Using Cables as Tone Controls

Years ago in the pages of Stereophile a writer by the name of Dick Olsher did a review on a number of cables. Tara Labs was brand new and their cables were simple twisted solid core wires. He felt they were better than some of the much more expensive cables.

I enjoy reading the cable reviews in Stereophile and Absolute Sound. The reviews of the AU 24, MIT, and young Stephen writing about budget cables in his column. I find it interesting what the reviewers use. I am unable to afford them but I would like to hear the difference a top line Nordost or Cardas might sound in my system. I also would like to try some AQ cables that have the bias system.

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Originally Posted by JohnMichael

Years ago in the pages of Stereophile a writer by the name of Dick Olsher did a review on a number of cables. Tara Labs was brand new and their cables were simple twisted solid core wires. He felt they were better than some of the much more expensive cables.

I enjoy reading the cable reviews in Stereophile and Absolute Sound. The reviews of the AU 24, MIT, and young Stephen writing about budget cables in his column. I find it interesting what the reviewers use. I am unable to afford them but I would like to hear the difference a top line Nordost or Cardas might sound in my system. I also would like to try some AQ cables that have the bias system.

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I am using some very good Synergistic cables from the 90s but would love to see and hear a setup using the new Galileo System or the Element Series. Several guys over at AudioShark use them as well as several of the other similar designs.

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Originally Posted by Hyfi

This part of the sentence I would say is true "Solidcore and stranded cable wires has been used interchangeably for last century" But then that begs the question, Are they both 100% the best selection for ALL Audio Applications?

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If you think about it, the argument of stranded vs solidcore goes way back and was more based on theory than 'known' facts. The argument against stranded was that due to its stranded form, electrons tend to jump from one strand to another as they are flowing from negateive to positive side.

The audiophiles argued that electron's jump will create noise in stranded, so they prefer solidcore for that reason. Of course that argument only exist in theory since no confirmations has been made for stranded conductor drawbacks.

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One more, "Since HE Audio is such a small part of the overall market, there are more $1.99 Black & Reds used worldwide than any other IC" Most likely true, but is it the absolute 100% best selection for EVERY stereo out there?

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Definitely not. I seen some of those Black&Reds that comes with components, and should be thrown in the garbage :)

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Now back to Solid vs Stranded. Answer me this....If you are going to bi-wire a speaker, why do most EEs with Audio cabling and gear knowledge, suggest that you use a larger gauge solid core cable for the lows, and a lighter gauge stranded twisted pair for the highs?

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That got nothing to do with stranded vs solid core. It got to do with gauage of cable and phenomena known as Skin Effect.

This topic can get rather complicated but simply it mean that lower frequecy will see less DC resistance in the wire than higher audio frequency. By increasing the guage for highs, we even out wire resistence high frequency see vs lower frequency. So both high and low frequecys see the same DC resistance in the wire.

Of course as I said, above explanation is in its simplest form.