Audiophiles - Worrying about the skin effect?

Unless you paid at least $1000 for your interconnects then perhaps you should worry about the skin effect. At the very least, you need to know what it is. This video will tell you all you need to know. Featuring Audio Phil.
CREDITS
Graphic and equation - Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skin_ef...
Sycamore gap - Tim Withnall CC BY 2.0 DEED
LINKS
Audio Science Review on the skin effect www.audiosciencereview.com/fo...
Belden Audio www.belden.com/blogs/broadcas...
Deco Audio on silver cables www.decoaudio.com/deco_audio_...
00:00 Introduction and content
08:28 Audio Phil
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[@ibleebinU]

The only skin effect I'm interested in is when the music gives me chills.

[@listeningto8371]

Or, she does what she does and you enjoy it

[@ibleebinU]

@@listeningto8371 Well, there's always that. 🤐

[@philrob4468]

My buddy was over the other day and we went down to my music room to grab a putter for him ( I keep my putters in my music room haha ). And he was kinda shocked how it looked and what I had. We started having a quick talk about the gear and why I started this and what keeps me listening to music almost everyday in my hifi room. He was astonished the money I have spent said it was a waste. I would spend around 10,000 a year before on eating out and entertaining at the pub and restaurant and it got me nothing really. I explained to him the feeling I get when I find a new album and when in a well treated room it can give such a strong emotional feeling, makes the hair stand up and just think wow. He sat down and I put a track on made him close his eyes and he was shocked. Just putting on thriller by mj just shocked him with all the sounds coming from all over. When people ask me why I love music so much… my reply is goosebumps… constant mission on making my hair stand up and I love it!

[@chaoticsystem2211]

or both@@listeningto8371

[@bugsbunny4698]

"The effect is greater the more you worry about it" is pure gold! 💰

[@shadowside8433]

I was just going to quote that too..... very funny.

[@geoff37s38]

I have qualifications in Radio Frequency Engineering. Skin effect is real. The higher the frequency the greater the effect and cable construction becomes more important. Skin effect occurs at audio frequencies but is so vanishingly small that it can be ignored and will have absolutely no audible effect.

[@thinkIndependent2024]

Thanks for the Clarification

[@cubemerula5264]

In other words you're just another sh*it4brains who doesn't have a first clue on audio? Thanks for the clarification.

[@chaoticsystem2211]

if a device exists that can measure that, it would most certainly be way more expensive that a complete eardrum transplant would cost ya...

[@nickk6109]

I think the audiophile needs to be more concerned with RF sensitivity due to bandwidth of semiconductors - large RF amplification can lead to instability and power consumption that impacts the semiconductor's ability to process audio frequencies. Think of it as your engine working hard for something you can't see, leaving little to no power for driving your car. It makes sense therefore to look at the filtering, power supply decoupling, shielding and PCB layout in the design of audio devices itself.

[@thinkIndependent2024]

Today it's not a problem. originally all HIFI cables were solid not stranded. If we can perfect carrying this new technology of full range audio sent to the ear by laser then it may become a new problem

[@biliescu]

I am really impressed with Audio Phil's cable. All that that titanium and nitrogen and everything else. Absolutely top notch! 😀😀

[@_Scintill8tor]

Don't forget the nano tubes!

[@greenmanreddog]

@@_Scintill8tor ...the Vanta Black Nano tubes no less - we wouldn't want them to 'colour' the sound 🙂

[@connorduke4619]

Audio Phil sounds like the kind of guy who has a six figure system that generates a showroom side with severely lit up upper mids, which is only suitable to maximum 10 minute listening sessions and even then only with pristine recordings. :)

[@GTRxMan]

The skin effect is real but in terms of audio perceptible to the human ear, it's utter bunk. There's no way that the skin effect is causing an appreciable fall off in frequency response. There's not a chance that there is even 1 dB of difference. Chasing after cables to mitigate the effect is simply another way to waste money.

[@usaturnuranus]

I beg to differ - They are not wasting money, they are making generous and voluntary charitable donations to R&D labs the world over, thus allowing the rest of us to obtain better equipment at a more reasonable price point. I think we owe them a bit of gratitude! (/s, of course).

[@Justwantahover]

I build speakers with FR driver and added woofer and use acrossover filter for the FR driver. I found that my steel alligator clip cables sound different to my standard copper cable. I used the steel alligator cables for trial&error connection. But after discovering that they sound different, I no longer use them. I now use cut off bits of my copper wire (without the alligator clips) for trail&error. Less convenient but way more accurate. So cables would have to make a difference. The difference in my case was so great that I had to change a resistor when I changed to my copper wire (after usinging the steel cables) on the crossover.

[@tori8380]

You’re confirming what many electrical engineers have told me over the years. Good channel!!

