Using some of the most sophisticated and sensitive test equipment known to man, two ears and a brain, I can say without hesitation, that lifting your cables off the floor improves the sound of your system.
How or why is an interesting topic, but it doesn’t change the outcome.
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Very good.
So does the material on which the cable rests have any impact on the signal carried by the cable?
If you happen to have two ears and brain lying around, give it a try for yourself.
I am interested in @owlsalum’s technical reply, the subject of this thread, not in subjective impressions.
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Galen, this is incredibly helpful – thank you.
Is it fair to assume that the highest sensitivity equipment is unable to “see” electron propagation and will only record the “sum” result of L and C?
I’m imagining water flowing down a pipe. The flow rate is some measured value – but what if I disturb the flow in the middle – say I introduce a little device that “spins” the water in the middle of the pipe, but doesn’t obstruct the flow. The recorded flow will still be the same, but the movement of the water has been perturbed.
Does the equipment measure the equivalent of the latent vortex of the water molecules caused by the spin? – because I think that’s what’s happening here with electron flow.
Now whether this is audible is a different story…
I’m just trying to understand the mechanics of how much we can understand given the tools and theory…
Those are my DIY cable lifters (the XLR adapter just for size comparison). All simply cut from a wood truss in the building center and a self-adhesive felt on top and bottom.
I made them to keep the distance between my power cable and signal cable to the active speakers (Power cable lying on the floor, signal cable on the lifters).
I just once verified that keeping distance between all power and signal cables of my setup was meaningful and then never compared with/without lifters again.
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Intuitively, this application strikes me as having the most benefit (along with any negative impact carpeting could theoretically have on certain cable designs).
FWIW.
Elk,
Not so much in UTP, either. The capacitance BETWEEN the two wires determines the cable’s reactance and loop area inductance. As a matter of fact, inductance isn’t influenced by the material on the wire at all. ZERO effect…it is the SPACING only between the wires. The inductance equation has NO reactive variables.
Some will find this weird, but the spacing and DIELECTRIC DOES impact capacitance. OK, so if CAP goes UP, then we KNOW inductance goes DOWN, yes? Yes, but the AMOUNT the inductance changes if you MOVE the wires center to center is just the DISTANCE, and the dielectric ONLY alters capacitance and WITH the spacing, both. Inductance ignores the dielectric and changes based on spacing only.
This is why UTP Ethenet cables remain 100-ohm when the are on metal cable trays or racks. The real danger in wire racks, is periodic pertubations into the cable that forms periodicity reflections in the cable, but the R, L and C are the same AVERAGE value except where the cable is deformed, and since physical structure equals electrical measurement, that cable’s properties CHANGE at those distortion points from the intended specifications.
I have two ears and a brain and try them all the time. As a matter of fact, they have made some nice cables that respond to real world measurements as the fundamentals have to be IMPROVED or the tertiary elements aren’t going to respond in kind that MUST be superimposed on KNOWN impovements.
I measure no known CHANGES of any kind with cable supports EXCEPT possible induced NOISE in RCA or poorly balanced XLR’s. The S/N ratio in a low impedance speaker cables is tremendously high and I’ve yet to measure a real world problem with NOISE in speaker cables. Shielded speaker cables are fraught with issues caused by a shield that has no real purpose with such a robust signal, and so far below RF frequencies.
I’m here to talk about things EVERYONE can duplicate AND measure. Those that feel a faith based ethos on their equipment don’t really need to be bothered with actual measurements since what is felt to make a difference can’t ever be measued, just heard. So what’s the fuss to those of us who DO intend to balance knowns to further trianglate unknowns with proper DESIGN?
Forcing adherence to improving knowns properly collects up the tertiary UNKNOWNS to be maximized and thus possibly measured properly. Ignoring the fundamentals does just the opposite…“broken” fundamentals won’t allow a balanced EM design to even work. E and B fields are tightly interlocked in time and phase. We have no data that supports tertiary unknowns that are in
operation on a parallel and different universe of electrical influence and somehow remain undetected in a round robin test condition.
Best,
Galen Gareis
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Call me simple-minded, but I make my crust explaining things to members of the judiciary and, whilst clearly erudite, I reckon a member of the bench might have turned to The Times’ crossword half way through your explanation. Don’t take this the wrong way, as I use your cables.
