Battle of RCA Cables: Mogami, Amazon, Monoprice

[audio2design]

Kimber Kable - Carbon Interconnect

For over three decades, Kimber Kable has led the audio/video cable industry in technology and precision manufacturing. Today, we are more committed than ever to producing products of preeminent technical merit and performance. Kimber Kable International Site - Carbon Interconnect

www.kimber.com

Yes, this is a snake oil! Nothing is worse as a SE link cable.

They make a lot of snake oil now like Belden and Iconoclast but the TC has very low inductance which is good for longer runs.

 

[maty]

My modded KEF Q100 has Kimber Kable 8PR (bought a very good price). I noticed the improvement compared to the usual oxygen-free speaker cables.

This review and MEASUREMENTS encouraged me to buy them:

Kimber Kable 8TC Speaker Cable Review

This is a review of the Kimber Kable 8TC speaker cables. They measure, look and sound great.

www.audioholics.com

 

[sam_adams]

Can we assume he used Mogami Studio Quad vs the three-conductor version? Funny he doesn't mention that.

Toober in the video really doesn't know what type cable is being used other than the name on the cable. The Mogami Gold series XLR mic cables use either W2534 or W2893. Both are quad star cables with the difference between them being the W2893 is thinner and lacks the PE geometry control filler of W2534. Toober mentions that the Mogami cable was thinner so it's probably W2893.

 

[Pdxwayne]

I used moniprice RCA to xlr cable to do loopback REW distortions measurements earlier this year and found that one cable introduces more noise than the other. I swapped two monoprice cables multiple times and the issue followed the same cable. I wonder what could cause such issue.....

 

[MaxBuck]

Star quad is great for maximizing magnetic and RF rejection (and emission) but if you don't have a problem you are throwing money away and accepting higher capacitance which is not always ideal. For speaker it has low inductance.

No doubt you're right. Nonetheless, I'm extremely pleased with my star-quad speaker cables from Blue Jeans, using Canare raw materials. Nice and supple, unobtrusive black in color.

 

[Lambda]

Then you are wrong as coax only rejection in a homogenous field.

Give some reasoning for this.
Or Some links to professional literature backing up your claims.

Coax's outstanding property is that the field due to the signal propagating along it is confined to the inside of the cable (Figure 1.21), so that interaction with its external environment is kept to a minimum.

the opposite is true....
With Twisted pair:

Each half-twist reverses the direction of induction so, assuming a uniform external field, two successive half-twists cancel the wires' interaction with the field.

So this only works if uniform external field

Most of the shield effect in coax results from opposing currents in the center conductor and shield creating opposite magnetic fields that cancel, and thus do not radiate. The same effect helps ladder line. However, ladder line is extremely sensitive to surrounding metal objects, which can enter the fields before they completely cancel. Coax does not have this problem, since the field is enclosed in the shield.

and thus do not radiate since everything in electromagnetism is reciprocallythis also means external fields do nor interfere

Except usually by definition of injected in a signal cable it's not referenced as a ground loop.

If current is looping trough soothing ground referenced its a ground loop

Has lowest inductance

Measured how and compared to what?

geometrically more consistent spacing around a geographical center

How is it more uniform then Coax?

 

[audio2design]

Give some reasoning for this.
Or Some links to professional literature backing up your claims.

I am not here to solely educate you and you providing links that don't prove your point while you think they do .... Is not providing "providing professional literature backing up your claim"

I will give some hints ....

- research the induced voltages over frequency from a magnetic field into the shield and inner conductor of a coax. Hint they are not the same as low frequencies ... Sort of like how the impedance rapidly rises at low frequency.

- visualize a coax (knowing above) and tight twisted pair close to a magnetic source

You are taking generic concepts and assuming they are consistent at all frequencies and assuming homogenous fields which rarely are.

 

[audio2design]

No doubt you're right. Nonetheless, I'm extremely pleased with my star-quad speaker cables from Blue Jeans, using Canare raw materials. Nice and supple, unobtrusive black in color.

Great cable and more than enough. I use Kimber for long runs and measurement due to low inductance and acceptable capacitance/Inductance ratio.

 

[AudioSceptic]

Does anyone know of a reliable source of Mogami Gold cables in the UK.
Cheers
Kev

In France, I know, but Audiophonics sells Mogami at sensible prices, and I'd guess p&p is reasonable too.
<https://www.audiophonics.fr/en/search?search_query=mogami>

 

[Lambda]

You are taking generic concepts and assuming they are consistent at all frequencies and assuming homogenous fields which rarely are.

This is the good thing with fundamental Physic concepts if they fundamental they are consistent.
Like Kirchhoff's law or in this case Ampere's law and Biot-Savarts law

Anyways we can calculate the magnetic flux trough a infinitely small slice of cable.
in fact this is a very typical first or second semester task.

