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Re: Engineers: The Science Of Neutrality?

Posted by Jon Risch (B) on September 2, 2004 at 20:53:25

In Reply to: Engineers: The Science Of Neutrality? posted by Lynn on September 2, 2004 at 18:45:47:

First, there is no particular set of LCR values that represent the neutral cable, with the POSSIBLE exception of the elusive 'perfect' cable with zero resistance, zero capacitance, and zero inductance.
Since such a perfect cable does not exist, and in the real world CAN NOT exist, and even zero resistance presents some problems if it is acheived via a superconductor (see:
http://www.AudioAsylum.com/audio/cables/messages/9387.html ), there are no definitive set of simple LCR cable specs that can define one that sounds perfectly transparent.

Second, ALL cables have signal losses, and all cables cause some sort of abberation to the original signal, this is a given. Some cables have more losses and abberations than others, these usually sound worse.

In so far as highly experienced and knowledgable people have been able to determine, no existing cable known to man has been found to be completely sonically transparent and neutral, they ALL have some form of end result coloration of the signal. The very best cables do it the least, the middle-line cables do it some more, and the el cheap cables do it a lot.

The question you are really asking is: What cable will sound neutral to ME on MY system? In other words, what cable will have the losses and abberations at levels below that which you can hear on your system. Unfortunately, the only source for this answer is you and your system.

There is some science behind cable sonics, but it is in it's infancy, and has virtually no big-guns support for research and development in terms of a University or an Insitute, etc.

We audiophile and music lover DIYers have made some progress toward understanding what matters in a cable, and why, but it is a constant uphill battle, with cable naysayers constantly claiming impossibiities due to the laws of physics, etc. It is interesting to note that most of the naysayers do not bother to listen to the cables, only measure them for simple L, C and R. Since the cables are being used to transport MUSIC, it would seem a good idea to evaluate them for that purpose, rather than to satisfy a test meter.

Check out:
http://www.geocities.com/jonrisch/i1.htm
for some basic info on the hows and whys.

All of my cable related info and links is at:
http://www.geocities.com/jonrisch/cables.htm

As a way of answering your question in general, when all other things are equal (seldom is this the case!), then lower capacitance for an interconnect is a good thing, and resistance is not much of a factor under most home playback situations, and inductance is seldom high enough to become a problem either.
For speaker cables, inductance is the major factor to watch out for, and resistance a close second, with capacitance only an issue because of power amps that are not unconditionally stable, and might oscillate if presented with a capacitive load above a certain value.

Since cable design is a lot like other engineering, there are always compromises and trade-off's, it helps to realize that if you lower the L, the C usually goes up, and vice versa. So the designer has to decide how far in one direction to go, and how to balance off the compromise between L and C.

One more factor to think about. You mention LCR parameters, but nowhere in those is contained a VERY important factor: immunity from outside noise, also called SHIELDING. None of the basic three parameters can tell you how well shielded a cable is, or even if it IS shielded!
Even more frustrating, the typical spec given by cable manufacturer's, the amount of shield coverage for a coax, can not directly tell you how well shielded the cable is at any given frequency!!!!

Copper braid coverage can range from 35% or less coverage to around 99% coverage, with a lot of typical coaxial cables sitting at 90, 93 and 95% coverage. Is more coverage better shielding? Not necessarily, and it depends on many other factors.

Foil shielding can be said to be 100% shield coverage when done properly, BUT it is virtually transparent to 60 Hz power line frequencies, and so, is not really providing 100% shielding for audio use purposes.

I hope that you can see that there is a lot involved, and no one yet has all the answers, just a lot of suggestions. Ultimately, you will have to try things for yourself, and see where they take you.

Jon Risch

This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:

Atma-Sphere Music Systems, Inc.

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