[dwc]

that cable is fat, how are you going to fit it into a mini jack?

 

[Ferbose]

I visited local Radio Shack yesterday in Pasadena, CA.
Some of the gold series cables are still the older line, while some others are replaced by the new fusion line.

 

[bhd812]

I have been searching audiogon for some mit term 3 cables cause i need more, but the price is to high now...

I shall be picking these up this week for sure..thank you

 

[bhd812]

Well I bought the gold series (the ones with the direction flow on the cable)

I have them hooked up to my g08 with a rat shack rca splitter and the mit term 3 interconnects on the other side.

I have both plugged into my raptor and once eveything warms up I will do a comparo match. the raptor has two inputs with a switch in the back so I basicly will be doing a a/b switch contest with the two cables..

I listened briefly between the two and The rat gold is alittle more spacious..other then that the same through out.

I will let the raptor warm up for a few hours till I get nitty gritty on both cables.

rite now I can make a hypoth that the rat gold can easily be on the same level as the mit term3's

 

[bhd812]

and by the way from the touch of the jacket on these you can tell its belden cable, I know belden cable very well as I use alot of their product in my business.

the rca plugs have a slit in the middle of the pin, so if you want a tighter fit all you must do is expand the pin with a screw driver.

I have seen these plugs before, I cant put the name on them yet..

 

[NeilPeart]

After some extended listening/testing I find the treble slightly subdued and repressed with the Fusion compared to the Belden 1505F cable I normally use. While the Fusion certainly is better than stock ICs and slightly better than the Monster Interlink 400MkII in terms of clarity, the Belden 1505F is that much clearer and more open. Of course, since these are ICs the differences I speak of are very subtle. Here is what BlueJeansCable said about the Fusion (I provided them with pictures but they didn't have the actual cable in their labs for testing capacitance/inductance/etc.):

“Well, it's hard to tell very much from the photos. If I'm interpreting what
I see correctly, it appears to be a shielded "star quad" audio cable. Star
quad is a configuration where there are four conductors twisted together,
and opposing pairs are joined at each end. (That is, the two blue conductors
should be opposite one another, and the whites opposite one another, so that
when the raw cable is viewed on-end, the order, going around the cable, is
blue-white-blue-white) The purpose of this configuration is to maximize
noise rejection in balanced circuits, and it's very effective, as contrasted
with a standard twisted pair. However, as a general rule that's only going
to work if the circuit is balanced. If it's running to unbalanced circuits
(e.g., pretty much anything connected using RCA plugs), common mode noise
rejection doesn't work (or, at any rate, isn't very effective) and so the
advantages of the star quad disappear.

The downside of star quad is its high capacitance, which can contribute to
high-frequency rolloff. How significant that is will depend on cable
length, the actual capacitance rate per foot, and the input and output
impedances of the devices being interconnected.

I can't tell what the shield is made of. Ideally it ought to be copper, but
it's possible that's aluminum; trying to solder to it would probably tell
you, as aluminum doesn't readily take up solder. It looks as though these
might be drain wires for a foil shield, as there doesn't seem to be enough
shield wire coming out of the bundle to make up a full braid--but that may
just be how this sample was trimmed.

Cable like this should generally work well in balanced audio, and acceptably
in unbalanced audio (though I'd avoid long runs in either due to the
capacitance). It's meant for analog only and should not be used in
high-frequency applications (video, digital audio) where cable impedance is
a factor.

The ferrite core won't do much, though it should not hurt anything; it acts
to choke off RF on the shield.

As for the cable being "directional," generally that doesn't make a lot of
sense. One would really need to know why the manufacturer contends it's
directional in order to evaluate the claim. Sometimes a cable will be built
with a "floating" or "telescoping" ground, where the shield is grounded at
only one end of the circuit, and in such cases, the direction of hookup can
matter. The purpose is to prevent ground loops, and it really only works,
again, in a balanced circuit. In a balanced circuit, the ground isn't the
signal return path, so one can break the ground without problems. When this
is done unbalanced, usually what happens is that one side of the pair (in
this case, one pair of the quad) is connected to ground on both ends, but
the shield is connected to ground only at one end. The problem, of course,
is that you can't break up a ground loop this way because the grounds are
still connected.

If that's not the rationale for it being "directional," and the rationale is
instead something funky (e.g., "the microcrystalline structure of the copper
has been aligned to optimize in one direction") then that's just nonsense.
All analog audio signals, balanced or unbalanced, flow as alternating
current, so even if there were such a thing as optimizing the wire to flow
one way, it would be a bad thing to have such a cable; one needs the
electricity to behave the same on the positive as the negative phase.