[@ronschauer839]

Oddly enough I was just discussing this with a friend (also a KZbin audio channel presenter) in the last two days. I did calculations and determined that with the wire being used for some interconnects we were contemplating, the skin effect should have no effects of any reasonable concern until at least somewhere well above 260-300khz. As neither of us are bats (last time we checked anyway), we laughed it off and carried on. 🤣

[@johnelectric933]

I have bumped into the skin effect while listening to music. The music was on the record player in the corner of the lab while I was working on unrelated signals at 800MHz at -80dBm on the bench.

[@bachvaroff]

"Hearing" the effects of the skin effect at such a low frequency with one's vastly imperfect pressure-to-neuronal activity transducers (ears they call'em) is on par with delusions during a manic episode. It's also an alarm to see a shrink asap, with the possibility of remaining there for treatment…

[@phomchick]

I have a pair of RCA cables made of Litz wire which I made about 40 years ago. I know where they are, but it has been decades since I’ve used them, because I now know what I’m doing and I’m sure it doesn’t make any difference.

[@matthiasgutjahr2501]

Thanks for this interesting information. As an electrical engineer I did calculations on cables for frequencies above 1GHz. Especially when it comes to high power and high frequencies, the skin effects need to be considered. It saves money as you just need a tube and not solid material. An audio signals might have harmonics up to 100KHz (e.g. a 10KHz square signal has a lot harmonics) but even then, the skin effect is very little.

[@razisn]

I hope you're not listening to square waves on your stereo..

[@matthiasgutjahr2501]

@@razisn Do you know what kind of wave forms music consist of?

[@beeble2003]

Who cares about the 100kHz harmonics? You can't hear them unless you're a bat.

[@simonzinc-trumpetharris852]

Let's all use waveguides instead of cables! 🤣

[@howardskeivys4184]

Another excellent and thought provoking video.

[@perlman7376]

Well done! Like all your videos. Thank you for presenting what you have found and not issuing a decree which usually infers that those who disagree are woefully ignorant, stupid or just can't afford the better things in life. Please do a video on blind listening tests. Although these also have their flaws (because everyone's hearing capability and perception are different) , they at least start with the premise that human beings should be the final judge of what sounds good. Back in the day there were far less choices but I was able to go to "stereo shops" and listen to speakers with my on LPs before I purchased a new set of speakers. Maybe ignorance is bliss but bliss sure felt good.

[@billpeel181]

as Frank Perdue so eloquently stated, "If you can develop a preference among dead chickens, you can do it for anything."

[@NewGoldStandard]

I like your new(ish) glasses. And, holy-smokes! Audio Phil doesn't disappoint.

[@Douglas_Blake_579]

And here you have the reason I've been telling people that thinner cables are better for interconnects. It's painfully simple... at audio frequencies the skin depth in copper is greater than the diameter of the wire... so the whole thing is used. The same is true for speaker wires... at 30khz the skin depth is like 95% of a 16ga lamp cord and since it is stranded wire, this depth is greater than each strand, so eddy currents are greatly reduced and you're only messing with 0.004 ohms of resistance per foot. Now if you want a REAL reason not to use horse-dong sized wires, consider that *surface area* is a grand multiplier of the cable's potential to pick up stray signals. Take any antenna and double it's diameter and watch what happens to your signal strength meter... bigger wires make better antennas. But hey... I'm just a lowly technician, what could I possibly know....

[@andymouse]

Nicely put...Bravo !

[@Douglas_Blake_579]

@@andymouse Gee, thanks!

[@pcp2240]

I never worried about the signal not touching the sides and depth penetration before watching this video!

[@donnelson8524]

Electrical Engineer here. Everything you said is absolutely >spot on

[@taidee]

This is why in low profile substations we use hollow tubes as busbars, no need have solid core.

[@andymouse]

Does Phil write his own stuff ? because he's good, really good! Great topic and I'm sure the chat is gonna light up...cheers.

[@darrellstyner0001]

Audio Phil is pure genius. Has me laughing out loud every time!

[@billsmith5166]

My comment was going to be something about the skin effect on braided wire, but you acknowledged it at the end with some sarcasm. Thank you.

[@TheSpoonwood]

Thank You ....that was deep.. had no idea.

[@Coneman3]

I scraped the skin off my cables and it seemed to help.

[@hifinut247]

Audio Phil scares me! Such attention to things I will never hear as a mere mortal. I know! I'll create my own AI and live vicariously through him! Thanks for the laughs and reminding me to just enjoy the music.

