Part 2 | Controlling your Impulses

In the second of our four-part series we’re going to be discussing impulses, the effect they have on your signal, and what Turnbull does to deal with it. 

Have you ever felt the sudden urge to do something?  That’s an impulse and it’s a natural part of life.  It’s important to keep your impulses in check though, to ensure you don’t overreact all the time.  In audio there are impulses too.  And while they are a good thing, just as in life, they need to be controlled to ensure that your system reacts appropriately.  

At its simplest, an impulse in audio is a change to the current state of signal.  In power applications, the impulse is most dramatic at the amplifier where current needs fluctuate depending on the bandwidth and volume of the signal being reproduced.  The goal is to deliver high bandwidth, voltage, and current changes without slowing the rise of current demand or causing ringing.  There are a variety of ways that manufacturers try to address these challenges directly in the components, but at the end of the day, there will always be a high current demand at one critical place - on the power cords.

This can translate into noise in the cable.  When current increases, the collision of electrons and atoms in the wire increases resulting in more vibration/heat and energy loss.  It’s kind of like rush hour in the power cable with electrons as drivers.  Traffic has the potential to cause issues and the goal is to minimize the disruptions.  If a conductor is too restricted in current flow, or too resonant, it will introduce harmonics and compression at the impulse moment.  These harmonics change tonality and timbral character of instruments, while compression affects the soundstage and dynamic speed.  This can be as subtle as the system seeming slightly strident with a sudden attack, or as significant as a complete collapse of the soundstage and tonal distortion (e.g. brass instruments sounding electric).  It is also common for a system to suddenly seem to reach forward during dynamic passages and then relax back into its normal soundstage position during quiet or consistent level passages.  If you have ever heard any of the above, you have experienced impulse noise in a cable.

Not limited to just power cables, the detrimental effects of impulse noise can also be caused by speaker cables too, which have to deliver both power and frequency without distortion. 

At Turnbull, we have engineered all our Prestige cables to deal with these detrimental effects. Our cable mass and viscous damping technologies work together to minimize resonance and ringing along the length of the conductor to prevent energy loss. These two innovations help the conductor achieve a constant current state even while the demands of the amplifier vary in order to reproduce music.  The result is more dramatic dynamic swings, consistent tonality during the sudden attacks, and a soundstage that stays in place regardless of volume.  This is the goal at Turnbull - to eliminate the harmful effects of noise while elevating sound to its purest form.

Experience the effect firsthand that Turnbull cables have on impulse-related noise. Our dealers have extensive experience and look forward to guiding you along the extraordinary Turnbull Audio path!