That was not a rant. I was saying what I think, not what I feel. Feelings are irrelevant to how cables work.stvnharr said:
You used the word "perplexing". Now you say that you didn't actually mean 'perplexing'. Difficult to make progress if you say something different from what you mean. 33 words in two sentences (post 50) hardly constitutes 'rambling on and on' unless the reader has a very short attention span. If I said "nothing" then how could you describe it as "perplexing"? Are you easily perplexed?
The cable meme goes deep into peoples' feelings. They cannot imagine that a simple cable, as used by engineers, can be as good as a complex cable with carefully woven strands and a good story. They think that if many people spend a lot of money on cables than they can't all be crazy, and those nice people selling the expensive cables can't all be ignorant or greedy.
It is true that some RF coax may be insufficiently flexible for audio use, but some coax is more flexible than others. Try some of the thinner ones. Or even a simple lapped screen cable meant for audio. These are cheap and flexible, and in many cases are perfectly adequate. No need to tell your friends how little you paid.
Well, better can mean a lot of different things to different people. I was thinking "better" in terms of more flexible and easier to work with, not signal integrity.
All I can say is that I have never run across any coax cable that was very flexible. Perhaps I've lived a closed life, I don't know.
When I started to make my own cables 15 years ago I started with braided magnet wire because it was cheap and it worked. This was at the time when the Jon Risch designs with Belden 82947, a coax cable, were all the rage. I just went a different way.
Now, I have enough cables for my needs, with plenty of extras.
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How can a wire connected at one end only act as a shield, a shield has to... SHIELD the wires! e.g. a co-ax. a single wire connected at one end usually ends up acting as an antenna.
Hehe, these are mystery men who know stuff you can not imagine, yet they have not heard of Van Damme cable, go figure
There are many different coax cable part/model numbers that fit the generic RG6 or RG59 Type numbers. Some are designed for high cable TV frequencies and some for low frequencies. Moral is don't select a cable based on RG Type numbers. Look for cables with heavy braided shields.
Many freebies I've dismantled revealed cynically minimal shielding and often clear signs of decomposition and corroded conductors. They're free for a reason.
That shows that you didn't have a hum or inteference problem, so a bad cable worked OK. Audio electronics is like that: it is quite forgiving of poor cables, so peculiar DIY (or expensive commercial equivalents) can often work reasonably well.stvnharr said:
Others may help me here, but the only genuine engineering application for a braided cable I can think of is a low inductance earth strap i.e. all the strands wired in parallel to make effectively a wide single conductor. This is the opposite of what you need for sending a signal and its return current.
Yes, freebies can be awful. Yet people still sometimes find that some freebies work better than expensive cables.
I plead the 5th here, but I can definitely say that ditching my Kimber Kable (both interconnects and speaker wire) made a huge difference in overall quality of the sound. I used compression connectors for the connection (Belden solid copper for the center conductor) and was very pleased with the sound and the reduced noise. I am not a big fan of Kimber as I noticed a severe amount of oxidation on the copper when stripping it and loss of detail over the years(I've had them 10+ years). Plus, I can build interconnects rapidly this way and at much reduced cost. I also provided a pair of my homebrew connectors to a family member and he was also very pleased by the results in his system.
What did I make up?
I think I've written a few times that the only coax I've found here where I live is the RG-6 and RG-59 coax. I've since read that there are other coax cables, so you must have been referring to those. Sorry but I was unaware of them. But since a couple posters mentioned vandamme cables and google is my friend, I have now learned about them.
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As an example - Belden 1505A. Stiff? Yes, but once in place, I don't go moving my equipment around. Insert and forget, as far as interconnect goes.
I found some sellers have bulk rolls of this stuff and sell it cheaply by the foot on ebay.
I found some sellers have bulk rolls of this stuff and sell it cheaply by the foot on ebay.
@stvnharr: have you never taken a laptop apart and seen the wifi module with MMCX connectors and 1mm or smaller OD coax? If you google 'micro coax' you will seem some very thin and flexible stuff available for specialist applications, like schlepping LVDS between PCBs. There are hundreds of types of coax out there. I used to specify some that was made on the same sort of machine that bends wheelbarrow handles. Each for a use. 2.5 inch heliax off cuts are useful as a bludgeon for example 🙂
For single ended audio this is about as good as it gets Van Damme - Specifications - Pro Grade Classic XKE instrument cable and available in pimpy colours to boot.
For single ended audio this is about as good as it gets Van Damme - Specifications - Pro Grade Classic XKE instrument cable and available in pimpy colours to boot.
Bill, I have never taken a laptop apart.
And thanks for the recommendation. I've had trouble getting one. Next time I look to make some cables I will look for it.
I have never had a hum or interference problem with a cable. Any cable that caused that would obviously be a bad cable.
My braided cables are not bad. It's just that you don't like them. You can cite numerous engineering based reasons why braided cables are not the best. But it doesn't really matter to me.
And as long as I've had music systems and listened to music I don't think I've ever heard differences in interconnect cables. And I've had everything from cheap to dear in cables. So I generally don't fuss too much about them.
I only responded in this thread because the OP had some spare wire and wanted some helpful opinions in making an interconnect from it.
Braided cables are bad, but in an electrically benign environment their badness is hidden so they can work OK. The big snag is that there are a lot of people out there who sincerely believe that braided cables are good i.e. better than other cables. The most helpful opinion for them is to tell them that they are mistaken.
Have you tested?
You will answer me that this is not necessary because.........Listen before writing your resentment😉
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