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Different cable structures for RCA interconnects

Audiofire

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Hi everyone, long time lurker, first time poster here. A few questions about a line level RCA interconnect:

1) If a single conductor (Conductor + shield) coax cable uses the shield as return, doesn't the cable lose its shielding properties? Even the double braid BJC LC-1, isn't shielded (because the braids are touching), right?

2) Options 2 and 3 in the OP aren't really coax, are they? Wouldn't a 2 conductor coaxial design have to be triax if the shield were to function as a shield? And aren't 2 and 3 above (in the OP) pretty much the same thing?

I'd like to build a couple line level RCA interconnects that are coaxial and shielded, but can't find any examples of any or any info on how to do them. And I have searched and searched but haven't found any answers to my questions above. If any forum can provide snake-oil-free guidance, it's this one. Thanks for any help!
Suffice to say you need a 75 ohm coaxial cable (often called "video" cable) for the best results in terms of an RCA cable. The shield works fine as the neutral wire, since it should actually be called the earth or ground wire. It is therefore not necessary to shield the neutral wire, but you are very welcome to wrap aluminum foil around the cable insulation and connect it to the so-called neutral wire on one end. Connecting the aluminum foil on both ends of the neutral wire would be like a ground loop, and you don't want that. Adding the foil around the cable will merely give extra protection against Wi-Fi, smartphones and other sources of electromagnetic interference. That is what I was really referring to in my previous post.

Excellent questions, it seems you have indeed read a lot and are implicitly hinting at some deeper topics like Coulomb's law and Kirchhoff's circuit laws. It is actually not necessary to shield the neutral wire, I wrote something unnecessary in my previous post above. The neutral wire should be called the earth wire. That is because it brings the electricity back to the mains outlet and to the earth reference voltage. The so-called earth wire should be called the safety or fault wire, as it only brings electricity back to the mains outlet if there is a fault in the electrical appliance that is a risk in terms of safety.

So it is pretty simple in its essence, like described in previous posts in this thread. You need a neutral wire to complete the circuit, there is also a neutral wire in two-prong power cords (notice that the earth wire is not used there to complete the circuit due to double insulation safety). Options 2 and 3 in the original post are indeed not coaxial cables. They are in reality called twinaxial cables, because the two conductors are a pair, sometimes even a twisted pair (so like twins). So yes, options 2 and 3 are pretty much the same. Triaxial cables have one central conductor, but double shielding. So you could also buy triaxial cables instead, that would just give you twice as much shielding. You can buy RCA connectors and solder the signal and neutral wire to it, but you'll also need a drain wire for this (since the shield is the neutral wire here, so you'll need an extra wire to solder to the connector). You don't have to use RCA connectors strictly speaking, it is not required for the circuit to function (that is to say all RCA jacks and plugs can be removed on some equipment, and the conductors can be soldered directly to the circuit).
 
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Zog

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View attachment 176656
Thanks for your reply. May I ask if the cable above is considered a coaxial cable or a twisted pair? A little confused here because it looks like a twisted pair in a coaxial design. This cable has a little brother which only has one conductor inside (below)

View attachment 176659

Which one would be the better cable for RCA, will they have the same shielding capability?
I have both. The 510 is marketed as a digital cable but works fine for analogue. They are dressed and terminated well. The only negative is that they are not very flexible, so not a good choice if you have to negotiate tight corners.
 

TurtlePaul

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Sometimes it is useful to remind that composite video operates these cables at at least 6 Mhz bandwidth with some higher resolutions operating the cables as high as 12 mhz. Our pedestrian audio signal, which is a single analog channel per cable, 20 khz bandwidth, and not carrier modulated, uses only about 0.1% of the design bandwidth of an RCA cable. The topology of the connectors, the characteristic impedence and DC resistance and to a large extent the shielding, just don't matter for audio use.
 

Dean N.

