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RE: Is there a reference for the 6db thing? I can't find it

Posted by Jon Risch (B) on March 25, 2014 at 22:11:47

In Reply to: Is there a reference for the 6db thing? I can't find it posted by Tweaker456 on March 24, 2014 at 12:15:34:

I think that you are confusing the point on the charts where they say the skin effect "starts" with the -3 dB point, They are NOT the same point!

The center of the wire has to be many skin depths below the surface before you reach the - 3 dB point, where the asymptote of the 6 dB (first order) roll-off is said to begin.

So when the chart says that 12 ga. has a skin depth corner of 4150 Hz, that is NOT the -3 dB point. The -3 dB point DUE TO SKIN EFFECT ALONE is much higher up, usually self-inductance causes a roll-off before the skin effect does.

A skin depth corner of 4150 Hz is the point where the skin effect starts to screw with the self-inductance, and the phase shift begins, and by many accounts, where the wire no longer faithfully passes musical _transients_ accurately.

Please note that steady state sine wave measurements are NOT going to provide the same info as a transient pulse in terms of where the problems start to crop up. This is another thing that Audioholics sorta ignores since it throws a wrench in their neat little world of single metric numbers and figures of merit.

I think that you are fixating on skin effect, when it is the sum total of all the cables materials, physics parameters, etc., that makes up the sonic signature of any given cable or pair of wires.


Jon Risch

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