs. SQL and different cables is Highly Highly Questionable.

megasat16

Come on....guyz...Let's be NICE to each other.

It's just a HOBBY! We can all disagree with brotherly LOVE? NO?

May be CP and Polkies have just too much attraction on the Naysayers so the Drama Never Ends. :biggrin:

silvertuner

well considering the personal attacks towards me i feel the OP should be given quite the talking to by mods. i will contact johnnie cochran if i have to, but only for his chewbacca defense

*runs to the other room to cry*

cokewithvanilla

Tako Man got dank mystical buds, brah.

jcandy

Fongolio wrote: »

The OP did make some statements that I would question (especially the spl = sq statement) but that won't make me go into full on viscious attack mode.

I am not saying that. Perhaps this is a good time to clarify where I am coming from with respect to physics. Also, let me remark that I have a Ph.D. in physics, so I can be precise about the theoretical foundations here.

Pressure: First, the most general quantity one considers in acoustics is p(x,y,z,t) -- the complex pressure field (complex in the sense that it has a real and imaginary part, or more physically, an amplitude and phase). If two loudspeakers generate the same p(x,y,z,t) in the vicinity of the listening position, then they are producing exactly the same sound. If you can accept this (and you should, because its a fact) then we're almost, but not yet, in agreement.

Mesurement: The reality of loudspeaker design and measurement is that we do not, in general, have access (or want access) to the very complicated function p(x,y,z,t). So, what is done is to examine some reduced functions which serve as proxies (substitutes) for the most complex possible description. Here is a summary of the relevant considerations one makes in deciding how to perform spatio-temporal measurements in acoustics:

1. we can probe (x,y,z) by moving the mic around
2. we can get full information about p (amplitude and phase)
3. we don't in general want to measure the full time-dependence

Thus its the time-dependence that is problematic. This is preaching to the choir for anyone who has training or experience in signal processing. So, what is done is to take the usual approach in physics and engineering, and look at the response of the system to a series of pure tones (Fourier analysis, or more generally, spectral analysis). Obviously, a system that can reproduce any given pure tone (or combination of pure tones) exactly can reproduce any given time-dependent signal exactly. The reality is that pure tones are never exactly reproduced because of (your guessed it) distortion.

Linear and nonlinear distortion: Both linear and nonlinear distortion conspire to make a driver less accurate (perfect). In this context, distortion means an effect which causes the reproduction of a pure tone, or combination of pure tones, to be less than perfect. This distortion can be simple linear distortion (for example, the low-frequency roll-off of a driver is a type of linear distortion). The production of 2kHz and 4kHz overtones in response to a 1kHz pure tone is an example of nonlinear harmonic distortion (HD). The other important form of nonlinear distortion is intermodulation distortion (IMD), which occurs when two or more pure tones interact to generate spurious additional tones. These distortion products would, in a general sense, be apparent in the measured signal p(x,y,z,t).

Connection to SPL measurments: While there are techniques to measure all these forms of distortion, its the way these distortion effects "hide" in the usual plot of SPL versus frequency that account for the inability of an SPL trace (like the ones I have shown) to tell the whole story. If, however, we knew that the drivers had ZERO distortion, then the SPL (both amplitude and phase -- note that for brevity I plotted amplitude but not phase) would tell the "whole story" and the speaker with the flattest SPL would be the best speaker (almost, I'll clarify this in a second). In real life, there are no zero-distortion drivers, but there certainly are low-distortion drivers, so the best idea is to start with a low-distortion driver. The lower the nonlinear distortion, the more representative an SPL trace (like the ones I showed) will be of the accuracy of the speaker. On the other hand, maybe you like distortion; on this topic Zaph says:

With respect to driver selection, non-linear distortion is very important because it's the one aspect of a driver's performance that we can't change. We are stuck with whatever non-linear distortion is inherent in a driver. We have control over system design, and we can hammer any misbehaving response curve into shape given enough crossover components. With system design, the presence of non-linear distortion has a direct link to long term listening fatigue. Short term it's a whole different story however. People have generally proven that they prefer the sound of non-linear distortion in the short term. It can be described as exciting, vibrant, or the common "detailed" before fatigue has set in. After fatigue sets in, words like bright, edgy, grainy or unclear seem to creep into the vocabulary.

Off-axis response: The SPL plots I showed were taken at a single position in space, but of course data at some other positions (i.e., off axis) are required to accurately describe the sound of the speaker. For example, it is possible to design a speaker with great response exactly on axis, but that goes to hell in a handbasket if you move even a few degrees off axis (one way to do this is to place the woofer and tweeter far apart -- you see this mistake made quite often). The speaker I used for these tests (the ZMV5) has (1) low distortion drivers, (2) very good off-axis response because of the close driver spacing (4.25 inches), narrow baffle and well-designed crossover. For this reason, the on-axis SPL is a very good measure of the accuracy of the speaker. Good designers generally consider the "power response", which is a rough measure of the smoothness of the off-axis response (directivity), when designing a speaker. The off-axis response will also determine how the speaker interacts with the room. If you have a true point-source speaker, with full SPL at 0,90, and 180 degrees off axis, the reflections from walls, etc, and going to make the speaker sound terrible in-room, even though the speaker in an anechoic chamber will be "perfect". Anyhow, this is a digression that I am happy to elaborate upon if asked.

What does on-axis SPL mean in this thread: In the context of this thread, the on-axis SPL is a perfect method to test the speaker cable. If you followed the discussion above, then it should be clear that nonlinear distortion and off-axis response are not relevant because the speaker didn't change. The intrinsic driver distortion and baffle response are the same for different cables. All that changed was the cable. Thus, if the cable makes a difference, then it must show up on the SPL trace. There is no way for the cable to change "something" about the system and not change the on-axis SPL (actually, to be precise, we'd have to look at the phase too, but in this case it doesn't change if the amplitude doesn't) .

jcandy

intangible wrote: »

"Spl's equate to sound quality?"
Why not? Your claim doesn't seem unreasonable to me, given that I have no idea how noise and distortion manifest themselves in a frequency response curve, but I would appreciate it if you would explain further, so that I might better understand.

In the present test circumstances, we are performing a difference comparison, so intrinsic driver distortion is fixed and embedded in the baseline (AR cable) case. Thus any *added* distortion due to alternative cables will show up on the plot -- and it does. The -0.3dB attenuation at high frequency is linear distortion caused by the "inadequate" Dayton cable. In the case of the adequate cables however there is almost no distortion and thus no perceptible effect. At this point, anyone who discounts the results as not telling the whole story ought to be clear about what is missing.