DIY stereo cables, is this right?!?

[space-cake]

http://www6.head-fi.org/forums/showthread.php?t=52044

i just found this link during my search to see what type of cable should i use. i noticed that the guy is removing the shield and not connecting it to the ground terminal on the jacks - rather he uses the conductors. is this the right way to do this???

 

[Richard Ellis]

Connections

Yes he is doing it right..If you think about it, what kind of electrical values do you think you would get if you hooked up that large "shield" conductor vs. that small wire...wouldn't you get an imbalance of values?...Like say a difference of impedance?
The "size" & value of the wiring should be the same as to avoid a host of problems.
________________________________Rick.............

 

[space-cake]

i think you base your answer on a phenomena where high freq. is moving faster than lower freq. over the same conductor.

all audio cables other than speaker cables have different conductors for groud / shield and and "hot" leads. in a PCB the ground traces should always be kept bigger over signal traces (you can check an amplifier PCB). i think that in the freq. that audio is at and the fact that these cables are very short AND the fact that the signal will be pretty close to line level the impedance difference between the conductors is simply irrelevent. I get the feeling that people who made these cables never found them problematic because they are simply too short to pick up static.

 

[pinkmouse]

For all my interconnect I use balanced cable with two cores and screen, wired with the core cables connected at both ends to signal and ground, but with the screen only connected at one end. It's called psuedo balanced.