I think the question wasn’t very clear and something got lost in translation. The viewer said he biamps and then asked if he should shield the XLR cable from his pre to his speakers: the speakers are definitely active. So it’s not a speaker cable we are talking about but a signal cable.
No. You will get better sound with RCA. Unless you are talking about 30’+ of cable length, balanced will degrade the sound because you have double the number of components, including transformers.
@@kaiulrich6185 - Paul did not correctly understand the question, therefore the question was incorrectly "translated". Paul then proceeded to pile on the bullshit and confusion with his goofy answer to a question he initially "mis-translated".
@@Fluterra Balanced connections have not used transformers in half a century. These days the process is handled by op-amps both as phase splitters before transmitting the signal and as a "differentiator" when receiving the signals. At the receiving end the signal is converted from balanced to single ended for the innards of the device... the device does it's thing... then the signal is converted again to balanced. There have been a few "fully balanced" devices made that do not differentiate at the input, but instead, pass the balanced signal through two discrete channels internally ... This entirely defeats the noise cancelling features of balanced audio. It also doubles the component count, increases heat and risk of part failures. It's just the dumbest way to handle balanced signals imaginable.
This is a very confused answer. The questioner effectively has powered speakers. The answer is to use balanced connections if available. The answer went off at a tangent to speaker cables. Shielded cables are pointless for speakers. The speaker circuit is low impedance and relatively high power. Any interference picked up by the cable is tiny compared to the music signal and is shunted to ground by the low impedance. 12 or 14 gauge twin copper wire is perfectly fine. Balanced connectors will not reduce noise and distortion coming from a preamp. Picking holes in Paul’s technical explanations is the only pleasure I have left in life.
@@connorduke4619 A single pass of speaker wire through a ferrite would have so little inductance that it probably does nothing at audio frequencies; the overall amp-wire-speaker-wire-amp loop is relatively low impedance and already has the inductance of the drivers (if cone or dome type). If there are enough passes through the ferrite, it will likely start to become apparent through hysteresis and saturation (both bad for sound). The only real use of ferrites on speaker wires would be if your wires are somehow backfeeding a problematic EMF into the amp, interconnects or other components and causing an issue with something with poor noise rejection, or maybe if you have a really bad/old/misused class-D amp.
Balanced connections were originally designed specifically for microphone use in studios and on stages. Microphones typically have very tiny output signal levels and in studios and on stages the distance between the microphone and the mixer can be quite long, think 30+ feet and often even far more, so those cables have to be balanced to shield the signals against interference. High-end audio USED to use "simple" but high-quality RCA connectors, until some brands started implementing balanced output and inputs, CLAIMING they provided better sound. Personally I couldn't tell the difference between balanced and RCA when hooking up a high-end cd-player to a high-end pre-amplifier at the audio shop of a friend of mine, but there were people who claimed they could hear a vast difference. So at best I'd say the influence on the sound would be very subtle. Balanced interlinks can make a difference in a noisy (electronically speaking) environment, but in my opinion, you'd then have to ask yourself if it wouldn't be better to move to another room or even another house if the present room or house is that terribly noisy. But that's just my two cents.
@@tjroelsma Yes, for short runs in a typical home system RCA connections are perfectly fine. If XLR connections are available on your equipment then you may as well use them. If only unbalanced RCA connections are available then there is really no issue as any audible difference is probably imaginary.
Yep ... shielded interconnects (balanced or single) and unshielded speaker wires is the way to go. The impedance of a speaker loop is 8 ohms or less. Interconnects can run 50k or higher... higher impedances mean less immunity to interference so the grounded shield tends to shunt off most of the external interference. But in speaker loops the impedance is so low that any external interference has little or no impact.
@@connorduke4619 Ferrite chokes are generally used to oppose Radio Frequency Interference and have almost no effect on audio frequencies. So aside from any coincidental decorative value, they're not going to do anything for a speaker loop.