So give it to me simple. Unshielded cables. Preferably low impedance. Stick 'em on the floor. N’est ce pas?
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Good thinking but, we listen to the EM field CAUSED by the electron flow, which is VERY, VERY slow. The EM field travels in the dielectric, and this is why the SPEED of the EM field depends on the plastic we use.
Unfortunately, the dielectric is VARIABLE through the audio band from 10% Vp at the very low end to 50% Vp at the high end. We have a linearity problem that can not be “fixed,” just creatively adjusted to balance the issue with other critical variables.
Now, what your thinking is that the COPPER structure somehow influences the EM field traveling down the wire.
Here is where my ears and brain DO hear an influence that measurements don’t ferret out. Copper draw science does seem to change the EM fields…it has to as that’s what the voltage potential we hear is. If that is 100% the same phase and magnitude, we can’t have a CHANGE. Hearing it does suggest the EM field is altered somehow.
Don’t forget, we DO NOT hear “all” of signal like we think. Every sine wave is superimposed in a DV/DT function to produce ONE voltage at any instant in time. The amplitude and PHASE are what we use…not the electron flow per say. Don’t believe it? A square wave is infinite sine waves ADDED, but we see ONE step function. And, put VOM meter on your speaker terminates and look at the voltage amplitude with TIME. You will see ONE voltage as the superposition theory holds true, we see the SUM of every sinwave put into the mix.
Our ears are far more senstitive to PHASE than time. PHASE tells use WHERE a sound came from, so we can locate, and RUN away from it until we know what it is. The amplitude does matter, sure, but if you run to it, the tiger eats you. So patina type changes are more than likely PHASE sum changed caused by the EM fields VP consistency down the cable, and like I said earlier, every frequency has a differing SPEED caused by the dielectric. If the Vp is altered by the copper structure, it would impact the PHASE (arrival times) of the superimposed voltage.
The signal is ALREADY summed to a single voltage BEFORE it goes onto the cable! So the PHASE is likely the “change” caused by a copper’s structure.
What I do know, is if the R, L and C aren’t extremely good, I can’t hear the copper’s influences. And try as I might, the cable measure the exact same under the test regime for XLR, RCA and speaker cables. We tell you so, too. This is why we sell the copper separate from the DESIGN…you KNOW if it is really audible in your system or not.
If you want to prove us “wrong” you can! What we sell, the measurable and calculated variables are STILL superior to anything else we sell at any price point.
Best,
Galen Gareis
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Steven,
Some explainations are STACKED variables and you have to see them ALL to understand the end measurement.
We don’t have classic “impedance” at audio and, the REACTANCE is NOT stable with frequency…and the speaker’s reactance is variable with frequency…and the amp’s feedback and linearity is variable with the load that those two present and, no set-up is the same.
Take a RCA, XLR or speaker cable and measure the R, L and C with a precison R, L, C meter that averages each test twenty times or more per average, and do this twenty times and average those to remove test R and R…you’ll get the same R, L and C on any surface.
We do this all the time for precision RF cables that are far, far more sensitive than low impedance audio cables are, sorry to say…the numbers say so.
This is why cables are so misunderstood as we want to just “hear” it with no reference to the underlying science. It isn’t really very simple and to make better cables, we do our best to tell you WHY and HOW the variables are reached and balanced. Who else does this? Certainly some can complain that it is confusing…it is. That doesn’t make it wrong to do and I chose to do it this way, and accept the criticism for it.
Best,
Galen Gareis
Elk,
Yes, the PLASTIC is used to HOLD the wires in free space. That’s it. Techniclly you want PURE air and “magic” wires that are spaced to meet the R, L and C you want. The plastic is a necessay evil…fancier materials are still evil. There is no way around it.
That’s the best case unachievable objective. Now factor in voltage handling, durability ETC and it all gets more difficult.
Don’t forget, even with pure AIR, the inductance and capacitance go in opposite directions. AIR lets you SPACE the wires CLOSER for lower INDUCTANCE and STILL keep CAPACITANCE as low as possible but…even AIR will see a steep rise in capacitanc with two wires infinitley close. Not exactly zero “C” with low “L”…so more problems to solve.
