Speaker Cable analysis by the great Nelson Pass: Science or Snake Oil

Find the original at https://www.passlabs.com/technical_article/speaker-cables-science-or-snake-oil/ or click here

This article was published in 1980. I am still amazed by the thoroughness of his analysis. Behold the master at work!. The entire article is attached as an image at the end of this post but I suggest you read it the above link.

I will just highlight some screen shots related to Polk Cobra.

Point 1: Impedance curve

Note the impedance curve of the Polk Cobra. 

Point 2:

 Low impedance cables such as Polk caused oscillation problems in some high bandwidth amplifiers then. This point may now be moot with current amplifiers with effective protection circuitry.

Point 3:

Please note that it's not the high capacitance that causes amplifier oscillation problems but the low impedance. And this problem was solved by adding Capacitors in parallel. Say what, more capacitance?

Point 4:

The connectors are important! In some cases a new cable may sound better than a cable that has been in the system for 5 simply because the connectors had degraded/oxidized.

Point 5:

Cables and good connectors are a reasonable investment as they do make a difference. The difference is sometimes too subtle to me measured except at the two frequency extremes.