I bought shielded mogami speaker wire for my bookshelf speakers and the difference was very pleasant. No more RF noises I'd pick up from time to time. Best part is that the speakers sound better.. at least to me they do and that's all that matters. 💯
You have to have empathy for Paul. He is trying to explain stuff to people, who some of them have no clue at all about physics but pretend they do. And he has to pretend they do as well as they are part of the Service Available Market. I think this is typical for the consumer audio hobby/industry. So pinching sound it is, well said :)
I have a balanced output question for the room. There's a $30K+ phono stage from England by a company that rhymes with Tom Sevenz which has just RCA outputs. Isn't that kinda crappy that it doesn't have balanced outputs to go to the pre-amp, or are they best for the pre-amp-to-amp connection? Any thoughts?
Your cartridge does not produce a balanced signal and most phono preamps I’m aware of are in fact single ended circuits. With all due respect to Paul, I’m not sure a balanced interconnect accomplishes anything unless the preamp and amp are fully balanced circuits. The only balanced component I own is a pair of Manley mono tape head preamps. It’s wired direct from the tape heads of my Ampex ATR102. The output of the Manley I had David modify for single ended since both my amp and preamps at the time, some 30 years ago, were single ended only. While our home theater setup does employ balanced amps, I’ve never owned a balanced amplifier or preamp and with my fondness for SET DHT amps and horn loaded speakers, it’s unlikely I ever will. As such, balanced interconnects seems kinda pointless
Paul I think you misread the letter, the question was “from preamp to speakers“ implying that the person has active speakers or speakers with a built-in amplifier that accept a balanced connection, in which case they definitely should use shielded cables because it’s line level voltages
@@benwu7980 there could be, but I’ve never heard of any… Edit: if there are, they are probably Chi-Fi active speakers that have it to seem like it’s deluxe, but I’d expect some active speakers over the thousand dollar range may be biamped internally with hard programmed DSP. Biamping a passive speaker can easily lead to more problems than benefits unless you’re connecting it to a DSP for biamplified speakers, because how do you know what frequencies range to send to your Tweeter and woofer? How much overlap? Getting into the weeds for not much return there. Better to just rely on the manufacturer building a good crossover network if you’re paying for high dollar speakers.
Fyi, sometimes you have no choice.. such as, if you use a Fosi class D amp, you’ll likely need a shielded interconnect cable, else you’ll likely have a popping sound issue.. I had this issue and Fosi themselves told me to use shielded and it did fix the popping sound issues. For context, I pair a fosi amp with svs soundpath wireless adapter to make my rear surrounds wireless bc I could not run cables through ceiling or floor in my situation. Works great too. Just had to use shielded interconnect for the amp/adapter connection
Fully agree on balanced vs. single-ended, but the explanation on shielded/unshielded low-level vs. speaker-level must raise some eyebrows. Well, the signal and the fields it creates may be 30 times weaker before the amplifier, then they get to the amplifier, where they get amplified to the speaker-level again. I was an adiophile as early in my life as I remember, and for that reason, I went on to study electronics - and I just can't follow Paul's logic here
And how many people know that New York is a Viking name? The original Vikings called it Jorvik where the "J" is soft like a "Y" and eventually most shortened Yorvik to York and later New York.
Paul, as always thanks for your videos and sharing your knowledge. What is your view on Kimber speaker cable thats mechanicaly shieked due to its cable geometry. Many thanks.
I tried some mic xlr cables from my pre amp to power amp just to hear the difference. Yes it sounded better! Before this i had unbalanced RCA cables from Tara Labs on my Electrocompaniet pre amp & power amp.
You'd probably have to look at a high power transmitter cable to find a shielded cable comparable thickness to a good speaker wire. Although some audiophile may have done it with 10 gauge silver for all I know.
I've always thought the problem with shielded speaker leads is the added capacitance that the amplifier does not expect, so can become unstable, or kind of unstable and not performing as designed. Most amplifiers expect to see a mostly inductive load of voice coils, so give them what they expect and all will be well.
No man. The waves need to breathe before they get to the speaker or the sound will be constricted. Sound like your amp is in a tunnel. Seriously, in the early days I understand that cable experimenters tried RF coaxial cable to their speakers and claimed it sounded better. Well the DC resistance of large coax cable is pretty low and designed to handle several kilowatts of RF signals. All I can think of as a benefit is that if you are getting RF rectification from a nearby transmitter in your amplifier it might help shield that out.
