Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site charm.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxn!charm!prk
From: prk@charm.UUCP (Paul Kolodner)
Newsgroups: net.audio
Subject: Aluminum foil for speaker wires
Message-ID: <634@charm.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 24-Apr-85 17:27:41 EST
Article-I.D.: charm.634
Posted: Wed Apr 24 17:27:41 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 25-Apr-85 04:20:43 EST
Organization: Physics Research @ AT&T Bell Labs Murray Hill NJ
Lines: 13

Several problems with using sheets of aluminum foil
under carpet as speaker wires:

1. Power-handling capability of 0.001" metal is not great.
2. Inductance of wide, long sheets IS great.  Terrible for response and damping.
3. Aluminum oxide is an insulator.  Think about this.  Contacts to
aluminum automatically get opened up by growth of native oxide, leading
to the only known mechanism for a speaker wire to become a rectifier.
Rectifiers are nonlinear and don't make good speaker wire.  This is also why
there are no more houses with aluminum wiring.  They've all burnt down!
4. Wide, unshielded metal seets, even if not aluminum, are susceptible
to hum and rf pickup.
5. Skin depth is irrelevant at audio frequencies anyway.  So forget it.