[@slevengrungus]

Guitar cables are subjected to an effect that can seem similar to the skin effect if the cable becomes several meters long, and you will then hear a clear decrease in brightness, a good countermeasure to this problem is to plug it through a buffer that converts the signal from high impedance to low impedance, and it will be capable of retaining those frequencies through said cable. By the same logic I would think active pickups would completely remedy this problem before even reaching the cable. the reason guitar cables are subject to this problem is because its core and shielding together can act like a capacitor, driving those higher frequencies to ground. Considering a buffer can retain the quality of a signal across a long capacitor I would claim that an "audiophile grade" power/pre amplifier should be able to retain the quality of a signal though a regular copper cable without any audible issues at all

[@kevingest5452]

That isn't skin effect

[@slevengrungus]

@@kevingest5452 yea its not. the skin effect is an inductive effect. The guitar cable is a capacitive effect created between the cable's shielding and its core, leaking higher frequencies to ground, thus dulling the sound before reaching the amp. The reason I said they can seem similar is because they both result in loss of high frequencies proportional to its cable length. the guitar cable is just way worse

[@klaushaunstrupchristensen7252]

It is a sad state when audiophiles worry more about skin effects rather than the Fletcher Munson “equal loudness contour” and the implications. John Crabbe once wrote an article in Hi-Fi News where he first went to a concert of a Mahler symphony bringing with him a spl meter. Afterwards he went back home and played the same symphony at what he felt was the same volume. It turned out that it actually was 10 dB lower than the concert hall level (quoted from memory!) This really makes questions like: which frequency response do we really need/want in a playback system where we potentially play at a much reduced level? Much more relevant compared to questions about how much skin effects reduce the level above 200 kHz. Thanks for sharing and greetings from Denmark .

[@willmcgo8288]

At 2:23 "Of course, the effect becomes greater the more you worry about it." - so true! If you are making hollow wave-guides to carry radio signal currents to an antennae in the GHz frequencies, the wave-guides can be built out of something inexpensive and strong like steel that is not the best conductor. Then coat the inexpensive metal with a thin layer of silver, which is an excellent conductor. Due to the skin effect the radio frequency currents are carried in the silver layer. The silver will in turn be coated with something non-conductive to prevent it from oxidizing. This effort is not required for audio frequencies.

[@philipkershaw7918]

In my experience, any percieved differences [usually HF loss or even hum] in cable performance is due to poor or failing cable/connector interfaces. EG. bad solder or crimping points. I am confident that at audio freqencies in double blind tests, no one would be able detect differences in cables due to the skin effect alone.

[@gracenotes5379]

Anyone who thinks their domestic audio interconnects must vastly exceed the quality and expense of a typical studio microphone cable forgets that the latter is unavoidably part of their signal chain.

[@ferrograph]

Along with hundreds of opamps. Oh noo! 😂

[@tellthemborissentyou]

I can't be worrying about this now, I have just spent all my money upgrading to audiophile light switches and I am saving for an audiophile garden hose!

[@Douglas_Blake_579]

Don't forget the light bulbs...

[@mikecampbell5856]

The late great Roger Russell of McIntosh talked about speaker cables and the rending of garments, the wailing and gnashing of teeth over speaker cables. He recommended 18 gauge wire because the extra resistance helped with damping factor.

[@AudioMasterclass]

Comment readers might like to explore further at www.roger-russell.com/wire.htm

[@brannonmcevers1854]

I think one should definitely be concerned about the copper cables and PCB's used in audio production. After that we can obsess about the 50 or so dirty opamp sections used in music production electronics...

[@SteveAcomb]

I’m an electrical engineer and I thought this video was gonna be mocking audiophiles for obsessing over differences you wouldn’t actually be able to perceive, but I guess not 😅

[@Douglas_Blake_579]

If you think you can actually hear "skin effect" you are no engineer. At Best ... it might, maybe, show up on laboratory quality test equipment.

[@MrBanzoid]

I would do a test on different cables but my Vector Network Analyser only goes down to 50kHz so any results would be meaningless.

[@Douglas_Blake_579]

@@MrBanzoid That and ... so many "knowledgeable" people have written about this that nobody can actually find the truth anymore. Very simply: Audio cables are NOT feedlines. All this talk about stuff that only matters at radio frequencies is just bunk.

[@boborman5537]

Nothing personal but let me be blunt. This was very interesting but a waste of time, if people think that skin effect has any effect on audio then they are crazy, let them waste their money. they are morons. Bottom line skin effect has no place in a conversation in audio, now you want to talk about microwave and wave guides then we can talk skin effect.

[@Roosville1]

Two points; at 6:10 where you discuss the effect at 20KHz, being the skin depth is 68% of your conductor. Although noted, it's good to remember that this point isn't a "brick wall", it's the point where 63% of the current is carried, the remaining 37% of current is still below this depth. The effect is therefore less than expected. The other, is the topic of surface roughness, where "how smooth" the conductor surface matters. The roughness alters the the impedance for high frequency signals traveling at the very edge of the conductor. Whilst really a concern on PCB traces, it does have a measurable effect on in co-ax cable. Certainly in the >40GHz range, but that little frequency-detail won't bother the serious audiophile. I give to Audio Phil conductor surface roughness as a new audiophile toy. :- ) And yes, I literally have in the past polished PCB traces….but that’s a RF story. Bum, thats two things for Phil now....

