Home Propeller Head Plaza

Technical and scientific discussion of amps, cables and other topics.

Re: Temporal Distortion - Causes and Cures, by Roberto Delle Curti

I certainly don’t have the technical background to judge the validity of his points, but if he is correct, then I find the following comments at the end of his discussion of speaker cables quite interesting:

To have a good High-End Cable we have to reduce serial inductance and parallel capacitance, leaving the right series resistance that depends on speaker impedance, WF dumping and type of amp output stage.

Type of Wire, type of Shield, type of insulator, type of diameter, type of twisting of wires and of internal wires (there are thousands of combinations) will give the final result. What we use for our Royal Device cables is not even one of the above solutions and our speaker cables are finely tuned for our speakers toward a Tube NO Feedback transformer output amplifier S.E. using good materials without increasing costs to unaffordable levels. We do not make cables just to sell cables, even if we can design cables even for other type of speakers.

The speaker cables are not the least, speaker cable MUST be designed and designed depending on the followings:

1 - type of amp
- feedback or not
- tubes or solid state
- transformer or direct connection

2 - type of speaker
- vented box, closed or back-horn loaded
- horn frontal loading or direct radiation
- number of speakers involved in the total system
- mono or bi-wiring
- multi amp or mono amp system

Who sells you speaker cables without asking anything of the above and without knowing how to approach the problem, this is just a “smart guy” I would say. I am not saying that you won't hear a difference, but surely you won't know if this is really the better "real sound" could come out from that particular system.

Now, if you just go and buy the most expensive speaker cable on the market and connect it to your system without considering the above, you will just be throwing your money out of the window. Although everybody is free to do what he recognizes as the best for his money, you still have to consider the fact that even if you find a lot of funny cables on the market (that cost half of a Cadillac per meter) they have not been proven to improve your system, especially if these are made of “silver “ or “gold” with “proved type of twisting” and other features and benefits, but if you open the small box in between (some cables have), than you will easily find that there is a resistor (or something else) to “re-balance” everything. Strange isn’t it?

Based on this, I would have to conclude that at least some subjectivists and objectivists have both been headed down the wrong path:. (a) the objectivists who claim there are no technical reasons why speaker cables of similar length and gauge should sound different, and (b) the subjectivists who share subjective impressions of cables and attempt to identify which is best (when the suitability of a particular speaker cable, according to Curti, is so system dependent).


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


Follow Ups Full Thread
Follow Ups
  • Re: Temporal Distortion - Causes and Cures, by Roberto Delle Curti - Phil Tower 04:47:35 11/22/02 (1)


You can not post to an archived thread.