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Choosing Unbalanced RCA Audio Cables for Home Use: What Really Matters? - Shielding & Directionality Questions

RayDunzl

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As I said, the far end was open.

Ooh. More reading comprehension faults here.

I suspect all cables will work equally well if they aren't connected.

Carry on!
 

SIY

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Without seeing the setup, I can make a pretty good guess about what's being seen here. The open end gives it away.
 

dc655321

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Without seeing the setup, I can make a pretty good guess about what's being seen here. The open end gives it away.


ohhhhh - suspense!

From the Amazon product description:

SOLID LONG-GRAIN COPPER (LGC) CONDUCTORS: Solid conductors eliminate strand-interaction distortion. Evergreen’s solid Long-Grain Copper allows a smoother and clearer sound than cables using regular OFHC (Oxygen-Free High-Conductivity) copper. OFHC is a general metal industry specification regarding “loss” without any concern for distortion. LGC has fewer oxides within the conducting material, less impurities, less grain boundaries, and definitively better performance.

FOAMED-POLYETHYLENE INSULATION: Any solid material adjacent to a conductor is actually part of an imperfect circuit. Wire insulation and circuit board materials all absorb energy (loss). Some of this energy is stored and then released as distortion. Tower uses air-filled Foamed-Polyethylene Insulation on both conductors because air absorbs next to no energy and Polyethylene is low-loss and has a benign distortion profile. Thanks to all the air in Foamed-PE, it causes much less of the out-of-focus effect common to other materials.

METAL-LAYER NOISE-DISSIPATION SYSTEM (NDS): 100% shield coverage is easy. Preventing captured RF Interference from modulating the equipment’s ground reference requires AQ’s Noise-Dissipation System. Noise-Dissipation System prevents a significant amount of RFI from reaching the equipment’s ground plane.

Are the differences in reflections due to the asymmetric shielding coverage (aka "Metal-Layer Noise-Dissipation System" :facepalm:)?
 

Sal1950

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Boromirka

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Great that i found this thread by accident. Which cable should i use afterall? I am more confused now.

Edit: can someone suggest some brands or models that can be bought in EU, please? My setup will be Khadas Board + Atom, so i am not in need of really expensive cable
 
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SIY

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ohhhhh - suspense!

From the Amazon product description:



Are the differences in reflections due to the asymmetric shielding coverage (aka "Metal-Layer Noise-Dissipation System" :facepalm:)?

Nope, you'd see the same differences with any unterminated cable at that time scale unless you REALLY carefully controlled physical positioning, which in swapping directions, I'll bet was not done. Terminate it properly and the positioning won't be nearly as critical.
 

mansr

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Are the differences in reflections due to the asymmetric shielding coverage
The differences are due to the shield being connected in the far end only. Attaching it at both ends results in normal behaviour.
 

SIY

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It would have made things clearer if you had diagrammed your test setup...
 

mansr

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Nope, you'd see the same differences with any unterminated cable at that time scale unless you REALLY carefully controlled physical positioning, which in swapping directions, I'll bet was not done. Terminate it properly and the positioning won't be nearly as critical.
Nonsense. A cheap RG-58 or RG-59 coax is quite insensitive to positioning. The AQ cable does depend on position, but the asymmetry is still clear.
 

SIY

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Terminated, sure. But if the far end is unterminated, the positioning for measuring reflections on the nanosecond scale is indeed critical. Like I said, you need to diagram test setups in order to avoid ambiguity.
 

Boromirka

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Do AudioQuest Tower and AudioQuest Evegreen have a good soldering? Are they good in general?

Or should i look for other brand?
 

SIY

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T coupling on the scope input, which is set to 1 MΩ.
AFG output (50 Ω) to T with short RG-58.
AQ cable on other side of T.

Yes, clearer, thank you!

How do you attach the shield at both ends?
 
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