[@darryldouglas6004]

Do people who worry about such minutiae actually listen too and enjoy music or are they listening for the myriad of things that MAY go wrong? 😃

[@bpiorek]

That's why my Fulton Gold speaker cables are constructed of very fine silver coated copper strands whose resistance at low frequencies is .0001 ohms per foot. My system sounds fantastic, musical, articulate, dynamic and clean.

[@jeremythornton433]

Haaaa! Great video! The big thing is, can you really hear this skin effect? I bet not. I own a small but well equipped recording studio and the last thing I worry about is skin effect. Whether I'm listening in my studio or listening on my reasonably high end stereo in my living room. Audiofile! The tool you use to dull the point off of a person's head!

[@Douglas_Blake_579]

Of course you can't hear it. This whole thing started in the realm of pseudoscience when some wag applied rf feedline theory to audio cables, forgetting that the first resonance at 20khz happens at a feed length of ... are you sitting down... *3.5 kilometres (2.1 miles ).* The full wavelength is over 14 km or 8.6 miles. I don't know about you, but I don't plan using cables that long at any time, or any place in the foreseeable future.

[@PJWEnglish]

It seems to me that music/audio is at its optimum state when it is being mixed or mastered in the studio. The mix/master engineers are really the only people who get to listen to the audio in its purest form. From that point, the rest of the world has to listen to the audio, which was finalised in a studio, using equipment and acoustic treatment that is different to that of the original studio. Surely audiophiles should be trying to replicate the exact conditions to be found in the studio, worts and all, and that means using the same box standard interconnectors. Or am I missing something here?

[@dangerzone007]

No true audiophile worries about skin effect because they know it's far too small to be significant.

[@antonio.x22]

where is the list and requirements to be a "true audiophile?

[@dangerzone007]

@@antonio.x22 first requirement is to have a brain and don't be a dick.

[@AK-vx4dy]

Becarefull with Audio Phile because he speaks so audiophily that you comments will be flooded with question "where to buy ?" 🤣

[@34332]

😂😂

[@teashea1]

well done again

[@BoomerUKEngland]

I use interconnects made from van damme silver series cable, these use silver plated copper and are low capacitance, they have low high frequency roll off a retain lots of sound detail.

[@danender5555]

Audio Snob feels real with Phil filled with thrill.

[@frogandspanner]

As my ears can hear microwave frequencies and beyond I have to buy expensive interconnects.

[@moriyokiri3229]

lol

[@marxman00]

Yes, It's a curse !

[@matthewbarrow3727]

There are some speaker cables which work based on skin effect. I use the $1400 ten feet long Silversmith Audio Fidelium speaker cables, which totally depends on skin effect (which tries to maximum surface area, with strands which are less than a thousandth of an inch thick). I use these on a system which costs over $100,000 and see no reason to get a more expensive set of speaker cables. When I upgraded from a set of 10 foot long $1300 Transparent Musicwave Super cables, I found the improvement to be very dramatic. Of course, if you only have a $1000 system, you might not notice any difference.

[@34332]

LOL!

[@andymouse]

LOL!

[@bobsykes]

Thanks, "Phil".

[@peanutbutterjellyjam2179]

Heh, good one!🤣

[@matthewbarrow3727]

@@peanutbutterjellyjam2179 What's funny is that people seem to think that I am joking. I made this post to point out that there is more to this issue. I discovered this speaker cable from a review that a guy who had a $750,000 system made. His reference pair of speaker cables costed about $18,000, and he upgraded to this $1400 pair. I wasn't sure what it would be like, but since it had a 30 day money back guarantee, I decided to try it out. I was surprised at how good it was so now use it in my system. I find that people tend to to have pretty rigid beliefs. So much so, that there is a saying in some research fields: "For those who say that it can't be done, get out of the way of those doing it!". I remember back in the late 80's hearing about the differences in US versus Russian Space Shuttle design. The burn patterns from re-entry of the Russia space shuttle wasn't possible from US understood science. This suggests that no matter how smart people think they are, they aren't necessary right (which includes me). They believe themselves to be right and won't examine something if it does not fit their existing world view. The problem is that they can miss out on a lot of potential benefits.

[@pjmt29]

Where can I buy the cables that Audio Phil is using from? Thnx

[@bobbyboyderecords]

Are you the David Mellor the writer of music production books? I used to have a few of your books in the 90s if so. Very good

[@AudioMasterclass]

Yes that's me thank you. DM

[@garyfred88]

Among many audiophiles “resistance is futile!“ The attraction to high priced propaganda based products makes them irresistible! They have a neurological condition known as “Ohms (OHMy those will sound amazing!) Law” which almost entirely lowers purchasing resistance!😅

[@peterevans202]

If R(f) was a problem in interconnect, how much more of a problem would it be in the yards of wire that make up the speaker coil? You say the speakers have a flat response, but what wires were used to drive the coil when making that measurement? Stay tuned for the release of my skin effect correcting filter!

