Measurements

This page reveals what you would never see in real world - how our modulation cables react outside the audio band. This is usually never shown, because most of the energy outside the audio band is already attenuated by the roll-off of preamplifiers, amplifiers, crossovers, speakers ... and in the end, human ear which is also a low-pass filter. No one can assume audio signals are perfectly transmitted if the cable shows poor high frequency performance rendering ; By high frequency, we consider everything beyond 9 kHz up to 20 MHz or more. Poor HF behavior may be a symptom of the lack of good quality dielectric bound to the active conductors AND skin effect combination PLUS electrostatics forces. In fact, that kind of data is rarely shown and you should interpret it as a "transparent" initiative from New Audio Reference Cables.
The human ear is unable to hear pure fundamental tones beyond 20kHz. However, it is an established fact that our auditory system is easily able to perceive and appreciate the spectral envelop of a sound that has its fundamental in the ear sensitivity range and some harmonics in and outside this area, and has even more critical needs in the time domain, where fundamentals and harmonics must be in perfect synchronization  with one another. Achieving perfect tonal balance of instruments may rely on untouched complex natural arrangement between fundamentals and all even and odd harmonics.
This varies all the time at a dramatic speed in terms of respective levels, instant variation of pitch and energy, plus highly complex transient noises that occur at the beginning of each note of violin, cello, electric bass, snare drum, flute ... that make the human ear really able to recognize the instrument being played. In fact if the bandwidth is not wide enough, the instruments reproduced may lack clarity in the attacks, tone character may suffer, and final rendering can be very far from the original complex (and highly wanted) sound.
Human ear will always be the final judge to appreciate all the tonal qualities of a cable, and measures will never overcome human ear appreciations. However, from those measures we can try to establish a cross link between the sonic subjective performance of the cables and real electric measurements. The better the dielectric, the lowest the capacitance, the less instant static charge loaded ; the faster the cable will be able to react. The elimination of the skin effect in the audio band and upwards combined with highly desirable dielectrics give audible benefits in terms of clarity of the musical message.
Seen those graphs, the intrinsic linearity of the cable gives remarkable rendering of fundamentals up to complex harmonics that are so delicate, low-energy profile and subject to losses, and makes the cable a really friendly companion for very high definition sources, either with digital or analog media.
For example, the impedance curve is absolutely flat and steady in the audio band and upwards, and still at 10 MHz it shows the same nominal value at 109,6 ohms. Not everything is shown here as it would have been too extensive, e.g. the frequency response of the cable which is absolutely flat until 39 MHz, and the -3dB roll-off point which was measured at about 85 MHz .
( Measurements were done on the Cu-007 "Chambord" 70 cm length, using a Rohde & Schwarz ZVRE ).
More measures to follow. Stay tuned.

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