Monsgter Cable

It was recently announced that Monster Cable reached some kind of a trade mark settlement with a string of Monster miniature golf operations. Aside from that silliness, I have a question about the cable.

Is Monster Cable any different from what I would call litz wire? If they are litz wire, are there any knowledgeable people that have any legitimate evidence that these cables do any good?

To my mind, the improvement achievable by using litz would be minimal at the high frequencies where it could possibly help. A simple treble boost circuit should be able to handle any loss at high frequencies that people do not hear well anyway. Moreover, any normal room is going to have resonances that will rapidly fluctuate the response by one or two Bel as you move in location and frequency. To get rid of such fluctuations would make the room into an anechoic chamber and make it sound very unnatural.

Bill

Reply to
Salmon Egg
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"Salmon Egg"

** Yes.

The copper strands are all in contact with each other - just like normal flexible cables.

..... Phil

Reply to
Phil Allison

For audio, they do no good. Litz wire reduces resistance, but it is an effect that's proportional to the square root of frequency. Only with very long runs and fairly high frequency would it be important.

That's right. If you take normal 8-ohm speakers, you need an awful lot of plain old wire to get the audio-frequency resistance up to something comparable to the speaker impedance, so the difference would be heard only on very long runs.

Let's see some quick calculations (calculations are very unpersuasive to audiophiles, but here goes). The maximum audible frequency is roughly

20 kHz, though there's little spectral content in music that high. At 20kHz, the depth of penetration is about 0.5 mm. Current penetrates all the way to the center of each strand even in cheap lamp cord.

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Cheap 16 AWG lamp cord is either 7/24 or 16/30. That means the largest strands it might be made of are less than half a skin depth in diameter so the current distribution through the wire is roughly uniform. So at this frequency, skin depth doesn't come into play significantly at all. You pretty much have the same resistance at 20kHz as at 20 Hz. The wire resistance adds no distortion. What could add distortion, if you have very long runs, is impedance mismatch at both ends of the speaker wire, since you can't buy speaker wire with impedance that matches your speaker impedance.

Well, true audiophiles spare no expense. They do take steps to kill reflections in their rooms, and those effects can be large enough to affect audio quality perceptibly. The more you hear the speakers and the less you hear their reflections off the walls and everything else, the more the music sounds like what was recorded, and that is generally perceived as sounding good.

Reply to
Hope for the Heartless

So, that's why it works wonders: The audio signal or electricity from the source sort of surfs along the outer strands of the cable where there is less magnetic flux or "induction" effect to oppose it - I can almost see my audio certificate award already. Senseless Sencore Tech for mad yaers };-)

[we can dream doods] RQT
Reply to
Roy Q.T. ~ E.E.Technician

Here's one that's even better. It uses the Fibonacci Golden Ratio! See the Golden Reference speaker cable:

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Some have found that $.02 worth of gold plate and fancy marketeering can sell a $10 cable for over $100!

If your fancy is video, you can buy "hi fi" HDMI cables for ten times the price of one that works just as well.

There's one born every minute but the audio ones can "hear the difference"!

Roy will probably tell us that the OFHC, (oxygen free high conductivity), copper these cables are made from keeps the electrons from bumping into the oxygen molecules and producing noise. :-)

Then Multi-Nym will call Roy's mother the names he learned as an adolescent in middle school.

Reply to
VWWall

First one would need to understand a bit about testing audio, then a lot about subjective testing in general before even beginning to attempt to identify one piece of un-damaged low distortion audio gear from another in a "sound" comparison. Without total control of the test and the subjects there is little chance anyone could tell one device from another in a blind, double blind or ABX test if the sounds are similar.

If one's hearing can not reliably identify which of two sources are playing then any source of preference must be attributed to something other than sound.

Most audio professionals intrinsically understand this. This is why we put little weight in the observations, requests and opinions of those not in our little "audio professional" club.

peace dawg

Reply to
Wecan do it

Over the years, as my hearing has declined, I realized that most of this comparison business is bullshit. There is no better word to describe the situation. I find that a good performance trumps high fidelity any day of the year. I haved a scratchy, wowy, distorted tango record I bought a a drug store that beats any pristine hi-fi recording of these tangos that I have ever heard.

I am also reminded of a craze when CD were relatively new. People swore that you could get better sound by taking a green marker pen to the center hole of the CD. Why have I not heard much about that lately?

Bill

Reply to
Salmon Egg

The technical term for the people who buy Monster cables is "audiophools".

On what basis is it better? I find scratch, wowy, and distorted pretty objectionable. ;-)

Green markers don't cost enough. Sharpie mixed color pens come with two blacks, a red, green, and blue. How could they charge $50 for just the green one?