[@artysanmobile]

Wire has inductance, multi-wire also has capacitance. These quantities can be measured and the frequency response of any given wire can be calculated. Professional wire companies, as opposed to audiophile wire companies, include these specifications for every product they sell. We design engineers appreciate and take full advantage of such professional behavior as we can choose the best solution for every application. In all my years of such work, skin effect has received virtually no attention. Why? Because it has been measured and shown to be inaudible. Belden, as you mentioned, is very serious about its business of wire. Their products are expensive but competitive and exhaustively developed for each application with complete technical specifications. If skin effect had any audible contribution worth mentioning, you can bet they would do so and offer a product to mitigate it. Notably, it does not.

[@christopherward5065]

The frequencies of electrical signals being applied to a wire is very narrow in range compared to what a wire could propagate as a signal. I would say that wires do work through creating a magnetic field around themselves when they have an electrical potential difference between the ends. The field can be modulated in frequency at frequencies that can do work with transducers such as microphones and speakers modulating a current. The modulation of the field around the wire makes it able to affect its environment and to do work on materials and circuits nearby. There will be some loss of energy from the signal via the field into the environment but probably only a negligible amount of loss at audio frequencies. Increasing the frequencies by orders of magnitude would increase the proportion of energy lost through the wire’s field, as the wire tends to become a radio frequency transmitter. At audio frequencies there would be very little loss over the frequency range. Cables tend to be made of collections of wire strands so the effects are more about metallurgy, arrangements of the strands, strand diameters. These are more significant variables in audio cables. Most manufacturers are juggling these variables.

[@KeatingJosh]

I love music.. play and record.. and listen most days.. I have a nice set of speakers and a reasonable amp and good dac.. I use wilco £2.50/m cable and it sounds absolutely fine

[@permanenceinchange2326]

Already 40 years ago I read an article in an informative magazine... (for those old enough who know what that is). In the article they explained you can best use solid installation cable for your speakers, and nail them to your plinth about 10cm apart to avoid them working as a capacitor. I can't remember the arguments though, and I doubt I can tell the difference.

[@adamyelle4901]

It's been a long time since electrical class. My understanding was that it was primarily higher voltages where this is more of an issue. High voltage overhead power lines for example.

[@Douglas_Blake_579]

Higher frequencies... like broadcast frequencies. Voltage has little effect here on skin depth.

[@johnelectric933]

You are thinking current, not voltage.

[@Douglas_Blake_579]

@@johnelectric933 Still not an issue ... especially at 50 or 50hz.

[@davidkuntz4458]

i love the education

[@johnkortink8133]

A great line to start a video with. 'Here's something for you to worry about'. We all know why we're here. Things to worry about. Only to be explained we need not bother. :-)

[@Justwantahover]

What about those wide flat cables like 3" wide? Are they brighter?

[@paulredshaw6301]

I only worry about skin effect at RF levels where I use silver plated wire, Belden quote that 22 AWG wire has no skin effect at 20kHz

[@a.h.d.h.2803]

Lifting a veil with those, I think beautiful and new, glasses? And how do you know that is not pyscheo-acoustics?

[@Thoughtflux]

Don't want to believe but thicker guage silver plated good quality copper power cables do sound different even in low to mid-fi audio gears. I have only tried cheap Chinese audio cables. They are cheap enough to be at least used for their bling value so i bought a few and unintentionally heard a pleasant difference.

[@offbeatinstruments]

I used to work for a company that used skin effect to look for cracks in metal joints that had been subjected to bending forces. Essentially you send a high frequency signal through a chunk of metal and measure the voltage drop between two points. If there is a crack the current has to travel further (down and up the crack) and you can measure this. Bigger the crack, the bigger the voltage drop. So there is another thing to worry about (or not) cables with cracks in the surface layers with present an even higher resistance to high frequencies. So now you need cables that have never been bent.

[@graemejwsmith]

🙂

[@montynorth3009]

I don't worry about cable skin effect, and in addition, cable inductance and capacitance, simply because their effects are so tiny as to be irrelevant. Thickish speaker cables are necessary to keep their resistance down which is really all I would subscribe to.

[@welderfixer]

100% agree. I'm not running welding level power at radio frequencies out to my speakers.

[@stevengagnon4777]

The "skin effect" this going to be a touchy subject. So how about throwing a can of worms onto it. I've got news for all....the powe from sorce(amplifier)to the receiver(speaker) isn't transferred through the electrons in the wire. The electrons are more like excited sheep bumping into each other in a tunnel. They are reacting to the electromagnetic field generated around the wire from the sorce and receiver. The power is actually a vector going from the sorce directly to the receiver (more like light and at the speed of light) traveling in the electromagnetic feild defined by the sorce, wire and receiver. So like those sheep the electrons are actually robbing power from the system by bumping into each other and dissipating it as heat. Sorry Phil 😢😂. The bottom line is the wire needs to be big enough for the number of sheep and the insulator strong enough to contain them ... and yes a few are going to get away in the chaos as long as that is kept so a few in the overall picture... God will take care of them because they are His after all and the rest will not notice so much.

