My Two Cents: It is NOT okay to cross signals in a cable...

[Rick]

I'm making this thread because it had come to my attention that not only forum members, but also "professional" cable makers think that it is okay to not only cross signals in a cable, but actually braid 2 seperate signals together.

Let me first start off by saying that you should never under any circumstances even cross 2 cables from eachother due to the crosstalk that will take place from the seperate signals. that being said, it is a definite "no no" to ever braid 2 different signals into a litz braid. The idea behind a litz braid is that you have multiple wires of the "same" signal, and the same multiple of negative signal (or ground signal) wires braided together in uniform. This technique of the braid creating a shield around itself ONLY works when done in that fasion, otherwise its just a breeding grounds for crosstalk and interference.

I honestly cannot understand how people can be selling these 3 wire litz braided cables (2 signal 1 ground) for 350$ and people are actually buying them? I know my customers are VERY pleased to receive an 8 wire cable from me (2, 4 wire litz braided cables, joined together in parallel with sleeving and shrink tube).


*Advertisement removed*

 

[Ub3rMario]

Pretty sure you can't advertise here for free, especially while bashing other cable makers who pay to advertise here....

 

[Uncle Erik]

Do you mind putting up some facts and figures to support your assertion?

 

[Budgie]

You are completely wrong and need to learn more about magnetic coupling between conductors.

Also try to learn what a "Litz wire" actually is.

Then come on back and we can talk, but leave the low ball attempt at advertising out.

 

[Rick]

Well you could start by reading the actual official litz website for starters. Specifically the faq section where he specifically states that you should never cross 2 signals. And how he highly advises agains have more than one signal in the same litz braid. Or maybe how his tutorial is using 4 wires for 1 rca cable?

 

[Rick]

And budgie, your "loser" commend that you edited out was completely uncalled for, and just goes to show how competent your opinion really is. If you bother to read the litz website, or any website that has actual facts to do with signals and crosstalk / emi, you would retract your entire comment.

 

[les_garten]

Hello,
I kinda have some of the same questions about the "Litz" braiding popular here. I talked to the guy who owns the Chimera Labs website about the very concerns that the OP brings up.

Here is the same question posed on the Chimera website:

Quote:

Have you tried a multi-strand Litz which is left-right channel separated just at the ends so you have what looks like a single Litz connector carrying two channels. Downside / upside to doing so? I do not have any personal experience in combining channels into one Litz braid. My instinctive response is why would we want to interleave two different signals?.....sounds like a recipe for cross talk. But, the only way to learn is to build a pair and compare them to a pair braided the way I suggest.

Here's the link to the page:

Chimera Labs Frequently Asked Questions

It seems that if you have 4 wires and they are Left and Right Pairs from a Headphone cable, that as you braid the cable, your pairs are separating and pairing and intermingling with the other channel pair that is moving in and out of pairing.

How does this not produce a big Muddy Mess of a Signal?

This should be an interesting discussion.


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[sachu]

without going into bashing the OP for starting a valid thread on a wiring pattern, lets all try to stick to the topic. I don't think the OP is trying to bash any manufacturers here...let alone selling /hawking his wares..interesting toppic though.

Fsma, are you saying that the star quad mini cable that I am using for my headphone cables are not what I should be using since the left and right channel pair of wires are intervleaved among themselves?

 

[Rick]

I would like to apologize if anyone got the impression that I was trying to create an advertisement thread or was bashing any manufacturers. I merely was attempting to inform people who spend good amounts of money on cables that they should be spending that money on ones that are going to be benefitting them the best possible way. I did not mean for it come out as an advertisement, merely trying to be helpful here.

Sachu: that would depend, I have not had a star quad cable to look at its finer aspects, but if the wires are interweaving throughout the cable, and you aren't using it as a single RCA cable, then yes I'd say you would benefit from looking into other options. If they are not interweaving or twisted around eachother, and infact have some sort of di-electric between the cables (like what you'd find inside of say a monster mini-stereo cable, which has a rubber interior seperating each wire), then it is absolutely fine. Is this an interconnect or a headphone cable?

The idea behind the litz cable is the way it is constructed causes it to form an EMI shielding around itself in the sense that there are equal amounts of signal and negative signal wires interweaving with one another, and then joined at the connectors (last 2 inches of each braid you should switch to just weaving or twisting together the same signal wires for better connectivity). It is my understanding that in doing this you also reduce what little resistance the cable has as well, making it similar to using a thicker guage wire, while maintaining the non-stiffness of the thinner gauge, as well as the frequency range that it has to offer.

It also means that 2 braids ran in parallel to one another need no further shielding between the two, especially if each braided wire is braided with the exact same amounts of braids, at the same tightnes/looseness.

That is the type of cable that I think people should be looking for / aspiring for. As a litz cable that is not made this way, loses the natural shielding that it creates for itself, so not only are you crossing signals, but you would be doing so with no actual shielding.


And thank you les_garten, that is one of the faq questions you quoted that I was referring to.


Sachu: and not only does this type of cable work for balanced and unbalanced setups, but it makes itself plausable to be intermittently interchangable between the two merely by changing the connector(s). So should one decide to go balanced, they don't need all new expensive cables, they simply change the connectors and seperate the ground wires from eachother and now have their negative signal wires.

