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Really, beautiful musical presentation at home is about what we hear/feel from the technology, right? And what we "understand," and feel/perceive are typically quite different. So I would suggest the possibility of expanding your study with experiential explanations music and wire design, taking the scope of exploration beyond the limitations of ideas of "scientific" understanding...and of biased thought presented as static truth.
Measurement and theory are useful, capacitance and impedance, etc, useful for development, but our standard forms of measurement can't touch the vast complexity of realistic music, live, or in the home!
Also, measurement of what natural music is made of tends to use borrowed technology created for other reasons, and tends to define relatively crude values of music.
Then these limited values can be used to create static beliefs, or as pointers to creative development. The good designers, like Decware and others, know that human perception is as much, or more important than limited tech, and have proven the faults of using tech alone. Consider the industry attachment to reducing measured distortion resulting in other unnatural, but less obvious obstructions to presentation of natural music...presenting a foundation for good tube amp development, the possibility for harmonic content similar to sound in life.
So good designers go further, using theory and measurement, but basing designs, as much or more, on what we hear. As a group, they have collectively taken audio beyond habitual measurement and technological biases. They agree that the human body, perception, and analytical function is potentially vastly more complex, fine-tuned, and able than our affordable corporate/economic-based measurement technology. The best designers can be technically intelligent AND feel/hear what can't be easily measured, while comparing real references of real sound as a foundation for developing perception skills and design.
Then, it requires a system/room using gear, treatments, etc, based on innovative musical design, to be revealing enough for us to hear subtle information. And equally, the one assembling the system/room (us) must be able to feel/hear subtle information, enabling us to figure out how to isolate and adjust impediment areas in order for the whole to be revealing and to convey natural sound more fully.
In this context, assumptions that capacitance and impedance describes sound potential of cables is true, but are also highly limiting.
Also, there are many more areas of accepted tech to look at that contribute to cable sound, like the computer noise noise you point to passed through USB cables to the DAC, noise/distortions that can also corrupt data.
But the big one is the vast "yet to be known!" As I explore cables, it helps me to look at the reality of what electric energy is….Energy... fundamentally composed of sub atomic particles. And flows of sub-atomic particles, like a music signal, are are innately complex, and can be fragile. This presents lots of possibilities for distortions and truncations of natural energetic flows and associated effects.
Add to that the very real complexity as we put together all that we have discovered, creating potential issues beyond our current understanding. From years of exploring cable listening and making, I have experienced the following: signal/current pressure effects how a cable conveys sound, defining different needs for different flows of energy; vibration effects particle flow, as does damping or not; insulation/dialectics modify particle flow, imparting characteristic sound qualities; hard annealed and soft annealed wire of the same high purity metal, convey the particle flow and therefore sound differently; different metals, metal purities, methods of making it and resulting internal structure....all create sound differences; the size of the exact same wire effects signal density and power, bigger power and signal wires letting through more density, body and bass, over smaller ones; skin effect and smearing are factors in individual wires that are too big...One 10 gauge wire versus a cable of the same type and quality made of 6-18 gauge wires will sound different. And one 10 gauge cable made of the same wire with a blend of 20, 18, 16 and 14 will sound different from the 6-18# cable; the many varied frequencies of noise in the power lines and the atmosphere….RFI and EMF effect cable sound to various degrees, imposing noise/distortion into the flow of particles. These can be mitigated with different styles of twisting/geometry, by placement, shielding, filtering, grounding, each effecting the sound of the same cable differently; associated, different numbers of twists per foot changes the sound, and this changes with different wire types, wire size, and dielectric used. All different geometries can be heard in my experience.... parallel together or with space...or more often used, various twisting or helix patterns; air dialectic versus cotton, teflon and others all effect sound; damping with teflon tube or cotton....etc; my experience with ICs and power cables showed that ground wires bigger than the other wires can effect noise/distortion, density, warmth, power, and revelation; Cable ends and how they connect, along with resonance/vibration create differences; in my recent IC experiments, using different ground wires than signal wires, the different wires all can be heard, good or bad. And once the wires are established, many variations of cable geometry using the same wires can be heard; the same wire stranded versus solid, or litz configured create different sound; metal used on ends...bronze, pure copper, gold plated copper, Rhodium plated copper, they all create different sound, presenting very real and valid choices for cable sound, be it power, speaker, or ICs.…
It goes on, the point being, cable making by technological theory, AND empirical data (based on careful discernment of sound) is really the only way I know of to make the best cables for natural music.
We must be able to differentiate the subtleties of sound as it compares to real music in the air if we want our cables to help convey sound in a natural way that our "subconscious" can accept as real. It can seem real, but if it does not feel real on "subconscious," intuitive levels, it puts a tension in the experience...disturbing the possibility for a beautiful musical experience.
This is refined human perception and analysis, measuring aspects of sound beyond machines. As with the measurable distortion model making amps that appear right, but that feel wrong, excellent presentation of music is well beyond technical measurement.
After years of trying to get the better cables for the money, and beginning to need to move into more expensive territory, I gradually proved to myself that I can make cables as good or better than the great cables out there, and at a fraction of the cost. I learned from tech, and experiential research, and from personal experience.
I really liked MAC cables, Decware Sticks and Silver ICs, Grover and Reality ICs, Morrow and Synergistic Research speaker cables, Wireworld, DbAudioLabs, and Curious USB cables, PIAudio power cables, a PSAudio AC12....All really good for what they are and cost when bought wisely (some used). But I noticed my DIY cables competed well, so gradually dug deeper.