[@welderfixer]

@@stevengagnon4777 Awesome reply!! Great analogy!! Best I've ever read. I'm using that.

[@stevengagnon4777]

@@welderfixer thanks I had just learned some new stuff about how power is transferred (it seems that it's more like transmission) it makes sense when you consider the capacitor in the cross over network and the physical break in the connection. My brother (nuclear engineer in a power plant) and I had a good discussion about this and we both came to think this is true and made sense.

[@welderfixer]

@@stevengagnon4777 I used your sheep discrimination to explain electric to a young lady today. She got it! Please have a great day!

[@techcafe0]

to minimize the skin effect, simply use a copper cable with (many) more thinner copper strands wound together into a 'fat cable'.

[@techcafe0]

litz cables i think have many hair-like copper strands, all electrically insulated from each other (each strand is coated with shellac or something, i'm not sure), then individual strands are all soldered together at each end; forming a thicker cable that, suppodedly, minimizes AC resistance / reactance at higher frequencies. whether the skin effect is actually perceptible within the audible range of human hearing is another matter. first time I saw litz wire used was in a pair of Sony earbuds.

[@scottlowell493]

But but but...the ultimate in "fidelityness" can ONLY be obtained through cables as thick as a python! Because they are expensive and hi-fi magazines said so! :P

[@kensmith5694]

For you grounding consider that 20KHz goes several meters deep in the typical dirt. This means that your system ground is very well connected to planet earth if you ground all your audio at one point. Grounding can reduce hum pickup. The filters required to meet FCC generally mean that your whole audio setup ends up at about 50V vs planet earth, In the days of tubes, this was hard to do on any sort of budget. Today, transistors are basically free. An engineer can throw 10 more of them at a design if needed and not increase the cost more than the cost of the power switch or volume knob. "brighter" and many terms like that are very poorly defined. They are generally not well defined because in many cases the effect is pure imagination. Modern audio gear has a very flat gain and a near constant time delay over the audio band. For low impedance a 4 wire braided cable works better than two twisted conductors. If you braid two red and two back #14 wires together then parallel the same color wires, you will get a lower impedance than with a twisted #12 pair. Ribbon cable can work to get a cable under a rug. With a 100 wire ribbon you can use every other vs the other every as a speaker connection.

[@thinkIndependent2024]

Grown fonder each upload with ur foray into technical Audiophile land, Please put together something on "HIFI GRADE" vs " LAB GRADE" the first term does not really exist but is used very often

[@archiemacdonald553]

Phil you are scaring me again and the winter looming 😅 lol

[@pedrocols]

Audio Phil is my hero...lol

[@billrubin9831]

Skin effect is much higher than 40khz on wire. However, with a high end transparent system there I found better sound with cable lifts above the floor. Perhaps the floor can cause change in inductance/capacitance on a cable as well. I encourage you test with your ears...

[@Douglas_Blake_579]

🤣🤣🤣 ... Oh wait... you weren't being serious, were you?

[@LGODK]

If you take a BC547c NPN General Purpose Transistors, connect it with +3 volt on the Collector and 100k from + to base and 100 k from Base to - if you touch the Base of the transistor surrounding eclectic notice will flow to base and electrons will flow from C to E

[@Douglas_Blake_579]

Yes... annnnnnd???

[@usaturnuranus]

Hey now, Douglas, my musical taste tends toward "eclectic", so maybe I need to go back to noodling around with BJTs, chase that demon Eddy guy and all that...😮

[@Douglas_Blake_579]

@@usaturnuranus Naaa that's not it ... electron flow in an NPN transistor is from emitter to collector.

[@klausmller1219]

I see one need to be quite careful when stripping the loudspeaker wire - if you accidentally cut some of all the thin outer lying wires making up the cable all the high frequencies are lost in action or at least a big proportion of them 😁. I wonder what quality of cables are used inside the components.

[@jonathanlake6053]

As they say you pays your money & takes your choice, I enjoy the sound from my silver interconnects,but I have never been convinced that a silver wired mains lead would make any difference.

[@the_overflow]

The problem is, that chain is just as strong as the weakest link on it. There is no point to have better cables or anything that the equipments used on the recording.

[@marxman00]

we use damp string in my studio

[@jonathanlake6053]

You could argue that the sound is being further degraded by using the same cables again though.I know some studios have upgraded their cabling, but when you listen to those recordings from the sixties and seventies the proof is in the listening that the cables available worked okay then, & we hold so may of those recordings as all time greats, so yes. Maybe the recording engineers are the weakest link when it comes to a decent sound.