Reply to
krw

That's not entirely true. With typical (non-Litz) wire made of non-insulated strands, the skin depth is with respect to the overall conductor radius, not that of the individual strands. That's why Litz wire (insulated strands) works. Current in a strand on the surface of the bundle remains the same when that strand is woven into the center of the bundle. So the current density in the conductor remains uniform. With uninsulated wire, the current can travel across strands, so when one strand is woven into the center of the bundle, the current migrates across the strands to those on the surface.

Reply to
Paul Hovnanian P.E.

So- how much improvement, in general, is provided by "Monster cable" except for the people who make and market it? Do we have a balanced technical analysis available-includiing, not only the cable but the mechanical./ acoustic factors (messy) and source factors? Look at the cable inductance and capacitance using no rmal models for parallel conductors My personal impression is "not much". Given that listening conditions and the acoustic factors involved with the speakers and enclosures will dominate, the characteristics of a few feet of conductor will, except in abnormal circumstances. will be meaningless. Lets not confuse cable effects with acoustic effects due to reflections, etc. If you want to include the effect of cable R, L ,C into the much more complex mechanical/acoustic regime- be welcome.You may find that, for typical usage, it really is unimportant. It seems that concentration on factors that really don't change much between lamp cord or "monster cable" disguises the real factors involved in the mechanical/acoustical part of the whole "satifaction index:" (itself measured with respect to money spent".

Having enough wine to lay oneself open to comments- so be it.

Reply to
Don Kelly

I do not like all those defects either. But when it comes to enjoying the music subjectively, it just sounds like tangos should sound, warts and all.

Bill

Reply to
Salmon Egg

"Over the years, as my hearing has declined, I realized that most of this

The technical term for the people who buy Monster cables is "audiophools"."

To answer both of you- RIGHT ON!!

Reply to
Don Kelly

The speaker impedance quoted is usually close to the DC value of the voice coil winding. It's pretty close at about 1KC, but varies wildly over the audio range, and is a function of the mounting, enclosure, etc. The only place "impedance matching" is important is at the driving amplifier to get maximum power transfer.

Have a few laughs--look at these great "Technical Articles"--left side "Click Here":

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There are four on the science of cable design that are true science fiction! (I especially liked the vacuum filled one!)

Reply to
VWWall

99.999999% pure copper ????? Vacuum filled (how does it not collapse?) ??? I think that the dielectric comes from the barnyard-solid or gaseous. Thank s for the laugh.
Reply to
Don Kelly

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shows what a guy I know measured from a bunch of speaker wire he had lying about one night. It shows the phase shift that the wire reactance caused. All less than a degree. This guy is clear that he hears a difference sighted but can not identify one wire from the other using only his hearing in a double blind test.

Peace dawg

Reply to
Wecan do it

For what it is worth the green markers were only twelve bucks and the green paint they contained was nothing like the green magic markers or any other ones. They were opaque non reflective ink is more like pastel white-out than sharpie ink.

Not that treated vs untreated CD's were ever statistically identified in a double blind ABX test though. There is a ten thousand dollar reward and a the promise of a cushy job judging audio awaiting anyone who can identify stuff like this IIRC.

peace dawg

Reply to
Wecan do it

I think that what you want to avoid in sound systes are nonlinear effects such as limiting, intermodulation products, rectification of radio stations, etc. Modern electronics is usually pretty good in those respects. Certainly, even the lousiest conductors are going to be linear for all practical purposes.

Yet, some crazy audiophiles go to vacuum tube amplifiers for reasons not understood by me. Apparently there are good distortion and bad distortions and tubes only have good ones/

Bill

Reply to
Salmon Egg

The topic of speaker impedance is another thing I do not fully understand. The speaker impedance you would like to deal with is the acoustic radiation impedance seen at the voice coil terminals. But because voice coils are not made from superconductors we see the dc resistance mostly. I do not know to what extent the radiation impedance is masked by this background resistance. I will bet much more power from the amplifier goes into heating the voice coil than is radiated in sound.

Bill

Reply to
Salmon Egg

Perhaps you should think of it in terms of humans and clothing - most bodies look more appealing with (some) clothing than nude and look better in candle, rather than arc, light.. :)

-- Sue

Reply to
Palindrome

I have never seen a single test result based on instrument measurements that justifies all of that gold plating, oxygen free, etc.. Everything is based on subjective listening tests, that can't be disputed, and they know that. My zip cord speaker wires seem to be doing just fine.

Nice! Let's be proactive:-)

Reply to
Ben Miller

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