should headphone cables be shielded?

[JaZZ]

For interconnect cables shielding makes sense, but it's not absolutely necessary in the case of CD players/DACs and headphone amps, where the signal gain is mostly below 1. What makes shielding recommendable is high gain factors which imply an amplification of electromagnetic interferences (e.g. radio waves). Headphone cables on the other hand are uncritical, as the signal doesn't get amplified anymore. So shielding is dispensable. Or has anybody heard a radio station through a headphone cable?

The Zu Mobius I use with my HD 600/650 is shielded (to my knowledge), whereas the Silver Dragon isn't (to my knowledge), nor are the stock cable and my own homemade cables. I also use shielded and unshielded interconnects and build my own cables in both variants. Shielding makes a difference there, but only in the form of higher capacitance which makes for a slightly smoother treble.
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[Koyaan I. Sqatsi]

Originally Posted by bhjazz

Cardas - shielded
Transparent - shielded
MIT - shielded
Kimber - unshielded
Shunyata - shielded
Audioquest - shielded

I'm not sure where you got your information

He gets his information from the fact that the vast majority of speaker cables are unshielded.

And which speaker cables of the brands you mentioned are shielded? I perused most of their lines and didn't see any shielded speaker cables.

k

[Xan7hos]

Can someone point me in the right direction, I'm looking for a rubber hose as a headphone cable sheathing that is similiar to stock OEM cables (i.e. Grado headphone rubber/vinyl sheathing)

[Koyaan I. Sqatsi]

Originally Posted by Xan7hos

Can someone point me in the right direction, I'm looking for a rubber hose as a headphone cable sheathing that is similiar to stock OEM cables (i.e. Grado headphone rubber/vinyl sheathing)

Go to McMaster-Carr's website.

In the Find box, enter "tubing."

In the Shape section, select "Single Line."

In the Material section, select "PVC."

In the PVC Material section, select "Generic Formulation PVC."

Go down to Color and select "Black."

Then check the inside and outside diameters available and see if they have a size that's suitable for what you're doing.

Good luck!

k

[Xan7hos]

thanks a lot, appreciate it

[Prog Rock Man]

Originally Posted by spartan777

I use a 1 ft Kimber IC between my DAC and amp, and as bhjazz said, it has no shielding. I don't hear anything that could be recognized as interference; RFI, EMF, etc. I doubt shielding has any actual impact on sound, then again, I've never used a shielded cable.....

A friend who is an engineer commented that the best way to reduce RFI and EMF is to braid a cable. He did not know about Kimber cables, but after he saw some he was very impressed. Kimber braids their cables for that very reason.