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Author Topic: sonic compromise with homemade speaker cables?  (Read 13224 times)

Kemper Watson

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Re: sonic compromise with homemade speaker cables?
« Reply #40 on: May 01, 2016, 06:09:30 PM »

I am not sure if you are dg in the US but if you are do what many of us small system guys do and go to audiopile.net.

A decent product at a fair price with better than good customer service.

Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk

This... All my speaker cables are Audiopile. Never an issue that was their fault..Great wire, connectors and service
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Luke Geis

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Re: sonic compromise with homemade speaker cables?
« Reply #41 on: May 01, 2016, 09:11:43 PM »

When the guitar is unplugged the guitar cable can definitely be microphonic. They are significantly less microphonic when plugged into the guitar, but I have had some that made noise still....

High impedance is a weird thing. You know it's a thing at all when you can buy buffers and other " TONE " sustaining and improving devices..... The Valvulator is one of those such devices. A tube devise that both takes care of power and signal..... We are beginning to infringe on the audiophile market with stuff like that.

If anyone has to SELL you a cable or devise that improves what should already be there, the possibility is that your being sold.

While it is a fact there are bad guitar cables, or at least ones that don't work well for what you have going on, I have yet to come across a speaker cable that sounded like poop.
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Stephen Kirby

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Re: sonic compromise with homemade speaker cables?
« Reply #42 on: May 02, 2016, 01:39:08 AM »

Stephen, a microphonic cable?  I would have to see it to believe it?  What are you doing knocking the electrons around?
Move a George L cable around on a hard stage you you'll hear the noise.  Slap it on the stage and it will make a loud noise.  Just like a microphonic tube or guitar pickup.  If you could separate out the signal from the surrounding noise you'd hear it picking up things.  You can't hear it over the guitar, but it's there.  Just the handling noise is enough to make me shy  away from such things.  But extra noise in the signal chain is never a good thing.  Even if you're just playing a distorted guitar.
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Scott Holtzman

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Re: sonic compromise with homemade speaker cables?
« Reply #43 on: May 06, 2016, 11:12:04 AM »

Move a George L cable around on a hard stage you you'll hear the noise.  Slap it on the stage and it will make a loud noise.  Just like a microphonic tube or guitar pickup.  If you could separate out the signal from the surrounding noise you'd hear it picking up things.  You can't hear it over the guitar, but it's there.  Just the handling noise is enough to make me shy  away from such things.  But extra noise in the signal chain is never a good thing.  Even if you're just playing a distorted guitar.
A tube has components that can oscillate (physically) that movement will alter the signal going through the tube.  A pickup is designed to do that

Microphonic implies the recovered waver resembles the original one.  I can see how slapping a cable could possibly cause a resistive connection but this is still a stretch.

I don't get the physics 

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Scott AKA "Skyking" Holtzman

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John Roberts {JR}

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Re: sonic compromise with homemade speaker cables?
« Reply #44 on: May 06, 2016, 12:57:12 PM »

A tube has components that can oscillate (physically) that movement will alter the signal going through the tube.  A pickup is designed to do that

Microphonic implies the recovered waver resembles the original one.  I can see how slapping a cable could possibly cause a resistive connection but this is still a stretch.
"Microphonic" in this context just means that physical movement or stress of a component, can cause audible perturbations in the components electrical signal path. 

I've seen microphonic PCB components that made noise when you tapped them with a pencil eraser, and even solder joints there were probably more intermittent than microphonic. 

If a wire like a mic cable is passing DC current (like from phantom power) and wiggling the wire alters it's DCR that could cause noise, I have also heard of, but not personally experienced issues with funny cable insulation properties (blamed on distributed capacitance or even piezo effects, but like I said I have never experienced this).
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I don't get the physics 

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While I never took them apart to confirm, I would speculate that microphonic components (like capacitors) I've encountered had loose bits inside there weren't supposed to move around, and when they did it changed the C's characteristics causing electrical noise in it's path.

I've encountered this with high gain preamps where I would tap around the PCB with a pencil eraser to find the rouge part (it would be the loudest). Since the circuit is powered up while you are doing this a non-conductive pencil eraser is the right tool for that job. 

JR
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Scott Holtzman

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Re: sonic compromise with homemade speaker cables?
« Reply #45 on: May 06, 2016, 06:39:43 PM »

"Microphonic" in this context just means that physical movement or stress of a component, can cause audible perturbations in the components electrical signal path. 

I've seen microphonic PCB components that made noise when you tapped them with a pencil eraser, and even solder joints there were probably more intermittent than microphonic. 

If a wire like a mic cable is passing DC current (like from phantom power) and wiggling the wire alters it's DCR that could cause noise, I have also heard of, but not personally experienced issues with funny cable insulation properties (blamed on distributed capacitance or even piezo effects, but like I said I have never experienced this). While I never took them apart to confirm, I would speculate that microphonic components (like capacitors) I've encountered had loose bits inside there weren't supposed to move around, and when they did it changed the C's characteristics causing electrical noise in it's path.

I've encountered this with high gain preamps where I would tap around the PCB with a pencil eraser to find the rouge part (it would be the loudest). Since the circuit is powered up while you are doing this a non-conductive pencil eraser is the right tool for that job. 

JR

See to me microphonic means that the device is acting like a microphone and the unwanted input is "recovered" source material.  It was a term I have not used in a long time and would refer to vacuum tube based equipment.  IIRC it was the grid movement that did it and some were damn sensitive.

Noise made because connection characteristics change on physical stress is just a bad connection in my book.

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Scott AKA "Skyking" Holtzman

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Stephen Kirby

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Re: sonic compromise with homemade speaker cables?
« Reply #46 on: May 06, 2016, 07:31:34 PM »

It seems to be related to how well the different layers are bound together.  Things like Monster or George L will clack with a sharp midrange sound similar to a microphonic tube tapped with a pencil whereas better cables either return a dull thunk or nothing at all.  I've seen the same thing to different degrees in microphone cables although it's not as pronounced, maybe due to the high source impedance of a guitar.
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Re: sonic compromise with homemade speaker cables?
« Reply #46 on: May 06, 2016, 07:31:34 PM »


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