Re: Cables again. For Arny, et al.

"nebulax" <nebulax@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message 
news:fquciu027i@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> On Mar 7, 7:46 pm, "Arny Krueger" <ar...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>> "nebulax" <nebu...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
>>
>> news:fqpq7l0prp@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>>
>> > BTW, please don't take my arguments to indicate that I'm
>> > advocating spending $500+ a meter on cables, because I'm
>> > truly not, and I couldn't afford to spend that much even
>> > if I wanted to. One of the folks who I quoted, Roger
>> > Sanders, is selling interconnects that he makes from
>> > Belden video coax, and he's only charging $59 for a 5ft
>> > pair, but even THAT is too expensive for me (right now
>> > anyway). I wish the whole cable/sound issue wasn't even
>> > an issue, but to my ears it is, and so I'm trying to find
>> > the most economical way to sonic neutrality, that's all.
>>
>> As a rule, the worst thing about the give-away interconnects that come 
>> with
>> audio gear is the connectors, not the cable.  The cable itself is 
>> inherently
>> sonically neutral when used in reasonable lengths, and with almost any 
>> piece
>> of audio gear.
>>
>> Coax can be used to make some very techhy-looking cables, especially
with
>> the right connectors. All that has nothing to do with sound, its all 
>> about
>> appearances.
>
> Yeah, the connectors can really suck on cheap cables. It's bad enough
> that the norm for hi-fi connections are RCA jacks, much less poorly
> made ones. I've read info from Mogami and Canare that state that the
> quality of the connector can affect the ohm rating of the whole
> assembly, with a bad jack design making a cable unsuitable for
> transferring digital S-PDIF information. A mismatch of ohms in a
> electrical circuit can be quite audible, and well as visual (in the
> case of video signal).

How is an impedance mismatch audible? I don't think so. For analogue
signals 
at audio frequencies, the impedance of the cable nd connector have no 
relevance. For digital signals, the impedance of the cable/connector may 
make a difference over long distances, but for normal domestic lengths,
(say 
under 10m, 33ft) it really doesn't matter. S-PDIF and AES-EBU is *very* 
robust, and I have seen (and personally tried) literally a piece of wet 
string trans****t digital signals pefectly. I have even passed an AES-EBU 
signal (unbalanced 75ohm) through my fingers into a sensitive S-PDIF 
receiver with no problems.

Analogue video signals are very different, and an impedance mismatch can
be 
visible as reflections on edges. I remember being very roundly told off in

my youth for mixing up 50 ohm BNCs for 75ohm connectors...... In TV 
facilities before they all went digital, video, whether composite or RGB
had 
to be very carefully timed and equalised, and a great deal of attention
was 
placed on the correct impedance of both cables and connectors. Audio is 
competely different, and just isn't critical of either.

S.

-- 
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