The TL;DR is on the outside of the cable the magnetic is 0 and therefor the influence from magnetic fields to the cable is also 0
And this is True for a mall slice of the cable as well as for a long cable no matter if bend coiled up.

Now do this for a Twisted Pair cable. the filed around a slice of the cable is not 0 but if you integrate over the length of one twist it cancels out...
But only if it's a homogeneous field over the length of one twist

If your talking about the case wen the currents on the cable are not Equal with opposite direction (for example if there is a ground loop)
Both coax and twisted pair will perform badly because in this case geometric center is way outside the Cable and loop area is bigger
How will it perform in this case:

https://www.ieee.li/pdf/essay/coax_cables.pdf

page 16

This should also show why Ferrits can drastically improve performance by increasing LS.

 

[audio2design]

.... This is the good thing with fundamental Physic concepts if they fundamental they are consistent.

You are proving me right, and you don't even realize it.

 

[aktiondan]

I second Amir's sentiments, I have a bunch of those Monoprice cables in various applications, they just look and feel cheap, even though they've never caused me any issues. I also have several of the Amazon Basics cables I like them way better, they are superior in look and feel, even if acoustically/electrically they are identical. I guess I never suspected RCA cables in the analog signal chain to be a significant contributor. This was a good test.

 

[Holmz]

…

Something to keep in mind, also, and this may be just an opinion that is debatable, but I find browsing this thread that there is a large proportion of the recommendations that I read that goes in the same directions: make your own cables. It's easy, they are the best because it allows you to save cash and you can get the best parts. All variations of the same advice. I disagree with this. Learning to solder properly takes some experience. cables assembled by an industrial process, quality controlled and tested, i find in general simply more reliable when taken globally against everybody that takes a shot with the soldering Iron. I'll say, even me that had soldered more than most I'll say that my home made stuff is objectively less reliable than something done by a trusted industrial process. It really dismiss from the get go the reliability metric.
…

I had a room mate back in the day that soldered cables for AQ.
I asked her, “was it difficult.”
She said, “The first two or three were.“

The fact that someone earlier mentioned an “out of phase RCA” also makes me question the QA.

…

Well This looks like some Snake oil stuff! sure it exists. But that’s not whats use in the studio or on stage or by other professionals
Also I see no Geometric advantage of doing it like this. If at all the cables are further away form there Geometric center and have bigger differential mode loop area.

The Kimber TC is pretty affordable, and the inductance was low So for a speaker cable carrying current, the TC can make some sense. It was not intercomnnnect that was the 4, 8 and 12TC.

 

[Headchef]

Just out of curiosity, and I’m not disputing any of Amir’s findings, do the cables have any differences in tone?

a signal will still be present but will it have changed in tone? A tone circuit is essentially just a manipulation of resistance, capacitance or inductance. Is it possible to determine if there is an effect there?

 

[Lambda]

The Kimber TC is pretty affordable, and the inductance was low So for a speaker cable carrying current, the TC can make some sense.

Again, What inductance, Measured How and Low compared to what.

I'm sure the inductance in differential mode of a regular coax cable is lower.

 

[beagleman]

My modded KEF Q100 has Kimber Kable 8PR (bought a very good price). I noticed the improvement compared to the usual oxygen-free speaker cables.

This review and MEASUREMENTS encouraged me to buy them:

Kimber Kable 8TC Speaker Cable Review

This is a review of the Kimber Kable 8TC speaker cables. They measure, look and sound great.

www.audioholics.com

Interesting.
But the measurement values are so small, I had to look twice, those tiny differences are like blowing the graph up with a telescope to try to find some miniscule improvement.

I do agree they technically measure better, but also I think it is similar to saying one car gets 25MPG and another gets 25.2MPG so the second car is for sure better......

Differences for sure, but are they meaningful in actual listening.....I know you say you noticed the improvement, but was that a blind test, or sighted, with the knowledge they measure "Better" and so on...?

 

[Killingbeans]

Is it possible to determine if there is an effect there?

Yes. With an RCL meter. But all RCA cables (except maybe some snake-oil cables with crazy high capacitance?), will have their high frequency roll-off way beyond the ultrasonics, assuming you use them to connect gear that doesn't have bonkers in/output impedances.

 

[Lambda]

lowing the graph up with a telescope to try to find some miniscule improvement.

Well in this case who ever did the measurement did not chose the appropriate scaling for visualization/ graphing

Yes. With an RCL meter.

REW can also do an excellent job of graphing impedance vs. frequency!

I maybe gonna test a view Cables and show how the process works if there is interest... (but fist i have to get REW to work properly with PipeWire)

assuming you use them to connect gear that doesn't have bonkers in/output impedances.

True for most "activ" sources like a DAC.

But for a Phonon cartridge, or (some)Microphones tarts a different story!

 

[GTAXL]

Shame you didn't test Blue Jeans Cable LC-1 and capacitance. BJC is the best in this regard, and their build quality is excellent.

 

[DamianW]

:

What was the output and input impedance.