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<blockquote data-quote="John Roberts" data-source="post: 145721" data-attributes="member: 126">Re: Damping Factor - Actual listening tests?Marty McCann Peavey&#039;s clinician used to do a demo where he artificially lowered the damping factor for some speakers on sticks to show what low damping factor sounded like. I attended one such session and as expected the differences were subtle and not even heard by all in attendance. Since I haven&#039;t said this lately, DF is an old archaic specification left over from tube amplifier days, when amps had higher output impedance. It takes a lot of wire to make that much source impedance.&nbsp; Then the audibility depends on the speaker, the less flat the speaker impedance vs frequency, the more audible any errors generated. If you want to do your own experiments you can do a crude null by setting up two identical speakers driven by identical (or the same amp channel) through different wire lengths. Then bridge a mono headphone across the two loudspeaker hots, or maybe one can between the hots and another between the grounds, while the null will be better if you use short cables for both returns and just the long cable for the one hot. For fixed install running speakers at 70V/100V constant voltage with step down transformers helps manage wire losses.&nbsp; For subs you are generally better off locating the amps proximate to the subs since LF will not play nicely with step up/down transformers. JR</blockquote>

[QUOTE="John Roberts, post: 145721, member: 126"] Re: Damping Factor - Actual listening tests? Marty McCann Peavey's clinician used to do a demo where he artificially lowered the damping factor for some speakers on sticks to show what low damping factor sounded like. I attended one such session and as expected the differences were subtle and not even heard by all in attendance. Since I haven't said this lately, DF is an old archaic specification left over from tube amplifier days, when amps had higher output impedance. It takes a lot of wire to make that much source impedance. Then the audibility depends on the speaker, the less flat the speaker impedance vs frequency, the more audible any errors generated. If you want to do your own experiments you can do a crude null by setting up two identical speakers driven by identical (or the same amp channel) through different wire lengths. Then bridge a mono headphone across the two loudspeaker hots, or maybe one can between the hots and another between the grounds, while the null will be better if you use short cables for both returns and just the long cable for the one hot. For fixed install running speakers at 70V/100V constant voltage with step down transformers helps manage wire losses. For subs you are generally better off locating the amps proximate to the subs since LF will not play nicely with step up/down transformers. JR [/QUOTE]

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