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Thanks for the answers, everyone. Looks like using quality coax with the outer sheath used as return/neutral and forgoing shielding is the reasonable way to go. Or, triax, with the outer shield connected to source only, if I absolutely need to have shielding and have my money burn a hole in my pocket.
 

Audiofire

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Sometimes it is useful to remind that composite video operates these cables at at least 6 Mhz bandwidth with some higher resolutions operating the cables as high as 12 mhz. Our pedestrian audio signal, which is a single analog channel per cable, 20 khz bandwidth, and not carrier modulated, uses only about 0.1% of the design bandwidth of an RCA cable. The topology of the connectors, the characteristic impedence and DC resistance and to a large extent the shielding, just don't matter for audio use.
Well, you didn't mention capacitance and the dielectric is precisely what makes coax a "high end" choice for those audiophiles who just can't resist (maybe, you should look at the construction, price and reviews of Atlas Ailsa RCA cables to see what audiophiles I am talking about). Only measurement at an audio interface with the different cable constructions can settle the issue. No one has measured music at coax without connectors from what I can see...
 
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TurtlePaul

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Well, you didn't mention capacitance and the dielectric is precisely what makes coax a "high end" choice for those audiophiles who just can't resist (maybe, you should look at the construction, price and reviews of Atlas Ailsa RCA cables to see what audiophiles I am talking about). Only measurement at an audio interface with the different cable constructions can settle the issue. No one has measured music at coax without connectors from what I can see...
Who cares. Plenty of measurements that pretty much all RCA cables deliver enough precision that the Audio Precision analyzer becomes limiting.

Amir's cable test

I mentioned the characteristic impedance of the cable. The capacitance is certainly captured in that measure.
 

raindance

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Thanks for the answers, everyone. Looks like using quality coax with the outer sheath used as return/neutral and forgoing shielding is the reasonable way to go. Or, triax, with the outer shield connected to source only, if I absolutely need to have shielding and have my money burn a hole in my pocket.
What are you taking about? Coax IS SHIELDED.
 

Audiofire

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What are you taking about? Coax IS SHIELDED.
Yeah, the funny thing is the whole metal chassis is shielding and often connected to an earthed power cable that is connected to the neutral wire at a circuit breaker. :)
 
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Prana Ferox

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I have a couple of those World's Best cables. The nice thing about them is that, usually, the higher quality plugs and cables are lighter and more flexible, and put less angular stress on the connecting device, especially nice if you're plugging into something like a lightweight DAC or Pi. Your cheaper brands like Amazon and especially Monoprice tend to use bulky, heavy and stiff sheathing, and the connectors can crowd a tight panel.

None of this has anything to do with audio transmission, of course. I'd say you're wasting time and money getting anything fancier and even making your own cables is pretty much a waste of time/money unless you really want custom lengths for cable management. You won't hear any difference at any length you should remotely be using RCA connections and if it really bothers you, make the jump to balanced.*

*E: which, for clarity, absent any gain change, you are unlikely to hear any difference either
 

Audiofire

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Looks like using quality coax with the outer sheath used as return/neutral and forgoing shielding is the reasonable way to go.
Keep in mind the shield must be connected on both ends, that's what the neutral wire is for in this configuration and a ground loop shouldn't be a problem here due to neutral/shield merged as one conductor. The coax must be a stranded/flexible type, some have solid conductors that are made for permanently fixed installations. And the thickest gauge you should consider is around 24 AWG, because of skin depth.

There is money to spare from soldering directly instead of using RCA connectors if the equipment accommodates it without visible scratches, but I don't expect it to make an audible difference with decent gold-plated connectors (I wouldn't go out of my way for it, but measuring for a difference could be kinda fun).
 
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raindance

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Keep in mind the shield must be connected on both ends, that's what the neutral wire is for in this configuration and a ground loop shouldn't be a problem here due to neutral/shield merged as one conductor.
More nonsense. An unbalanced cable can't eliminate a ground loop.
 

