Common Sense Prevails

I hope your friend finds a better friend than you. Someone who tells him most of his $7K pile of cables is not broken and can be sold for $$$.

Where the hell did you get that from?

So your suggestion is that after messing up his system, he should sell them to someone else so they could mess up yet another expensive system? Really???

I don't know what he did with the cables. They were fairly new so I wouldn't be surprised if he was able to return them.
 
Look @leadbelly you can play all the games with me you like. I've been around this circle a few times before... In the end trying to make me look bad simply fails to address the issue and doesn't say much for your discussion skills either.

The issue, from the original video is that most of these exotic audio accessories are simply a rip off.

Maybe this will help you get back on track... AudioPhoolery ... more than 10 years old and still as relevant today as it was then.


You've now heard it from two well respected engineers. So, if you care about the hobby and the people in it, maybe it would be a good idea to actually discuss the issue...
 
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isn't this better than shield currents?

It IS shield currents, induced by external events.

When the shield, grounded at one end, is exposed to a frequency at which it is an odd multiple of a quarter wavelength, the open end of the shield becomes a voltage node as you say but, as you move closer to the grounded end, the standing wave created approaches being a purely current node. These antennas typically have an impedance of about 36 ohms at the feedpoint, which in this case turns out to be the output of the previous stage.

Here is a Quick Tutorial that shows both voltage and current on a resonant length of wire (an antenna). As you will see the current is going to be highest at the ground or feed point and voltage will be highest at the open end. So in a cable with an open shield end, it is entirely possible that some voltage can be induced into the wire by such a structure, at almost any point along it's length.
 
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I think we were writing at the same time there... No worries.

I gave you a generalized answer in my previous message. For more specific answers you can delve into antenna theory on just about any amateur radio website.

I used to design antennas as part of the amateur radio hobby. You can still find several of my designs on line... HERE, HERE and HERE for example.

(Please note: I moved on and my callsign has been re-issued)
 
Ideally the shield on an RCA cable should serve two purposes... First as a grounded tube which tends to shunt or reject external signals such as radio waves or strong EM fields from nearby equipment and Second as a ground reference for the signal carried on the inner conductor. There should be next to no current flowing in the shield of the cable.

But when one end of the shield is not grounded, it becomes an antenna... any wire will... In this situation you get induced currents from external signals travelling on the shield itself. Given that the inner conductor is the same length and shares the same impedance pattern, these external signals are then re-radiated into the inner conductor(s) of the cable. Effectively they act like on piece of wire. Even with an internal second conductor as a ground reference, these become common mode signals that a standard RCA input cannot cancel out... they become part of the signal.

The break-ins my friend was experiencing on his monoblocks were from his wireless router, but just about any strong signal can get in there.
 
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Then all 7 or 8 of them were broken in the same way.

Moreover, that's not the only time I've seen stuff like that. It was an example not my entire experience. I've seen other problems like this one caused by cables from other companies as well.

Example... another humming system... 60hz hum on a nice, classic Marantz receiver, no matter what input is selected. It's not power supply, that would hum at 120hz. Unplug everything to bring it to my bench and the hum stops... start checking the interconnects and sure enough, unshielded wire.

Still another... bata bursts breaking into the pre-amp. Shut down the wifi nearby and it goes quiet. Turn the router back on disconnect the CD player and it goes quiet. So, check out the interconnects... sure enough, exotic cables, this time made with coax so heavy it had broken the ground shells off the RCA females on the back of the CD Player.

Shall I continue... or do we get the idea that it's not a one system, one time grumble... it really is about these idiotic companies and their crap cables, ripping people off with their ridiculous prices and BS sales pitches.

Right from the beginning the question has been: "Why do we put up with this?" Now the question is beginning to change to "Why on Earth would you defend this?"...

Is it not obvious the whole thing is just a way to get into your pockets with no concern whatsoever for the outcome?

Look at the accessories market... you can spend more on perhipheral crap than on your actual system... and most of it is utterly useless. Just think how much further ahead you'd be if you sunk that money into better speakers or room treatments...
 
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What about making your own cables and using the specific RLC of the wire to voice your sound......more than likely people buying these high end cables are like blind squirrels looking for nuts, when they find the match to their system they hear an improvement.

It does play into the synergy of the system as a whole and if one knows what’s what it can be had for just a few more bucks (Belden,cardas,Mogami, etc)

So just dismissing it as ‘zip cord is good enough’ is a slight.
 
Don't be so hasty. Part of 'correcting the buzz' included replacing the speaker cables. Interesting science is afoot.

Once he realized what was going on he wanted all the exotics out of there so, yes, I changed the speaker cables too.

As I said earlier, that particular set of cables was fairly new and, while I don't actually know what he did with them, it would have made sense to try to return them.
 
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First off ... I don't actually know they were broken (as opposed to being made that way deliberately).

Why waste the time "fixing" them when it was cheaper and faster to just replace them with known good cables? My labour charge would have been more than the price of the new cables we put in.

I don't know if he could/did return them but financially he would have been miles ahead going that way.
 
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