DNM speaker cable vs. the rest

[This thread split from off from this one to keep the silly arguments in one place ]

Michael,

There must be something very wrong with either your system or with you... I would admit that you've prefered your ocos over the dnm when trying to compensate for other fault in your system... but hearing no difference between a cable that is essentially a capacitor (ocos cable has a very, very high capacity) that you connect to your amp outputs, and a cable with virtually no capacity... really is intriguing.

You see, I did the same comparison (ocos vs dnm) and I could clearly hear a difference... there must be a difference...

 

oh dear

 

At least, that way it has a perfect null...

 

ditto the oh dear,in fact,I will up it to a 'dearie dearie me'

 

Out of interest, what difference did you hear? As I understand it, DNM's widely spaced construction means it may roll-off treble in some circumstances?

 

I'm not going to let BD's fundamentalism ruin yet another thread :inferno: so I will reply to hist post in a new thread when I have more time.

Edit: I've split this bit into a new thread.

Michael.

 

More openness...

Why do you say that?

 

imo,Isolda is a better cable than DNM,for that very same reason,the DNM is closed in by comparison,hence why i am going to spend a bit more (with the Sparks) and I don't think there is anything wrong with my system

 

Remember "excessive detail"?... False sensation of detail?... Compressed sound?

At least you hear some difference...

 

That is my (amateur) understanding based on what I have read of how widely spaced/high inductance cables can change the sound. I don't know what amount of roll-off is possible or under what circumstances it can occur but I guess you would need to measure to see. Or a search on Google groups would give more information.

 

what am I supposed to be remembering?

 

please, not another reasonable thread BD'd

 

OK, it's time to put this topic definitively to bed, so here goes:

BD, first of all you haven't given any reason why you think DNM should sound "more open" (which is a vague description anyway). Is it because of it's low capacitance or because of those magic eddy currents? Have you measured DNM cable compared to other cable? I thought not. How can you say measurement is everything and then, on the one area of hifi which is most controversial (cables) decide that measurement doesn't matter?

Also in comparing DNM to OCOS (or Isolda, Goertz and similar cables which are all high capacitance, low inductance cables) how can you say they must definitely sound different? Explain, in electronic terms (ie not "it sounds more open"), how you think capacitance in speaker cables affects the sound and why you think high capacitance is bad. You have no idea do you? Did you know that DNM cable has very high series resistance and that is a rather more serious problem for a speaker cable than high capacitance?

Now, before replying, take a read of the following AES paper:

http://www.luacheia.com/misc_images/cableInteractions.pdf

In it you will see actual measurements of how a range of different cables perform as speaker cable both alone and interacting with 2 different amplifiers with quite different characteristics, mainly that one had a high damping factor and the other had a low damping factor.

Now the result are quite interesting. They show that:

- cables with high capacitance and low inductance (such as OCOS, Isolda, Goertz etc) produce the flattest frequency response pretty much regardless of conditions. In fact the cable (cable 6 in the test) with by far the highest capacitance and the lowest inductance (and fairly low resistance too) had the flattest response in all conditions.

- cables with high series resistance and low capacitance (such as DNM) tend to roll off the higher frequencies.

- multi-conductor cables also measured better than two conductor cables like DNM.

They also showed, interestingly, that the response of amps with a low damping factor totally overwhelms the effect of individual cables. These effects only came through on amps with a high damping factor. And before you think you know why I can't hear cable differences, my amp has a very high damping factor (around 250).

However, in all the measurements shown the greatest deviation from flat response was -1.5dB at 100kHz (and most were considerably less). I can tell you for absolute certainty that a drop off to -1.5dB at 100kHz is not audible by anyone. At 20Khz the biggest cable induced (as opposed to amplifier induced) drop off was about -0.2dB.

So, whilst measurements show that high capacitance (low inductance) cables, preferably combined with a decent amp with a high damping factor, have the most accurate frequency response (and cables like DNM measure far worse) the differences, even with an amp with a low damping factor, are very unlikely to be audible.

Maybe though the DNM cable is rolling off the highs in your system, compensating for those nail gun speakers you have which, I can understand, you might prefer.

Michael.

 

That with DNM speaker cables you are hearing more of your amp and speakers... but it always be cheaper to change cables than your amp or speakers.

So, I agree that there's no point in discussing this if you are not willing to change your amp...

 

I don't know what these audiophile terms mean.
What is openess?

 

bd when will you get the message, there is nothing wrong with Michael's system, that is a load of bollux, I have heard it many times. Its usually used as an excuse to make people spend more money.
IMO, his system is way better than yours.
The yams are ok, had 2 pairs myself, not quite what they are cracked up to be but quite good.
no bass tho' even tho perfectly balanced.
In kindness, your postings are tiresome, we have all heard it a million times, could you please talk about somthing different?

 

I think BD just likes cheap stuff, no problem there. I just wish he would stop rtying to justify it by ramming it down our throats.

BD, get a life mate, join in normal forum conversation, and stop spreading your muck through all the threads.

 

why earth would I change an A21a to accomodate DNM Reson?

 

Michael,

I already have justified the benefit of low capacitance cables (not capacity as I inacucurately called it) from an amp/cable interacting perspective. And I will just add that any common audio amplifier performs a long way better with pure resistive loads (actually, that is precisely the problem with conventional measurements). So, resistance is not an issue with domestic speaker cables.

Now I'm going to tell you what the benefit of low capacitance cables is from a cable/speaker interacting perspective.

Speakers (voice coil speakers) are essentially inductances (almost pure inductances at higher frequencies). These inductances are many times higher than any reasonable length of DNM cable for domestic use, therefore cable inductance makes no substantial difference in this context.

With high capacitance speaker cables you have a resonator circuit formed by cable capacitante and voice coil inductance which causes a time smearing of the audio signal. In this case the lower the cable resistance, the more rapidly does the signal vary with frequency at frequencies near resonance.

Said that this comparison was done with the Dynaudio Craffts (I didn't have the 1k's at the time), the very same brand that sells and advocates the use of this cables with their speakers.

PS: I remember you firmly believe that there is no audible difference between cables... any cables, so in your case what measurements are for?

 

the measures are for you to provide, to back up your ultra boring claims.

BD, you are remarkably tedious and lifeless, please try to talk about something else.