Best,
Galen
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This is amazing. I’m learning so much more than trying to read through gobs of whitepapers on EM theory.
I hadn’t thought about the copper structure when I posited the question – but it makes sense.
What I was trying to connect in my mind is whether the perturbation of a resultant magnetic field caused by the current flow has any kind of “push back” effect on the source current itself. Here, I think about the cable sitting on the floor. If current is flowing from right to left, per the right hand rule, the magnetic field direction would be circle that portion of the wire from bottom to top (or top to bottom). While on the floor, the magnetic field would have to cross into the wood. Sitting elevated, it would not (or at least less likely to).
What happens when that magnetic field hits the floor boundary?
We know dielectrics don’t pass charge, but cause polarization. But what about magnetic fields? How does a magnetic field look when it encounters the wood floor? Or a metal plate? In the example given previously, if the UTP ethernet cable was not shielded and not twisted, but simply zip cord laid bare on top of the metal railing – is the magnetic field being generated via the current flow causing any change in the wire once it tries to pass through the metal rail/plate underneath? Will that cause feedback into the original current that causes various frequencies to start shifting phase?
With respect to phase; that implies time offset. Voltage is a summation of the numerous wave forms being transmitted through the copper (i.e. every frequency); i.e. the infinite sine waves forming a square wave, but it stands to reason that if we’re looking at over 20,000 various waveforms (FFT, anyone?) – there’s a lot of room for interruption and phase change as the wave is propagating through the cable.
And here’s where the micro / nano scale of time, change, etc. gets interesting for me. It’s not a single waveform. It’s not a single magnetic field. In fact, the numerous waves and fields are all interacting in the cable and outside the cable in some way. That’s why cable designs matter; it controls the behavior of these waves – protects them from each other – maintains their consistency through the cable – such that the signal on the other end has as little relative phase change – frequency to frequency – and other interference as possible.
So, theoretically, if something changes the minute timing/phase of the waveform relative to other waveforms, one might actually hear less coherency in the resultant sound.
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Magnetic fileds CONCENTRATE between wires, and are very weak opposite the parallel space.
This is why C and are so consistent even with UTP cables UNLESS you add a VERY strong ground plane AROUND the wires that are shielding egress of those fields. Yes, this is a braid or foil shield and now you DO have to adjust the center to center of a cable to get the same impedance.
Technically, a UTP design is seeing a GROUND but it is so far away that it’s effects are ZERO. Move the ground REAL close, like an ISTP design with a shield directly over each pair and we have a different set of field lines than the above as the conductive shield concentrates the external field lines, too.
This also is evident in action as the pair to pair NEXT inside the cable increases in overall shielded bundles of pairs. The concentration of the field lines are the EM wave itself and it is now stronger.
Careful pair lay selections tries to mitigate the external field lines to CANCEL and reduce this NEXT (near end cross talk).
Best,
Galen Gareis
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Thank you, Galen
What happens to the fields when they hit a boundary?
You can pick up a paper clip THROUGH material that is high permeable to magnetic field lines…the lines ignore the material and go through it. Most floor material doesn’t alter low frequency field lines.
To MOVE a magnetic field line the material has to have a low permeability, or low impedance, to magnetic fields. Field lines would rather go in that material than what else is around the cable.
WOOD, PAPER and the like won’t change magnetic field lines. CONDUCTIVE material change RF field lines. More simply, stuff a magnet stick to move low frequency field lines.
If you have HUM, you need a low permeability conduit (iron) pipe and put your cables in there. The external field lines will go into the CONDUIT and routed around the cables inside.
If you have a conductive METAL floor, yes, the field lines will be CHANGED at RF, but unless a magnet sticks to it will it alter “E” and “B” fields, both.
Still, the fields BETWEEN the fields SOURCE components are far stronger and have a strong hold on the cable’s measurements.
Repeatable measurements confirm all this over and over. That’s good, we can predict what we’ll have when we are done with the design stage.
Best,
Galen Gareis
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Cable elevators. I gave them up and only use hydraulic elevators… but I can only go about four floors. Escalators are a different story and my preference.
Peace
Bruce in Philly
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Thanks, again, Galen
Thank you, Galen. I’ll study these topics a bit further. I appreciate your time.
Truth be told, I have been using cable elevators for well over a year now.