RG59 as audio cable

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I use RG58 as speakercable at the moment. You can´t generalize RG58
sounds in a special way or RG62 does. It all depends on the manufacturer
and other things. RG58 sounds different in my experience from brand to brand.

In my system it definately makes a very tight bass. As my room bloats bass to much
i welcome it. In other systems it may be to tight bass. The highs are crystal clear
and no grain in the mids - I like it.
Here is the way i wire them. Saw it years back as a suggestion.
 

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HenrikKronborg said:
Has anyone tried using RG59 cable as interconnect. cables?

I have 6 x 50cm Profi line audio cables and thats just a little to short. They don't look very profi, so i was thinking about trying RG59 since it's nicely shielded and with relative low capacitance. Around 16 - 17 pF/f.




If you are looking for an alternative Line level or speaker cable I personally use High speed data cable its a two conductor plus sheild twisted pair cable the noise in my system reduced drastically especially in my automotive system......for one thing you can use it as as a balanced Line or single ended cable....I buy cheap by the 30 metre roll and then buy some good interconnects to terminate the cable......If I might add...coax cable has a 75ohm Impedance where asregular audio cable has a 600 ohm Impedance the result could over load the preamp input stage


Cheers!!The DIRT®
 
diyAudio Senior Member
Joined 2002
I AM A REGULAR...

Hi,

Well I am here at least.;)

If I might add...coax cable has a 75ohm Impedance where asregular audio cable has a 600 ohm Impedance the result could over load the preamp input stage

That will very much depend on what coax and on what you consider as a "regular" audio cable, wouldn't it?

In my designs I often use twinax configurations except for the digital cable, some are star quad.

Impedance is kept low as are capacitance, inductance is slight higher that way.

Cheers,;)
 
UTP Cat. 5

I'm using UTP Cat. 5 for interconnects and I'm very happy with the results.
It's hard, very hard to tell the difference between these and my QED Silver Spiral interconnect.
In fact, I didn't bother yet to listen very carefully and try to detect what sounds best to me.
I strip it and use two conductors for signal and two for ground.
I cross them, and it stays like a Kimber, see?
But it's crossed tighter than a Kimber.:cool:
If you need shielding, you can make it with aluminium or copper foil and a stripped conductor, and put a sleeve.
For speakers I have Kimber 4TC for some 8 years and I'm so happy with them I won't touch them in the following 100 years.:devily:
This cable made me forget speaker cables.
I heard the UTP cable works very well as speaker cable too.
You may read this:
http://www.tnt-audio.com/clinica/triple_t_e.html
 
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I forgot to say:
These UTP Cat. 5 interconnects I make are notably and audibly much superior than these commercial cables I tested:

- Qed Qnect2
- Kimber PBJ
- Wireworld 80 Euros interconnect (I don't remember the model...).
- Rega interconnect.

And I make them with cheap gold-plated metalic plugs, at 0.50 Euros each.
No fancy plugs here.
The cable cost me 0.38 Euros/metre, and with a big discount, I payed 14 Euros for 60 metres.:bigeyes:
And with one metre I make one pair of 0.5m interconnects.
Yeeeeeeeeesss!!!:cool:
 
Phono-plugs

I can tell there very different opinions about using rg59, but there will allways be this discussion.
I might try to find some silver wire instead.

I've been looking for some good plugs and I found these at one of our components suppliers.

http://www.deltron-components.co.uk/Catalogue/connectors/plugs/index.htm

Look under "PROFESSIONAL PHONO CONNECTORS"

Anybody who knows these plugs. Personaly I think they look ok.
 

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Belden#1505A

Hello,

I had to buy 500 feet of this cable to use in most applications of my hi-fi set up for at the time I could not find any retailer selling them in a few feet.

IME;

3 component video - better than average monster video cable

digital interconnect - better than the entry level of audioquest video2 and MIT terminator3

analog interconnect- better than average monster interconnect

Speaker cable - make out of the center of 89259 and the center of another RG59(forgot the number now), twisted together and shield with another belden copper shield bought separately; and then wire them like Wombat illustrated - performance equal the MIT terminator 2 which at the time costed $600cdn for 8 feet pair second hand.

Regards,
Chris
 
diyAudio Senior Member
Joined 2002
RGXX

Hi,

One thing you need to check with the industrial cable is that the core material use is non-ferrous.
Lots of these cables are plated steel wires for the industry/military requires high tensile strength.

If it is magnetic it sucks for audio use.
Other than that try to keep capacitance and inductance within reasonable margins and you have all the potential to build a better than average I/C L/S cable.

Cheers,;)
 
I find myself aggreeing with fdegrove about using RG-59. Most of the RG-59 I've seen (CATV Engineer for 20 years) has a steel center conductor with copper plating the shield will be AL foil with AL wire braid. Higher quality cable will be silver plated, use teflon dialectric and have copper braid shield.

I would suggest using RG 58. You can get it with a solid copper center conductor and a copper braid shield almost anywhere. I think it would be a better choice than RG-59.

Later
BZ:geezer:
 
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