Now, after lots of experimentation, the only ready-made cables that are still in my systems, are the PSAudio AC12 in my second system, and the PiAudio power cables (modded with ends I liked better, and grounding the one that was made for my Tranquility DAC, repurposing it for my CSP3) and a Curious USB Regen connect in my main system.
Here are some examples of the learning: I got really lucky using good ideas of others, and adding common sense to make a great sounding USB cable, with separate ground and power wires, and the signal wires being twisted pure/soft silver in cotton, the ends gold plated... it is better sounding...quieter, more solid, more revealing than my other very good cables, including the Curious cable I use…I don't know all of the why, but I know what I hear.
My most recent speaker cables started with a single strand of WE 16 gauge wire sounding quite interesting, but too small here for a full and rich signal. From prior experience, this was not a surprise, the opposite being a single 8 gauge Decware wire being quite nice, but too big/bassy for me, always a challenge to balance in my system/room.
Also feeling lack of articulation in areas that were not uniform, wanting to check out the theory of skin effect and smearing, I tried a cheap but well thought out pure copper, multi-stranded 8 gauge cable. Everything was more solid and articulate, the bass tighter and better to me, but still too strong.
Later, exploring what smaller gauge cables would do, I got a Morrow SP4 on sale and on trial. I don’t recall the gauge, but it was visually much smaller than 8 gauge. After very long burnin (with the dielectric from 48 very small silver on copper wires) the amazing accuracy was compelling, no discernible smearing, but the cable was too lean. Talking with Mike Morrow, he offered me a pair of SP6, having 96 wires rather than 48, and the larger conglomerate gauge cable solved the problem...plenty of bass here without smearing, and small enough not to present the bass as too dominant. Same materials and method, but bigger gauge.
Some time later, the silver on copper hardness ended up being a little too challenging, so I started digging more, and ended up with a used pair of Synergistic Research Copper Elements. It sounded more real, clear, deep, revealing, textured, airy, and warmish/friendly than anything I had yet heard, but lacked a little bass bite in my system/room! It was time to make my own again.
Looking at Synergistic Research, PS Audio, Pangea, cables I had experienced, all used multiple wire types, sizes, and/or air dielectric. Wanting to use my under-sized WE wires took a direction.
Days and weeks of trying different wire combinations, including up to 3 strands of the NOS WE 16# together, the WE with silver on copper, and finally taking a cue from Synergistic Research, arriving at pure/soft silver and pure/soft copper, and tungston on copper, all three in over-sized teflon (air)...and after exploring many twisting configurations, my speaker cables sound notably better to me than the SR Elements they replaced.
Meanwhile, I could not get my new/demo PSAudio P5 regenerator to sound transparent enough. Needing voltage regulation, so unable to go with a more transparent conditioner, after trying a lot of things, in desperation I bought PSAudio AC12 cable at very good price. It helped, good, but not good enough. The P5 was still too colored for me.
So I used my experience from trying different wire types and cable ends over the years to make a power cable that would allow more transparency. I chose multi-strand/multi-gauge of silver-plated copper teflon wires, knowing this wire to be perhaps too revealing and open for speaker cables, but needing this openness for the P5 in theory; and experimenting for some time with wires of different gauges, finally, the 8 gauge conductor conglomerates twisted just so; with the ground conglomerates helixed around each conductor group; and well damped with cotton cloth; using Rhodium plated ends (also known to be very open/clean, sometimes to an extreme)….I got lucky, with much improved sound from the P5. I had made a power cable for that application better than one reported by many to be one of the best...
Later, I made copy of that power cord, wanting to explore using some MadScientist filtering pieces, more-or-less as he instructed me to do it from his experiments. I had to change the filter parts geometry a little, not having enough wire, but it worked well! Using the same wires and configuration used on the previous cable (other than the Madscientist parts) the difference between the two cables was notable. Similar in flavor, but the new cable was more powerful and clear in every respect….too much so in bass. So I pulled a 20 and a 16# wire from each group, reducing its gauge from 8 to 9. Now the bass was just "right" from how my P5 regenerator passed power to the rest! The previous cable was 8 gauge and good with the P5, indicated the effect of this filter setup increasing bass power.
Final example: My primary 3 IC pairs, after months of trying different configurations and wires, I use 2 types of 24# silver/gold teflon wire, and one of super pure silver/cotton for signal wires, with KLE silver ends. Having tried lots of wire types and sizes for grounds, two cables are ending up with very pure litz copper, and one with very pure stranded copper. With different gauges and geometry as determined by much trial and error, in order to best pull the best sound from the different signal wires, the finished ICs sound individually great, and notably different, each better in its own way. Amazing cables.
All the above explorations proved it is possible to get the best of many worlds in one cable with care and determination, and that (in a revealing system) everything…. the wires, gauges, ends, geometry, etc matters….
It also proved that good cables can appear esoteric if we want to try and understand the nuances of why this or that works. But practically speaking, using empirical data, with careful concept, quality materials, experimentation, and very careful listening, we can end up with world class cables that allow the music to sound real and beautiful.
Measurements, theory, conventional thought….these can all be useful. But with assumptions and biases based on them alone, the limitations can become chains, holding us back. Though perhaps believable, “proven” science is born of the past, and in an ever transformative universe, our understanding of complex systems is clearly less-than complete. Luckily, those who remain creative discover new territory... new areas to understand.
Finally, all the belief in the world in static theory cannot change the Reality of what we can hear. And if we can get there in ways that science may not have caught up with yet, we have at least remained true to the nature of creative reality. True science is a study of Reality, not the determinant of it.
At the moment, for sophisticated musical presentation....representing real music in as real a way as possible, as perceived from all levels of perception and consciousness, it clearly takes more than science and theory...It also takes advanced human perception and analysis, driven by intelligent, confident exploration.
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