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Speaker Cable Impedance-Is this important?

How important is the impedance of a speaker cable. The reason I ask this is that I got into a bit of an argument on another forum. I use Townshend Isolda cables. This cable gave me a black & white type performance enhancement, which I am very pleased with. I got this cable (SH from Ebay) on the basis of recommendations. Because I was so impressed I looked up the Townshend Audio website: http://www.townshendaudio.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=32&Itemid=86

This cable has two major features: Impedance matching and DCT (Deep Cryogenic Treatment).While I understand the DCT is controversial I thought impedance matching seemed reasonable. The Townshend site quoted typical cable impedance figures between 100-400 ohms. Isolda being 8 ohms and is close to the typical speaker impedance . The impedance figures are calculated using characteristic impedance equation.

I was told on this forum(Not Cable Asylum) by a certain individual (dripping with sarcasm) that cable impedance is not relevant at audio frequencies, that the characteristic impedance is also not relevant except at RF (though there is no frequency component on the equation ??). That this was pure snake oil or dodgy/clever marketing.

I know that the performance of the cable is not in my head because it was so enormously better then before. I and others heard the same thing on my friends very different system (Lowthers/single ended 300B monoblocks).

I know that this forum (Cable Asylum) is open minded and at the same time technically competent to give me a real scientific view/advice unhindered by dogma.
Is Impedance important?
Is characteristic impedance relevent in audio?
Is Impedance matching relevent? Workable?
Does DCT give an improvment?




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Topic - Speaker Cable Impedance-Is this important? - anton90125 08:12:59 09/12/07 (16)

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