Considerations as to quality which I can't judge from the photos would
include: shield coverage percent; shield material; consistency of twist rate
and wire spacing; and probably a few things that don't come right to mind.

Thanks,

Kurt
BJC”

 

[Thaddy]

I just picked up a 6 ft. pair of these cables from my local Radio Shack for $16. It seems that they normally have the ferrite cores, however mine don't. Whenever I get my maxed Millet Hybrid in with 3 inputs, I plan on A/B'ing these with my Zu Oxyfuel's. I'll just get some RCA splitters for the back of my SD-3950 and have a good ole' time

 

[clarke68]

Quote:

Originally Posted by NeilPeart After some extended listening/testing I find the treble slightly subdued and repressed with the Fusion compared to the Belden 1505F cable I normally use...

I agree...subtle hf rolloff would explain the "darkness" I'm hearing with these new Fusions. These could be really good for taking the edge off a system that runs too bright, but I don't think I'll count on them as a reference.

Quote:

Originally Posted by NeilPeart “Well, it's hard to tell very much from the photos. If I'm interpreting what I see correctly, it appears to be a shielded "star quad" audio cable... blah blah blah lots of stuff about cables blah blah blah...consistency of twist rate and wire spacing; and probably a few things that don't come right to mind.”

Great post, thanks! Ya just gotta love the guys over at Blue Jeans...probably 90% of all the facts about cables on the entire internet are on their site.

 

[MD1032]

I saw a pair of these at my church in one of our many drawers of audio cables and was surprised to see "Radio Shack" on them.

I'll have to pick up a couple of these! They look pretty nice. The kind that I'm using right now are these pain in the buttocks Radio Shack cheapo nickel-plated ones (if it even is nickel) that are stiff, hard to push in, and just cheap overall.

 

[Ferbose]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thaddy I just picked up a 6 ft. pair of these cables from my local Radio Shack for $16. It seems that they normally have the ferrite cores, however mine don't. Whenever I get my maxed Millet Hybrid in with 3 inputs, I plan on A/B'ing these with my Zu Oxyfuel's. I'll just get some RCA splitters for the back of my SD-3950 and have a good ole' time

I picked up a couple of new gold series 3 ft cables. They package says audio/video cable. It is sold as a single cable, so I bought a pair for stereo use. I suppose they do actually work for both audio and video--I actually did not know that audio and composite video cables are the same. The price was something like $6.99--can't exactly remember.

I also bought Radioshack's clip-on ferrite choke. I will try to compare the sonic qualities of fusion ferrite cable vs normal Hosa cable with clip-on ferrites.

 

[soundboy]

I posted about the re-introduced "Fusion" cable at audiokarma.org and I got the following response....

Quote:

Our local RS has been recently bought out by a guy who actually has a clue (he got rid of 2/3 of the cellphone and car audio clutter and brought in the small parts drawers). A few months back, he pointed me to the relabeled Fusion cables and I've enjoyed the bargain ever since. However, he's asked his higher ups about them and learned that new cables are not being made, these are just the surplus left over from the defunct run. Once they're bought up, there will be no more. So, grab them while you can.

So get them while you can.

 

[soundboy]

Apparently, Radio Shack is now bringing out a new series of "Gold" cables. I saw them over this past weekend....they are now made in China. I can't comment on the quality of these new cables, but the place of manufacture is only one factor that set the new "Gold Series" cable from the formerly Fusion cable. The new cables have a different look from the cable originally discussed in this thread and look to be "cheaply made". Since the appearance of the new "Gold Series" cable, the US made formerly Fusion cable is now on clearance....I got an one meter pair for $9.99. So keep your eyes open for these deals.

 

[Melchior]

I just got some of their new "advanced" gold series cables. Sort of like the regular radioshack gold cable but with nicer connectors, what I assume is better braid/foil shielding (haven't taken apart the old radioshack to see, but the description on the back implies as much) and the cable is stiffer than I remember radioshack cables being. I'd do some rightmark tests to see how they did for hum rejection and stuff, but I got rid of the fusion and gold cables a long time ago, so comparative results are spotty at best.

 

[pojen_h@hotmail.]

Is this the gold series cable you talked about?

http://www.radioshack.com/product/in...tId=2049657&cp

 

[Melchior]

That's the original gold series cable. the Fusion type cables have a tapered (trapezoid shaped) rca end, sort of like the monster turbo hooplah interlink cable RCAs.