What cables do you use in your systems?

[Wombat]

Here is proof that electrons flow better one way than the other way.
View attachment 18036

Notice the gap between the plug and sheath? The plankton entry point. The arrows are to tell the plankton which way to go to populate the cable evenly.

 

[watchnerd]

Speaker cables (passive):

Canare star quad 4S11 with WBT locking bananas

Analog balanced:

Belden 1800 with Neutrik XLR connectors

Analog single ended:

Belden 1694A with Cardas RCA

Copper SPDIF:

Belden 1694A with Canare RCAP

Tonearm Cable:

Straight Wire with Cardas DIN and Cardas RCA

RCA to Headphone TRS:

BJC MSA-1 with Canare RCAP and Neutrik TRS

Snake Cable:

Seismic Audio

Temporary Patch Cables (for times when I momentarily need to hook something up):

Monoprice

Microphone Cable:

Mogami Gold Studio

USB:

Not sure I know...maybe Amazon Basics or some Apple cables?

Power:

Generic IEC, whatever came with the gear or I have lying in my "box o' cables"

Ethernet:

Hell if I know

 

[Rod]

And you took a picture of the cables and not the woman in the bikini? What kind of prevert are you?

Ok I found a video she did. Didn't know she was an actress. She must of been on a gig job.
http://www.break.com/video/bear-in-a-bikini-2354038

 

[Wombat]

Your comments does not warrant anymore replies.

It is interesting that a sound piece of wisdom(post #60) was not acceptable to you. I did prefix my comment with the word seriously.

I am an EE with a fair knowledge of fundamental Electronics. Yourself??

I am happy to engage if you elaborate on your umbrage. If not just swallow it.

 

[restorer-john]

I live next to a student dormitory, imagine the abundance of wifi, bluetooth, 3G, 4G and 5G signals i'm surrounded with.

I wasn't imagining any of that boring stuff, I was imagining this:

 

[SIY]

Cables do make a difference. Some "high-end" cables have these "network boxes" that could be doing some weird stuff. In the audiophile industry, the more important question is not which cables to buy, but which cables to not buy.

Some years ago, one of the magazines dissected some of those, I think from MIT (who are pretty close to Audioquest in their sheer sleaziness in the pursuit of extracting money from the gullible). The box at one end contained nothing but potting material. The box at the other end contained a 100 ohm shunt resistor, which basically did nothing.

The amusement factor came with observing the fanboys' spinning this unfortunate observation into some really creative pataphysical explanation.

 

[Blumlein 88]

https://orronoco.blogspot.com/2016/11/the-mysterious-box-of-mit-cable.html

They open one box on MIT speaker cable. Find an inductor and something like a Zobel circuit.

Here is a patent pending digital cable with their special network technology. Has a one ohm metal film resistor (2 cents not in bulk, probably less in bulk) in series with the center conductor of this coax cable. They have nice RCA ends. I'll give them that.

The MIT speil:

Description
MIT AVt 3 Digital Interconnect RCA 75 ohm

MIT's patented Digital Terminator Technology Eliminates jitter-based distortions found in all other cables, delivering natural timbre & precise imaging. New micro-componentry networks located in RCA housing eliminate need for network box.

Yeah, micro-componentry means no box. That would be the 2 cent resistor. I guess that is also the part that eliminates jitter based distortions. And provides directionality to the cable. See the little arrow.

 

[Legion1capone]

How about well shielded rca vs xlr?

 

[SIY]

Apples and oranges. One is for a balanced system, the other is for unbalanced. They are not interchangeable.

 

[blackmetalboon]

RCA Interconnects: Chord Company Anthem Reference & Nordost Purple Flare

XLR Interconnects: Nordost Purple Flare & Neutrik/Van Damme

Speaker cable: Chord Company Signature & Chord Company C-Screen

Coax cable: Chord Company Anthem Tuned Array BNC-BNC

USB cable: Curry’s/PC World £10

Power cable: Whatever was in the box

 

[graz_lag]

Cul-de-sac
Wikipedia : "From French "cul-de-sac", meaning a deadlock, literally the bottom of a bag. A dead end, also known as a cul-de-sac ..."
Like this thread ... ?