Pegwill

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Hi Guys

Not sure if this is useful or not but it seems on the face quite a good deal. Yes they are not real but the four rca plugs would cost you that much. I have no association with the supplier, I have never tried them
, but they seem to get a good write up another forum, so who knows.


Regards
 

Audiofire

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More nonsense. An unbalanced cable can't eliminate a ground loop.
Some cables only have the shield connected on one end. That's because the shield is separate from the neutral wire there. Not what we are talking about here, so your comment is indeed just more nonsense...

Hi Guys

Not sure if this is useful or not but it seems on the face quite a good deal. Yes they are not real but the four rca plugs would cost you that much. I have no association with the supplier, I have never tried them
, but they seem to get a good write up another forum, so who knows.

Regards
Here is the cable with a picture of the inner construction:

Just an RCA cable of highly questionable quality and price with a drain wire for the shielding, but you should not buy a fake cable anyway.
 
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raindance

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Some cables only have the shield connected on one end. That's because the shield is separate from the neutral wire there. Not what we are talking about here, so your comment is indeed just more nonsense...
BS! You cannot train the electrons to take a different path in an unbalanced connection. It doesn't matter if you drop the shield at one end, both ends are still connected BECAUSE IT'S UNBALANCED.

You CAN drop the shield in a BALANCED connection to break ground loops, however, because it doesn't carry signal.

Please don't spread fallacies on a science website.
 

Audiofire

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BS! You cannot train the electrons to take a different path in an unbalanced connection. It doesn't matter if you drop the shield at one end, both ends are still connected BECAUSE IT'S UNBALANCED.

You CAN drop the shield in a BALANCED connection to break ground loops, however, because it doesn't carry signal.

Please don't spread fallacies on a science website.
Thank you for educating us and sorry if I write something that is wrong. I never claimed that everything I write is right, but lots of people have spread the fallacy that only connecting the shield at one end is better. I found sources here that support your comment.

"The myths that (1) a cable shield grounded at one end only (single point gnd, SPG) is really a shield and (2) that a shield grounded at both ends creates an unwanted ground loop have been asinine EE folklore for decades. Both are dead wrong. An SPG cable shield is a hi-pass filter to magnetic fields and a lo-pass filter to electric fields with amplification at the break frequency. Alleged ground loops exist before shields are considered."

"There are specific cases where shields should be grounded at one end only but not as a general rule." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Shielded_cable

Then again, you have manufacturers like PS Audio (also known as BS Audio here in this community) that can lead people like me to assume that cables with directional arrows make sense (QED Profile Audio has arrows on the insulation for example, because the shield is only connected at the "source" end). The idea could be from common impedance coupling.

The best DIY interconnect

 
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Audiofire

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@Audiofire - Monster Cable started this whole thing, so we can blame them :)
See Noise Reduction Techniques in Electronic Systems by Henry W. Ott. The book is older than Monster Cable. There are certainly some different opinions on how the shield should be terminated like in the book, but it could be that people simply had more ground loop problems in the past due to the electrical wiring.

"Ground loops at times can be a source of noise. This is especially true when the multiple ground points are separated by a large distance and are connected to the ac power ground, or when low-level analog circuits are used. In these cases it is necessary to provide some form of discrimination or isolation against the ground-path noise."
 

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TurtlePaul

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See Noise Reduction Techniques in Electronic Systems by Henry W. Ott. The book is older than Monster Cable. There are certainly some different opinions on how the shield should be terminated like in the book, but it could be that people simply had more ground loop problems in the past due to the electrical wiring.
There are still ground loop problems. But where you connect the shielding doesn't matter.

RCA cables transmit over a differential pair, so both ends of the cable need both conductors (the pin and the ring) connected. If both of the devices connect the ring to ground and a difference in voltage potentials exists across those grounds, then you will get ground loop hum. The ground loop doesn't care if the grounds are connected via a coaxial shield or via a straight wire in the center of the cable.
 
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