jandyt:

soundproof:

David:

 

 For instance, Kimber cable is now attempting to convince customers that there's a difference in the sound experienced through cables depending upon the COLOUR of the cable, and they recommend using a clear cable for the negative and a white cable for the positive connector.

Gosh! I've heard it all now!

Andy T.

Yes, the mind occasionally does get something to chew on when it comes to high-end hi-fi:

Ready for a stunning revealation? The COLOR of the PVC will affect the dielectric coefficient! Black colored PVC is worse than white colored!
When you stop to think about it, the addition of coloring agents to any pure plastic will tend to cause the dielectric proerties to degrade, as the plastics purity has been compromised and altered.

From this link, go down to Dielectric constant vs. Frequency. http://www.audioasylum.com/audio/cables/messages/2341.html

I think it is not the sound of the supertweeter that matters but the reduction in breakup modes in the tweeter during the production of high frequencies. In the case of a seperate supertweeter, I think it filters off the distortion inducing super high frequencies from the normal tweeters.

wonderfulelectric:

I think it is not the sound of the supertweeter that matters but the reduction in breakup modes in the tweeter during the production of high frequencies. In the case of a seperate supertweeter, I think it filters off the distortion inducing super high frequencies from the normal tweeters.

Which is interesting, though I haven't been able to get a good answer to this question: If we accept this, why do we need a supertweeter? Can't we just filter off said distortion without connecting it to a supertweeter? As part of the loudspeaker design ...

Or do we need the supertweeter "waves" in the room to retroactively modify the same that are emerging from the tweeter?

Which seems a little weird to me. 

soundproof:

 

Which is interesting, though I haven't been able to get a good answer to this question: If we accept this, why do we need a supertweeter? Can't we just filter off said distortion without connecting it to a supertweeter? As part of the loudspeaker design ...

That was my first thought, part of the answer lies in the fact that without the supertweeter nobody is being sold anything expensive.

I suspect anyone who says their system sounds better with a supertweeter would be unable to tell you if the supertweeter was connected or not when blindfolded, expensive solutions to problems you didn't know you had and the placebo effect are rife at this end of the market. Likewise I would be very, very surprised if there was anyone in the world with hearing sensitive enough to tell you what colour the PVC on the cable was, even if there was a slight measurable effect using instruments.

 

 Simon
 

wirralsimon:

soundproof:

 

Which is interesting, though I haven't been able to get a good answer to this question: If we accept this, why do we need a supertweeter? Can't we just filter off said distortion without connecting it to a supertweeter? As part of the loudspeaker design ...

That was my first thought, part of the answer lies in the fact that without the supertweeter nobody is being sold anything expensive.

I suspect anyone who says their system sounds better with a supertweeter would be unable to tell you if the supertweeter was connected or not when blindfolded, expensive solutions to problems you didn't know you had and the placebo effect are rife at this end of the market. Likewise I would be very, very surprised if there was anyone in the world with hearing sensitive enough to tell you what colour the PVC on the cable was, even if there was a slight measurable effect using instruments.

 

 Simon
 

 

I quite agree. I'm having a lot of fun rooting out high-end hi-fi canards. The Audiocritic has been doing that for decades, of course.

http://www.theaudiocritic.com/ 

 

Alex:

Okay, imagine you have two sawtooth waves (for those of you who don't know, a waveform which looks like a saw), and you combine them together, and move one very slightly out of line with the other. What you end up with is two very sudden peaks INCREDIBLY close to each other, and as a result, a short burst of incredibly high frequency. Now, if a speaker cannot reproduce that frequency correctly, the harmonic formed by those two close-by waves will be destroyed and the waveforms will lose their definition as two seperate waveforms, and begin to form into a single, poorly defined waveform. You aren't losing any direct information above 20 KHz, because you can't hear that high. However, you are losing information which affects lower frequencies as well.

I don't think this is true - adding the same signal to itself but delayed in time produces a comb-filter effect which nulls (or emphasises) certain frequencies present in the signal but does not add any new frequency content. In your description you are describing the changes to the waveform in the time domain, which may appear siginificant but these visual changes do not translate directly into the frequency domain and therefore what you hear. The human ear cannot hear absolute phase (only changes in phase) and so the "shape" of a waveform can vary considerably if the relative phase of its constituent harmonics are adjusted but all will sound identical.

Can someone add a description on how the ear works?  i.e. spectrum analysis and the way in which any waveform is broken down into its spectral content and as such the phasing of waveforms is irrelevant (from a monoaural perspective). 

i always loved that silly hi fi mag called hi fi review in the mid 80's that actually openly advertised such rubbish as red strips you put on your mains leads to reduce interference ( yes they were made out of REAL plastic ! )  and the utterly daft notion that scratching 1 inch marks on the 3 pins of the mains lead would increase the purity of the sound