Speaker cable blind listening tests

[jneutron]

The mathematics of reactance calculations for cables that are a meter or so long and conventionally constructed show that the reactance components are tiny with respect to the audio band and the circuit impedances, this makes the reactance components of a cable extremely unlikely to cause the "cable's sound signature" under discussion..

What are you basing this on? Why are you saying the reactance components of a cable are extremely unlikely...to have an effect? Please explain yourself.

I have thrown away nothing of engineering knowledge; I have only said that the RLC model by itself does explain how cables work. (Example: it is possible to build a cable with identical RLC values to your twin lead example that is effectively worthless for transmitting RF signals.)..

You can? Please provide an engineering example to explain this..I of course, assume that you actually meant "carrying RF signals from a source to a load", as opposed to the transmission into free space.

In other words there is a fact that cables sound different.

You have not demonstrated, nor pointed to information which would support this statement.

There is a second fact that RLC does not seem to explain why they sound different. .

No, you have provided no facts in support of that statement.

So the simple fact is that most people, and possibly no one, knows what causes the cable effect. .

You would be incorrect.

I say most, because as I have said in other posts, there seem to be a small number of cable companies (examples like Kimber and WireWorld) whose cables get high ratings at many different price points. Even though they are built of different things someone there knows how to get good performance out of quite different ingredients..

"Someone" knows squat about engineering a cable. They do not know how to get good performance out of a cable. They know only how to put stuff together in a random, haphazard, illogical fashion, call that sillyness "engineering", toss some marketing crapola into a farcical "white paper", and charge big bucks to pay the bills..

So you seem to be saying that in spite of absolute proof that cables do sound different, if I can't replace the RLC model with another science model then suddenly cables can't sound different anymore?

I would LOOOOOVE to see that "other science model". Mind you, it cannot violate physics, it must be consistent with observation, it must be internally self consistent, it must be EXTERNALLY consistent with the known universe. It cannot use itself as a basis of justification...it must provide predictions which can be measured and verified..Failure in any regard there trashes the model.

As an electronic engineer I was a powerful skeptic because I did the math. I concluded that a cable sound signature was an extremely unlikely phenomenon, but I listened and became instantly convinced that the RLC model couldn't begin to explain the differences I heard.

I've no idea what math you are talking about. Please detail this.

I have discussed this with other engineers and the theories proposed slowly moved far out of the mainstream. I'm not willing to mention them here because the likely hood that they are the correct explanation seems pretty small.

You would be correct in that if the explanations are moving out of mainstream, they are incorrect.

Please elaborate, and perhaps I can explain why they are incorrect.

John