I have always believed that, given adequacy in all components *, speakers and room acoustics are the biggest determinants of a system's overall sound.

* Cables are part of the components ... I believe - and other as well within this forum as I can see, that some technical attention should be given to the cable selections as well. We pay so much attention to the measurement & engineering of our audio devices, I do not see anything wrong or outrageous to pay a bit of that attention to the cables ** as well ...

** Cables and plugs, as a single piece of component ...

No one in here is claiming to use super-fancy esoteric cables @ thousands $ per meter, only some good engineered cables in the price range of max some hundreds $ from trusted manufacturers who are also active in other more demanding applications, i.e. medical or aerospace ...

 

[SIY]

"Trusted manufacturers" will not charge "hundreds" of dollars for audio cables. The task and the engineering are totally straighforward and non-mysterious. Ditto the materials to accomplish the simple task of taking a relatively low bandwidth and relatively low voltage signal from point A to point B- nothing even vaguely esoteric required.

 

[Roen]

Interconnects: BJC Low Capacitance Stereo Cable

Headphone cable: Junkosha Silver and Red Cables, 1 for cans, 1 for IEMs

USB cable: Corning Optical -> Powered Kensington USB 3 Hub -> No Name USB-A Male to USB-C Male Stub

Power cable: Stock Wall Wart included with Hub and Amp

 

[Purité Audio]

Mogami, I like the name, for the same reason I could never use Van Damme too many associations!
Keith

 

[graz_lag]

"Trusted manufacturers" will not charge "hundreds" of dollars for audio cables. The task and the engineering are totally straighforward and non-mysterious. Ditto the materials to accomplish the simple task of taking a relatively low bandwidth and relatively low voltage signal from point A to point B- nothing even vaguely esoteric required.

Again ... Cul-de-sac
No one in here talks abt. esoteric cables, unless I have missed some comments ...
I find entirely justified the investment of - say $200 for 10-meters of speaker cables, if one has speakers worth $10,000 ... or - say $50 for a pair of RCA or XLR interconnects from Mogami, Japan (@Purité Audio) to interconnects a $500 DAC to a $2,000 amplifier ...

 

[SIY]

The speakers' "value" is absolutely irrelevant to the task of delivering voltage to them. Ditto the "value" of the electronics.

$200 of speaker cable will perform identically to $25 of extension cord. $10 Amazon Essentials interconnects will perform identically to $50+ Mogamis. If it makes you feel better to spend more, that's fine, but don't pretend that the extra cost has anything to do with performance or reliability. Or that it should have any relationship to the cost of the components being connected.

 

[sergeauckland]

For my DIY unbalanced cables, I use RG59 or RG6 cable and Switchcraft or Amphenol plugs, and for balanced cable any decent microphone cable and Neutrix XLRs or Switchcraft jacks. These days, however, it's cheaper and easier just to buy some ready-made cables for less than the price of just the connectors.

S.

 

[Dilliw]

I like the Wal-Mart patio chords. They are white and blend in with the baseboard.
That's as good a reason as any to buy a cable.

Oh and no connectors. Bare wire baby!

 

[graz_lag]

The speakers' "value" is absolutely irrelevant to the task of delivering voltage to them. Ditto the "value" of the electronics.

$200 of speaker cable will perform identically to $25 of extension cord. $10 Amazon Essentials interconnects will perform identically to $50+ Mogamis. If it makes you feel better to spend more, that's fine, but don't pretend that the extra cost has anything to do with performance or reliability. Or that it should have any relationship to the cost of the components being connected.

You are exactly right, I feel better as I pay some few extra money for reliability, not audio quality ...
I know nothing abt. any possible audio quality improvement , I do not lose time with the blind ABX ... especially after reading this 1991 valuable book : http://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=5539

 

[graz_lag]

A quick drift ... The real scandal is the poor quality of the cross-overs, filters, cabling, inside our lovely loudspeakers although from trusted manufacturers ... I am sure some one in here has taken the time to analyze / replace / tweak, these components so he knows the topic I am talking abt. ...