I don't believe cables make a difference, any input?

[chainenoble]

face it,if there was a marked inprovement between cables,most of us could it and this forum who not exist.this constant debate shows that the difference between cable is minimal if any.

[poobah]

C'mon rdf... this is a cable thread... no science allowed!

Let's just stick to bickering and senseless thrashing of the believers...

[phn]

How important are the connectors and termination?

There's no such thing as bulk Cat 5E network cable. There's only Cat 5. The difference between a Cat 5 and Cat 5E network patch cable is the connectors.

To be classified "Cat 5" a cable has to be able to transmit a lossless signal of 100-megahertz a minimum of 100 metres. It has a bit-rate of 100 megs.

The Cat 5 patch network cable has since been superseded by the Cat 5E. E is for enhanced, like you didn't know. The Cat 5E cable will handle 350-MHz at a minimum of 350 metres. The bit-rate has increased ten-fold, from 100 megabit to one gigabit!

The new improved connector on the Cat 5E cable has better "near-end crosstalk," or NEXT. So what does this NEXT mean? Not much, really. Apparently the old connector had greater margin of error when terminated.

With Cat 6 and 7 we have 10GBASE-T. They need to run balanced to reach gigahertz.

Edit: Poobah, we posted at the same time. Now, please tell me the Cat X network patch cables are not science.

[mrshow4u]

It's not the soldering thats bad. It's the deformation of the transmission line that ruins the VSWR. Although overkill at our low frequency digital signals, careful attention to preserving the transmission line impedance is generally not done with "high end" S/PDIF cables. BTW 2.2 GHz is very low frequency for microwave. You can probably get away with a little bit of sloppiness there. We used to measure transmission lines, connectors, and board traces with TDR and vector network analyzers (Hp/Agilent) and you can see where the discontinuities occur. ...even with SMA connectors. What I'm talking about here understanding performance margins, quantifying results, and qualifying what "the best" or "the most accurate" is. If a manufacturer is going to charge 6 X what a cheapo version is, at least they could incorporate some sort of better practices than just gold plating a connector, adding teflon, or putting a nylon braid on the insulation. They should definitely not be worse, which many are. I wish S/PDIF was all 50 ohm. Then we could go to Pasternak or Gore and be done.

[rdf]

Originally posted by poobah
C'mon rdf... this is a cable thread... no science allowed!

Let's just stick to bickering and senseless thrashing of the believers...

Sounds like fun but I'm expected to design a remote broadcast studio today. You keep thrashing the believers, I'll pop by every now and then to hector the psuedo-science klunkers.

[phn]

Originally posted by mrshow4u
It's not the soldering thats bad. It's the deformation of the transmission line that ruins the VSWR. Although overkill at our low frequency digital signals, careful attention to preserving the transmission line impedance is generally not done with "high end" S/PDIF cables. BTW 2.2 GHz is very low frequency for microwave. You can probably get away with a little bit of sloppiness there. We used to measure transmission lines, connectors, and board traces with TDR and vector network analyzers (Hp/Agilent) and you can see where the discontinuities occur. ...even with SMA connectors. What I'm talking about here understanding performance margins, quantifying results, and qualifying what "the best" or "the most accurate" is. If a manufacturer is going to charge 6 X what a cheapo version is, at least they could incorporate some sort of better practices than just gold plating a connector, adding teflon, or putting a nylon braid on the insulation. They should definitely not be worse, which many are. I wish S/PDIF was all 50 ohm. Then we could go to Pasternak or Gore and be done.

True. What applies in the real world does not necessarily translate to the ultra low-bandwidth world of audio. Anything not counted in giga-something has to be considered low-bandwidth. Coax is noted for being poor at handling high frequencies, for example. Those high frequencies are, again, in the gigahertz.

[poobah]

That's a deal rdf,

though I should be cleaning my playpen. I have some fixtures to upgrade and I lost the stupid little $52 tool to remove connector pins from the housings. $52... it's so nice that Tyco bought out all the good companies... and then ruined them.

[rdf]

Originally posted by mrshow4u
BTW 2.2 GHz is very low frequency for microwave. You can probably get away with a little bit of sloppiness there. We used to measure transmission lines, connectors, and board traces with TDR and vector network analyzers (Hp/Agilent) and you can see where the discontinuities occur. ...even with SMA connectors.

As I understand it the 2 GHz band is a Canadian telephone trunking standard. The highest frequency hop of any of my systems, or my tenant's systems, is 15 GHz. We've been in the process of decommisioning 450 MHz hops all over the lower BC mainland. The standard band for broadcast industry microwave is 950 MHZ. 2.2 Ghz is not a low frequency, and RF connectors are designed to factor in the soldering process. Conductor is inserted into pin, solder applied through a hole in sleeve, excess filed away, pin with conductor inserted into dielectric base of shell.

"...careful attention to preserving the transmission line impedance is generally not done with "high end" S/PDIF cables."

You might be right, I really don't know. Starting with an RCA connector makes it a hurdle from the get-go.

[mrshow4u]

You might be right, I really don't know. Starting with an RCA connector makes it a hurdle from the get-go.

Canare is trying to do it right

[audiobomber]

Well that's enough debate for me. All I came to say is, whether you're a flaky audiophile, a myopic gearhead or somewhere in between, give Impact Audio SonicWaves a try. 20 bucks for a 3' pair. How can you go wrong?