The electronics theory that is relevant to cables involves the capacitance of wires and dielectrics and inductance, and of course resistance. The newest materials I know of that are used in cables are kapton and teflon, which have been in existence quite some time. All of the relevant theoretical principles have been well known for 100 years or more (I guess that makes those principles "out-of-date"...too old). As a person who is active in engineering transmitter and antenna designs, you can be assured that I am far more up-to-date on electronic theory than quite a number of people, certainly including you. As usual, your comments lack focus and are generally quite amazing to anyone who anyone who really IS an audiophile (your repeated strange and wondrous comments make it difficult to believe that you actually ARE an audiophile...and the responses to your musings posted in these forums make it obvious that I am not alone in this opinion...).

The "meter" I use for analyzing cable behavior, by the way, is a $40,000 network analyzer that you would probably need hundreds of hours of education and training to have a chance of operating competently. But all measurements are meaningless in your distant world anyway, just as you allege that all CD players sound alike anyway (quote: "I have at least 10 of them and they all sound the same..."-from forum on the AYRE in digital sources forum [condensed from the original due to excessive incoherent rambling...] maybe one GOOD one would be better than your 10...lol).

For a person like you, who has amply and repeatedly demonstrated a VERY limited knowledge of the most basic electrical principles, to suggest that a person in my field has not "kept up" with electronic theory to a sufficient degree to intelligently discuss cables is so ridiculous it makes me laugh. It is like a cow lecturing a supreme court judge on a point of law. If I thought you had the technical knowledge or intellectual abilty to insult me, you might annoy me for a millisecond or two, but as it is...I just laugh and ignore your unfocused attempts at insults. You remind me of the Grelber in the old Broom-Hilda comic strip, who lived in a log in the woods and spent all his time giving out gratuitous insults...striking similarity.

Taking the trouble to respond to the details of your vague and uninformed comments and attempts to insult is like Brer rabbit hitting the tarbaby; one needs to realize that there is nothing of substance there and not take it seriously....

"The electronics theory that is relevant to cables involves the capacitance of wires and dielectrics and inductance, and of course resistance."

>>Unfortunately, anyone with even basic electronics experience or reading some simple introductory books could site your comment above. I do not think you are impressing anyone.

I have friends who worked with NASA and top secret government research involving physics, metallurgy, and electronics and they do not agree with you. I think I will believe my friends. And you cannot even use an audio reference, but RF.

"As a person who is active in engineering transmitter and antenna designs, you can be assured that I am far more up-to-date on electronic theory than quite a number of people, certainly including you."

>>So why didn't you mention audio design in your resume?? No experience? I frankly doubt if you fully understand how even a one stage basic circuit, with power supply, functions. I thought you were a college professor? Now you work for a company? Both, part time?

"As usual, your comments lack focus and are generally quite amazing to anyone who anyone who really IS an audiophile (your repeated strange and wondrous comments make it difficult to believe that you actually ARE an audiophile...and the responses to your musings posted in these forums make it obvious that I am not alone in this opinion...)."

>>Again, interesting since you could not even include an audio reference in your qualifications, just RF and antenna design. Who are you trying to kid?

>>You counting your friends Ethan, DUP etc as friends? Yes, I am sure they are qualified just like you. Interesting that you did not apply the same litmus test to your friends, the objectivists; who have never been able to focus, demonstrate any evidence, or study to support their position.
And so far, you have not demonstrated anything more than a basic first year college textbook, which anyone could site.

"The "meter" I use for analyzing cable behavior, by the way, is a $40,000 network analyzer that you would probably need hundreds of hours of education and training to have a chance of operating competently."

>>So what is your point besides trying to impress the viewers with the cost? I can get my hands on this equipment as well. Are we suppose to be impressed? You still have not proven you can measure everything necessary.

"But all measurements are meaningless in your distant world anyway,"

>>Trying to deceive by mistating my position on measurements does not help your credibility. It just makes you appear to be a liar.

"just as you allege that all CD players sound alike anyway (quote: "I have at least 10 of them and they all sound the same..."-from forum on the AYRE in digital sources forum [condensed from the original due to excessive incoherent rambling...] maybe one GOOD one would be better than your 10...lol)."

>>I don't know where you got that comment, but it sure was NOT from me. (I only own one CD player.) That is twice now, in your post.

"For a person like you, who has amply and repeatedly demonstrated a VERY limited knowledge of the most basic electrical principles, to suggest that a person in my field has not "kept up" with electronic theory to a sufficient degree to intelligently discuss cables is so ridiculous it makes me laugh."

>>Pretty obvious from your above posts you do not know much of what you are talking about, except some basic electronics which is learned in high school or from a radio amateur. So you are hardly qualified to comment on my status.