[@andymouse]

Yeah... shit in, shit out.

[@DrBovdin]

Now I may be slightly off on the physics (it has been a few years since I actually did any maths on analog signals in wires), but ponder this: If we compare the propagation of an audio frequency signal through a solid wire of say copper and compare to the same signal through a silver plated wire. With a well chosen diameter wire, the skin effect will be negligible even at the upper end of the audio spectrum through the solid wire. Now introducing the silver plating. Would this not exacerbate any skin effect due to the lower impedance of the literal skin, the plating of the wire? I would not be surprised if such a cable would be even detrimental to a signal passed through it. This area is so filled with near religious beliefs that it’s hard to find good, scientifically sound (pun definitely intended), information on the actual behaviour of a signal in in a cable in the relevant frequency range.

[@dmitriy2853]

I would put cables and connectors in first place in terms of influence on sound, after a high-quality speaker system. There have been discussions on this topic for decades, and it's a shame to waste the time of people who haven't already, especially those who listen to jazz and classical music, where it really matters. The main thing is to buy from trusted sellers, do not take risks. It is worth noting that amplifier components are also conductors with only a specific function. For me, everything was decided 27 years ago, when I bought my first American power cable from a famous brand, I was shocked by what I heard! Thanks to the masters who know how to do this! Warming up to 500 hours is also important, in the process the bass will disappear and other distortions will appear, the result is worth it!

[@marxman00]

Can this process solve jazz problem?

[@janwege150277]

Dałem łapkę w górę 👍 Serdecznie pozdrawiam.

[@BrainHurricanes]

The higher the frequency, the higher the resistance (impedance) from your speakers, so the skin effect is absolutely nothing to worry about in comparison. As a silly comparison, say your speakers impedance rises to 100 Ohm, the skin effect would add 0.0001 Ohm on top of that. I'm sure someone can come up with the correct numbers, (but still negligeable).

[@anonamouse5917]

How about we just use the outer sheath of cablevision coax for speakers. That should have enough conductor for effortless power delivery and still be cheap(ish).

[@edmatzenik9858]

A bloke came to my studio years ago, selling great microphones we couldn't afford. He was also selling quite cheap speaker cable that he said was better than the lamp flex we were using and set up an A/B test. We were surprised to find that, yes, it was better and we could hear the difference so we bought some. And he told us why it was better: "It's just because it's single-core," he said. "This is a special wire for air conditioners, but next time you buy wire for speakers just buy single-core doorbell wire." Try it, it won't cost much.

[@TheRealWindlePoons]

For an entertaining read on the subject, find a copy of Allen Wright's "Supercables Cookbook". I have tried a recipe or two from this and they worked for me. As ever, your mileage may vary...

[@TheEulerID]

The statement that thicker cables are worse for skin effect is only true in the sense that their proportional increase in resistance to skin effect is higher. However, if the absolute effect is lower. That thicker cable will still have a lower resistance at higher frequency than will a thinner one. What matters is whether it is significant or not. If the input impedance on a loudspeaker at high frequencies is low, say 4 ohms (unlikely) , then an increase in resistance over a couple of metres of audio cable of a few tens of milliohms (at worst), will haver zero audible effect. A thicker cable will simply not make that worse (indeed it will be better, scaling by the wire radius, not it's cross-sectional area). For signal cables, with input impedances measured in thousands of ohms, then the skin effect is utterly irrelevant. The only type of audio engineers who need to concern themselves with the skin effect are those working in giant arenas, auditoriums and the like, when a large number of other factors also come into play. In any event, in the unlikely circumstance that the skin effect is important at audio frequencies, then the solution is to mover the power amps close to the speakers.

[@maidsandmuses]

Indeed the skin effect is real, but for normal, practical analogue audio interconnects the frequencies are too low for this to be a concern. In any case, if audiophiles are really worried about this, both the DAC and amp should be _inside_ the speaker, and the connection between the source and speaker should be digital. That way the overall analogue cabling can be kept the shortest.

[@natigrinkrug]

I believe it was Dave Worrall, or perhaps another channel, that said "Nature is a low-pass filter" - and that applies to so much

[@bottomendbliss]

The higher and lower frequencies need to be organised together onto tiny bus's so they arrive together on time.

[@titntin5178]

Maybe I'm a different kind of audiophile, but all I'm interested in is how it sounds and how it communicates music to me. I guess there are a ton of snake oil salesmen who may well spout some of this stuff to try and justify pricing but unless they can definatively measure why something sounds so good to me, its just hot air, it will sell on how it sounds. Same for those who think we can definitively measure everything and confidently declare it doesnt exist unless they can measure it - such as the stalwarts at ASR. Are they really saying other earth like planets never existed until we got the tools to observe them? I will continue to use the measurements we know about, but most importantly, my ears to judge what I like and what seems worth the spend. Maybe a few of you would already consider me to be well down the Rabbit hole - I just spent £330 on speaker cable. I didnt spend because of technical mumbo jumbo, but because they sounded like a big improvement to me, and results are everything to me, subjective or not.

