[Boatanchors] Audiofoolishness!

[Mike Langner]

A friend of mine and fellow ham worked years ago in a home and car stereo
store while he went back to school.  The "Huge Cable" folks would routinely
come by and demonstrate the value of their mind-bogglingly expensive speaker
cables.  You know the drill, oxygen-free copper, aligned magnetic domains,
and + and - wires designed to handle the + and - better -- never mind that,
of course, speakers receive AC, and we certainly hope, no DC.

They'd put a controlled signal into a roll of their wire and a roll of thin
wire. The rolls were about the same physical size.

The 'scope on the output showed that indeed, their "Huge Cable" (euphemism
for the monstrous company's real name) passed the test signals with
significantly less waveform distortion.

But this stereo store guy wasn't impressed.  He noted that the two coils of
wire were the same size, so lots more copper loss and lots more inductance
on the spool of thin wire.

And the test signal?  A 100 kHz square wave.  Yep, the rounding of the
corners with thin wire was noticeable.

Great looking sales demonstration, sure, but when's the last time you or I
have ever heard a 100 kHz square wave?

"There's a sucker born every minute. . ."

Mike/
K5MGR
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