>>Tell me, from what other forum did you transfer from and support.

"Taking the trouble to respond to the details of your vague and uninformed comments and attempts to insult is like Brer rabbit hitting the tarbaby; one needs to realize that there is nothing of substance there and not take it seriously...."

>>You sound like DUP and Ethan. Amazing how other objectivists have recently, suddenly, just appeared (check their post number). All after ethan and dupe got their buts kicked. Wonder where you guys previously posted?

In conclusion, you have shown no info besides some basic electronics; which anyone in high school could learn. It is obvious you have not kept up. And some info is decades old. And the same MO, year after year, from the objectivists. Same tatics. You are not going to learn from computer models or simply reading meters.

You or the college getting any compensation for your stand? Are you representing any midfi corporations, mega or not, directly or indirectly? A simple yes or no will suffice. But remember, your reply will be in writing, so be careful how you respond.

PS. It might also be of value a story that was related to me that an enginner at another audio company tried to hire some EE students with a BS degree. Not one of 50 could identify a resistor or capacitor the engineer had placed on his desk. So the company got 17 with an MS degree and only 3 could identify some resistors. Turns out they all used computers in college to simulate. Kinda shows what and how students are taught in college these days.

Another story; I got two EE students in their final year to help out. One was a college professor's son. Neither could draw out a simple/general schematic of a full wave bridge power supply.

Since you find it neccesary to challenge my background, I guess I have to say something about it so you will not be all over the map with these false and ridiculous assertions.

I have been building and testing audio amplifiers and other equipment, as well as cables, for over 40 years. I built my own audio amplifiers and Klipschhorn speakers by 1960 and also obtained an FCC professional engineering license (Not just a ham radio licence) before graduating from high school. The 4-hour FCC exam for that license at that time (I was 16) was not multiple choice; one question, which I answered correctly, required the applicant to draw, from scratch, the entire schematic diagram of a commercial AM radio transmitter, showing every single tube, resistor, transformer, and capacitor in the transmitter, the full-wave power supplies and filtering, the audio amplifier for modulation, and the antenna coupler. I was the youngest applicant to ever pass the exam at the Los Angeles FCC office up until then. The examiners were impressed (80% of applicants failed).

The theory involved in cables is the same for RF or audio; the only difference is frequency, and for RF or digital the materials used are far more significant than for audio frequencies, especially dielectrics and geometries. If you knew anything about RF design, you would know that it is far more challenging to the engineer than audio design. To any qualified circuit designer, audio design is relatively elementary and simple.

I worked as an engineer in instrumentation and research and development in the aerospace industry at Rockwell and Douglas Aircraft for 12 years before becoming a college professor, and since retiring from teaching I have been an independent consulting professional engineer, primarily in the electronics communications field. I was designing audio amplifiers and using them in specialized audio instrumentation work at Douglas Aircraft 30 years ago, when I was in their engineering department doing octave analysis of duct noise and engine noise characteristics.

Since I have had 40 years experience in every aspect of sound principles and audio and thoroughly understand the design principles and application of both digital and analog circuitry in audio, I have no doubt that I am far more expert in the audio field than many engineers who make their living designing the stuff; I have had conversations with some audio equipment designers on technical subjects, and they seem to respect my background and credentials. I am not always so sure about the soundness of their theoretical knowledge; there are those who seem quite competent, and then there are those who seem to get by on relatively modest amounts of technical knowledge.

I owe you an apology one one item; the business about the "10 Cd players"; I was editing a response to DUP and must have mistakenly clicked on your link instead of his when I did so; that was just a clerical error on my part...the quote was from him and intended for him; I will remove it from the post. Again, you have my apology on that.

And when you say "only" antenna design, any electrical engineer will tell you you are being ridiculous; it's a field FAR more technically challenging than audio. And when you suggest that I learned only a little bit of theory in high school...( lol !!), I actually have a Bachelor's and a Master's Degree in my field, plus many many other graduate courses and professional seminars in both audio and RF design, plus 30 years of teaching in a program training technicians, research in both audio and RF, and extensive practical experience. And my entire career has been an ongoing process of designing, building, troubleshooting, experimenting, analyzing, and studying electronic circuits and equipment for both audio and communications.

So by trying to challenge my credentials in the field, you are only making yourself trivial, petty, and ridiculous; my credentials will stand up quite well in any SERIOUS examination they are subjected to, thank you, and are absolutely up-to date and hands-on, not just theorizing.

P.S.- there are certainly those who get their B.S. in engineering and have almost no hands-on experience; by the time I got my B.S. I had built more audio equipment with my own hands than you will probably ever OWN, not to mention many pieces of radio equipment!