 

[les_garten]

Quote:

Originally Posted by sachu /img/forum/go_quote.gif without going into bashing the OP for starting a valid thread on a wiring pattern, lets all try to stick to the topic. I don't think the OP is trying to bash any manufacturers here...let alone selling /hawking his wares..interesting toppic though. Fsma, are you saying that the star quad mini cable that I am using for my headphone cables are not what I should be using since the left and right channel pair of wires are intervleaved among themselves?

Yes, Star Quad has the same problem. It was designed to be a MIC cable correct? When Canare makes a "Multi Channel" Star Quad, they insulate the channels with Braided Copper Shield that I have seen.

They do make a Double Star Quad. I think I would like to try that for a Headphone cable.

What are your thoghts?

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[sachu]

Quote:

Originally Posted by fsma /img/forum/go_quote.gif Sachu: that would depend, I have not had a star quad cable to look at its finer aspects, but if the wires are interweaving throughout the cable, and you aren't using it as a single RCA cable, then yes I'd say you would benefit from looking into other options. If they are not interweaving or twisted around eachother, and infact have some sort of di-electric between the cables (like what you'd find inside of say a monster mini-stereo cable, which has a rubber interior seperating each wire), then it is absolutely fine. Is this an interconnect or a headphone cable?

fsma,

I have used this for both RCA and headphone cables.

WIth RCA, I have sed seperate lengths of cable per channel which eliminates the problem altogether. But with the headphone cable i guess, there is crosstalk involved as the two pairs are not shielded from each other. Maybe I should look into the cable that les_gardens is suggesting..something that has sheilding between the pairs as well as full sheilding.
Quote:

Sachu: and not only does this type of cable work for balanced and unbalanced setups, but it makes itself plausable to be intermittently interchangable between the two merely by changing the connector(s). So should one decide to go balanced, they don't need all new expensive cables, they simply change the connectors and seperate the ground wires from eachother and now have their negative signal wires.

yeah, but going balanced is a pain and not really all that beneficial me thinks..

 

[Rick]

Everyone has their views on balanced. I haven't got a balanced setup myself, but I know a large part of switching to balanced for some people is spending 1000$ on cables all over again. (or somewhere in that ballpark)

If you have starquad as a headphone cable, this is not to say you should throw it out and buy a new cable. What I would personally do is strip the outer jacket off so that you are left with the 4 wires. Then purchase another length of starquad the same length and do the same. then either braid the 2 sets of 4 wires and put sleeving over them placing the 2 braided cables in parallel to eachother, or if you aren't comfortable doing it yourself, there are plenty of places/people to turn to who would be happy to do it for you with your wiring at a much lower cost than purchasing a new cable all together.

I personally have a 10 foot headphone cable at the moment that I constructed. solid copper (as stranded defeats the purpose of braiding the wires, and its only benefit as far as I've read would be that it is more bendable/less stiff), that consists of exactly as I have described, two seperately braided 4 wire cables (not sleeved at the moment as I am waiting on that shipment of sleeving to arrive, so its merely held together by a small piece of heat shrink tubing every foot or so until that arrives), and so far the only thing to cause any interference with it is my cell phone going off, but I'm quite sure that even that is solely due to the open exposed wire / contacts on my headphone drivers, as I have a MESS of cables (mostly electrical and USB) flopped on the ground beside me tangled to all hell and back again, and it has no effect on the sound that I can tell even if I place my headphone cable flat across the heaping pile, or even if I run it directly ontop of the power supply for my computer tower. Aswell I've yet to hear any other form of cable that sounds as crisp and clear as this kind, which I believe to be because of the fact that the cable is designed in a way that the signal travels as though it were balanced, and also because left channel, right channel, and ground channels are all in exact precise formation that the signals travel through them at the exact same phases.

 

[Rick]

And hence why I felt the need to share this information, as it did not seem that it was well known, or even accepted amongst the community (given the initial responses that I aquired), when it really is beneficial.

It does take more wiring to produce the cable though naturally. I used nearly 90 ft of wire for a 10 ft cable. But the difference is very much worth it in my opinion and I think not only should the listeners be concidering this as an option, but I would love to see manufacturers offer it more readily as well.

 

[les_garten]

Quote:

Originally Posted by sachu /img/forum/go_quote.gif fsma, I have used this for both RCA and headphone cables. WIth RCA, I have sed seperate lengths of cable per channel which eliminates the problem altogether. But with the headphone cable i guess, there is crosstalk involved as the two pairs are not shielded from each other. Maybe I should look into the cable that les_gardens is suggesting..something that has sheilding between the pairs as well as full sheilding. yeah, but going balanced is a pain and not really all that beneficial me thinks..

Hi,

Mogami W2930 is a 2-Ch Snake.
MOGAMI - The Cable of the PROS

The problem is it is about 1mm too large in Diameter. We need it to be around 6.5mm or 0.25" Max in my opinion.

I just sent in a request for a sample. The Canare 2-Ch. Star Quad is bigger .

Canare L-4E3-2P
http://www.canare.com/ProductItemDis...oductItemID=55

We need a custom 2-Ch Mini Star quad at 6.5mm!


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[Rick]

thinner would be less shielding on those. hence why litz cable is convenient in my opinion since it shields itself. each channel winds up being 1/8 inch, making the entire cable 1/4 inch (0.25") vs the half inch that the custom 2-ch mini star quad would wind up being.