[@tubefreeeasy]

Forget silver plated copper, sounds bright, sounds gritty but transparency is better than pure copper. Pure silver all the way.

[@MarkThomas-hm3ju]

Hey, with the new technological advances made theses days, maybe a speaker cable could be made using a crossover which would shunt the high frequencies to the center of a multi metal layered design whereby the center section has been made favorable for high frequencies. Wealthy audiophiles could rest then.

[@AudioMasterclass]

Audiophiles never rest.

[@Bob-of-Zoid]

The guy at the very end in the upper right corner with his insane over the top cable design: 2 speaker cables, only $165,999.99 Sound improvement = .00213%!

[@rendem8]

Are we talking about conductors with one solid thick strand, or many thin filaments spun together? 😊 Which diameter counts?

[@AudioMasterclass]

Well there's this - www.electricaltechnology.org/2022/10/skin-effect.html - If you're interested in power transmission. DM

[@Douglas_Blake_579]

@@AudioMasterclass Wonderful ... a website that blurs itself as soon as you try to use the mouse or scroll it.

[@rendem8]

@@Douglas_Blake_579 had no problem on Phone

[@Douglas_Blake_579]

@@rendem8 It was objecting to my ad blocker.

[@paulphilippart7395]

Left out the t ,the skint effect after purchase. Its the usual addressing the so called symptom whilst ignoring the real problem, imperfect Loudspeakers.

[@beeble2003]

I'm not sure what point you're making by comparing the 0.8mm cable to the 3mm cable with 685 skin effect. 100% of a 0.8mm cable is 0.5mm^2, but the outer 68% of a 3mm cable is 6.3mm^2. So, even taking skin effect into account, the 3mm cable still has a much higher effective cross-section (i.e., much lower resistance) than the 0.8mm cable. (No, I'm not an audiophile. I can't hear anything. I haven't spent money on anything.)

[@edmundleung2098]

Back in thr days of old, you walk into a state of the art recording studio you see a patch bay with these flimsy colored coded cables for everything.

[@greenmanreddog]

Has anyone ever considered using 15mm copper pipe for speaker cable? This would eliminate the skin effect completely as the only conductor is in the skin.

[@connorduke4619]

Yes but that could be sold for $25 per meter and would undercut the entire cable industry!

[@willmcgo8288]

With the added benefit that you could run coolant down the core, and keep the conductor cool and push higher currents without the conductor getting hot and increasing in resistance, thus preventing additional power loss in the conductor. Probably best not to mess around with the potential for flooding, and leave the liquid cooled cables for fast-charging electric vehicles and underground extra high voltage cables on the electrical grid .

[@jondu-sud274]

Oh no, I will not be able to sleep tonight knowing that I have a new problem to worry about.......the day had been going so well

[@arvidlystnur4827]

I doubt any expensive woo woo line level, low impedance cable or silver fancy speaker cable would sound or scope any different then good grade low capacitance coaxial or good grade 10 or 14 gage copper wire, in a blindfold test. I remember wiring two speakers at a party, one channel cheap RadioShack 20 gauge and the other a 14 gauge camping extension cord 20 ft lengths. The RadioShack side sounded like the tweeter was blown. I scrounged around and found some expensive 14 gauge speaker wire, then used it to replace the twenty gauge stuff. Funny thing, even switching the amp to mono, no one could hear the difference between the expense 14 gauge speaker wire or the camping 14 guage cord! ElectroVoice has tables on what gauge to use for differing applications of speakers. Short run wires, low volume efficient drivers 16 gauge may be sufficient. Long run, 25 ft, loud inefficient driver between 10 to 14 gauge wire, probably is necessary. If 14 guage copper just gets the job done, 10 won't improve it, and 16 gauge silver won't get it done.

[@matthewloughlin1943]

I'm not an audiophile, just a HiFi enthusiast, the thing about cables always irritates me, I have seen insanely expensive cables that are of exactly the same construction as far far less costly items. Whilst trying loads of different cables to my speakers, none of them costly, I noticed that tinned conductors sounded better than plain copper, no Idea why. Could some small part of the audible improvement be ''skin effect''? being reduced? I am making a leap of faith here but I'm just curious.

[@jakobgooijer]

Must be 20 years ago I've read something about skin effect in audiophile magazines

[@KCarlWhite]

Are there any blind testing to prove that anyone can actually hear skin effect in a home stero setting?

[@Douglas_Blake_579]

It's such an embarrassingly trivial matter that nobody in their right mind would try it.

[@dougg1075]

Shhhh! You’ll spoil it. Yun / Remo Williams