"Since you find it nescessary to challenge my background, I guess I have to say something about it so you will not be all over the map with these false and ridiculous assertions."

>>Well, you just stated what I already knew. I feel you have not kept up with any advances and your applications in audio are not pertinent to high end audio.

"I have been building and testing audio amplifiers and other equipment, as well as cables, for over 40 years. I built my own audio amplifiers and Klipschhorn speakers by 1960 and also obtained an FCC professional engineering license (Not just a ham radio licence) before graduating from high school."

>>Almost to a tee what I have done. 48 years in electronics, pretty poor as a family, but I did become a radio amateur in my mid teens. I designed and built my own antenna, high power transmitter, modded the Heathkit DX-60 (I believe), designed my own converter from 6 meters to 10 meters, but not the receiver. Parts/components were "scrap" and either given to me or I built them myself. The converter was super low noise, much below that of that produced by atmospheric conditions (and we were in a quiet location in the country). Good quiet tubes back then were the 417A. I was tempted to test using a 416B, but did not. Transmitting tubes used were multiple 4CX series a friend gave me. I think he got them from MARS.

"The theory involved in cables is the same for RF or audio; the only difference is frequency,"

>>Unfortunately, there is our difference. In RF, one can use different materials with no difference, up to moderate RF frequencies and power levels. With NASA projects and in audio, materials become quite significant.

"If you knew anything about RF design, you would know that it is far more challenging to the engineer than audio design. To any qualified circuit designer, audio design is relatively elementary."

>>An unfortunate statement IMO. I believe this is from a lack of knowledge. Audio cable is very demanding and difficult. RF is not difficult up to a particular frequency and power level because one is mainly dealing with RF that is modulated, AM, FM, Pulse, or maybe something else. I built many RF high power cables for my transmitter, and for others with no problems. Very easy. Now for NASA, it becomes more difficult because of extreme conditions etc.

>>My friend worked in a classified area (for NASA projects (specializing in physics and electronics), communications and microwave, and later in electron implementation into special materials etc. This required designs that are still, literally classified. My other friend was involved, for some time, in top government research scientific/physics projects which are still classified as well. I have to admit I am very blessed to have known these people as not many have that privilege.
They both disagree with the objectivist's/your assessment that audio cables are easy.

"I worked as an engineer in instrumentation and research and development in the aerospace industry at Rockwell and Douglas Aircraft for 12 years before becoming a college professor, and since retiring from teaching I have been an independent consulting professional engineer, primarily in the electronics communications field. I was designing audio amplifiers and using them in specialized audio instrumentation work at Douglas Aircraft 30 years ago, when I was in their engineering department doing octave analysis of duct noise and engine noise characteristics."

>>No application to high end audio whatsoever. You were dealing with voice communications, octave analysis of duct noise and engine noise, not the faithful reproduction of high fidelity with all its ramifications. To compare the two is like comparing apples to oranges.

"Since I have had 40 years experience in every aspect of sound principles and audio and thoroughly understand the design principles and application of both digital and analog circuitry in audio, I have no doubt that I am far more expert in the audio field than many engineers who make their living designing the stuff; I have had conversations with some audio equipment designers on technical subjects, and they seem to respect my background and credentials."

>>Sorry, but I have to heavily question just how good your credentials
are from what you just posted. I won't even put up my credentials with my friends. They are vastly superior to either of ours.

"I am not always so sure about the soundness of their theoretical knowledge; there are those who seem quite competent, and then there are those who seem to get by on modest amounts of knowledge."

>>I completely agree. I have seen some pretty awful designs. I would say alot of companies are marginable at best in terms of design and sonic quality. I inspected one amplifier (from a highly respected company) that used one 2 amp, 250 volt fuse in a 550 volt DC line supplying 4 output tubes. I guess one day the fuse blew and the fuseholder melted on the PC board because of internal arcing (surprise). Believe it or not, the company simply sent the owner another fuseholder and fuse. Go figure.

"I owe you an apology one one item; the business about the "10 Cd players"; I was editing a response to DUP and must have mistakenly clicked on your link instead of his when I did so; that was just a clerical error on my part...the quote was from him and intended for him; I will remove it from the post. Again, you have my apology on that."

>>No problem. We all make mistakes. Buy you a beer to boot.

"And when you say "only" antenna design, any electrical engineer will tell you you are being ridiculous; it's a field FAR more challenging than audio. And when you suggest that I learned only little bit of theory in high school...I actually have a Bachelor's and a Master's Degree in my field, plus many many other graduate courses and professional seminars in both audio and RF design, plus 30 years of teaching reseach, and experience. And my entire career has been an ongoing process of designing, troubleshooting, experimenting, analyzing, and studying electronic circuits and equipment."

>>I have no idea whether you are who you say you are. My apologies if you took offense. But faking it does happen on forums on occasions.

>>I attended three different colleges (because of lack of money I had to work my way through). I have an electronics engineering degree and other almost majors (dropped out cause of illness) business administration, accounting, and minors in physics, mathematics, phychology, and business law before having to leave. (Been so long ago I can hardly remember.)

"So by trying to challenge my credentials in the field, you are only being ridiculous; they will stand up quite well, thank you, and are absolutely up-to date and hands-on, not just theorizing."

>>You have great credentials, but unfortunately, I believe it is in other areas, not in high end audio.

Take care. Off for din din

And by the way; if you REALLY want to insult me, the best way to do it is to try to associate me in ANY WAY WHATSOEVER with DUP; if he has ever said one intelligent word about anything in these forums, it has so far escaped my attention completely!

Your opinion that I have not "kept up" with audio engineering could not be further from the truth. We will just have to agree to disagree on that point; you certainly do not have all of the facts required to reach that conclusion and defend it with any authority.

You seem to conclude this based on the fact that we disagree on several points, and that your alleged experts are allegedly in your camp on these issues (which issues...???). Obviously, if I disagree with you, I am, ergo, out-of date and/or incompetent. Very persuasive....

And by the way; one point I should clarify: I only said that the circuit design of audio circuitry (high end or otherwise) is simple compared to RF designs, and I think almost any competent electrical engineer would agree. What I did not say was that it was simple to acheive a finished product with superior performance; that is another matter entirely, and involves more than circuit design!!

And as far as my comments on "Signal Masking" in unbalanced cables, and the proved insignificance of special materials at AUDIO frequencies...do you challenge any of what I said, or are you content to just make generalized claims that I am incompetent without being specific or putting your own conclusions forward with some basis for them?

My conclusions are based on specific results from scientific experiments carried out on many cables using state-of-the-art equipment and correlating those results with the sound quality experienced using these cables; if you know of a better way to discover the basis for cable differences...give us the benefit of YOUR experience and wisdom; PLEASE!!!

Quote:
Why would the CD players, recorders sound different? A lot of em are going into the same DAC's? Oh, they use different length cables, here we go..... And the SACD players are SACD players, they all sound GREAT. If you think you can concentrate and pull out some minuitia of a difference between 3 upper end SACD players, you is doing some self hypnosis. If you match levels to try and pick out which of either 3 SACD players is playing is impossible. Oh, I guess my system doesn't have the resolution.....I need better cables. And you are trying to bring RF effects into audio range freq., not even the same field. Just like working on 50kV devices versuse 120/240 setup, different, 50kV comes and gets you, while 120V doesn't need the same insulation in cables. I think you need a better analyzer, if it takes 100's of hours to master, it must be poorly designed for human interfacing. Totaly different thing.

Waaaay toooo flattering, Buddha! I submit only an actual pic of the real deal with that caption will suffice.

Maybe one of Jeffs' similairities? Hello Jeff?

RG

When the DUP tarbaby speaks...more black goo spews out...just the thing we need...how nice!

Jeff:

Is that picture (the guy in the red shirt) ACTUALLY a picture of the real tarbaby, alias DUP?

("responding to anything DUP says is like Brer Rabbit hitting the tarbaby...there is no substance there, so it is a waste of time and you get sticky trying..." -commsysman)

I THINK that you were trying to say something intelligible there, but it is impossible to be certain.

Better luck next time.

I`m a pro on hifi-cables so I might add a few things here. Please excuse my bad English.
First; speakercables + passive filters must be seen as a extension of the amplifiers powerways. Instead of spending big money on exotic cables folks should go for a pair of amps(mono) and keep the speakercables as shot as possible. Thin cables is like an old mans thin blood-veins; they give him a short breath and allmost no power left
Massive conductors only, and thick. Not flat, that`s a misunderstanding, an old hifi-legend. Positive and negative half must be kept apart to avoid ruining high-frequenses/3D.

Unfornately most speaker-manufacturers doesn`t know too much about this, that`s too bad. Just uppgrading specially the woofers wiring-circuit will open up for a dynamic powerful sound that makes you fell in love again with your amp. It`s not easy beeing a powerful amp trying to reach the woofers through a absolutely under-dimensioned passive filter, typically using a single 10-watt resistor in paralell or a cheap electrolytic condenser with similar powerhandling.
Passive bas-filters should only be used if they`re first-order AND "overdimensioned". If not, active filters + bi-amping is the way to go. That off course opens up for a little bass-eqing too..
and still including thick massive cables