Wouldn't the preamp and speakers need to be designed for shielded cables? Otherwise, how is the shield terminated? In a traditional single ended setup, the shield adds nothing- might make it worse if terminated to signal ground.
😑 I just bought 12m of fisual Havana XL quad. The main selling feature for me was the polyethylene dielectric. I got it for £2 a meter so still a steal even if now this video has me tempted to remove the shielded case and just run them twisted!
This is a very interesting question that I never thought about. I can understand what Paul is saying. I have to do my own research now but what Paul is describing certainly makes sense.
If you have audio on your power cables, your system is seriously flawed. On a power cable you're talking about 120v/60hz or 220v/50hz... and nothing else.
99% of the time UNbalanced sounds better. This is why the ultra high end brands (Nagra, DartZeel, to name two) ALWAYS recommend unbalanced RCA interconnects. You don’t know what you don’t know, Paul.
ALWAYS both. An unterminated length of wire can and will become an antenna that can pick up some RF interference... the exact opposite of what shielding is supposed to do.
@@alfonsodelafreg259 Virtually every RCA cable now made is shield grounded at both ends. It can expose ground loops. But the cable is not the cause, the loop will originate in your other gear. The cable merely makes it obvious.
@@Douglas_Blake Yes, that's because single ended signals are referenced to ground. One reason single ended cables should be kept as short as possible. You can also have a two wire single ended cable with a shield. But I digress. We are speaking about balanced cables here.
Surely, the shorter the speaker cable and the thinner cross sectional area combined with the higher dielectric strength of the insulator Will result in a lower capacitive resistance. Which will improve bandwidth and reduce inductive reactance reactance. And therefore improve power transfer aka power factor. Otherwise a battery would discharge due to coupling to the earth 🌎
@5starmaniac My apologies, it was a question with mildly saracastic undertones, relating to the fact that it has been demonstrated numerous times, that listeners cannot tell the difference between reasonably priced and overpriced cables. Not once to the contrary. There is a strong correlation between seeing and hearing the cable and once blindfolded, the results invariably tend to drop to zero, or 50/50 by another metric. Nevertheless, enjoy your fancy looking investment!
@@paulb4661 I don't give a rat's arse how they look, but they sound brilliant 👌 The difference compared to my prior cables was so huge, that my 7 year old son asked if I had a totally new setup
Shield does indeed add capacitance. But its influence on the sound depends on the output resistance of the source, because that series resistance with the capacitance to ground forms a low pass filter. In reality its influence can be neglected. Suppose you have a 10 m long signal cable with 100 pF/m, resulting in a capacitance of 1 nF. On a 600 ohm line output, the cut-off frequency would then be 1/(2 * pi * 1 nF * 600 ohm), equalling 265 kHz. So, no problem at all. And the lower the output resistance, the higher the cut-off frequency.
Balanced has double voltage, so less strain on the power amp=more headroom. Also the main pollution you get is local. Balanced will always help with that.
The terms audiophiles use feel like nails on a chalkboard. “Unshielded, unbalanced,” etc just seem like a lot of work. Seems you would have to remove shielding to “un-“ do it. Why put it in to begin with? Should be single ended, or plain wire. Like ordering iced tea, or tea, when do we think tea is sweet to begin with? “Unsweet,” is removing the sugar? 😅
Detractor Here: Shields add inductance, which slows the rise-time of the current in the cable causing a high frequency roll-off that gets worse with frequency. So, yes.. they will sound "pinched"... Just like ferrite beads that limit radio interference (>MHz) in small signals, the end result is a function of the shield material, quantity and the level of current. On the other hand: Interconnects should be shielded because the signal current is 1000x less and the impedance of the shield is negligible compared to the impedance of the XLR input.
Your "detractors"? Really? Your detractors are your audience. Sometimes they might agree with you, sometimes not. Maybe they make efforts to keep you honest? (Not in the sense of dishonesty per se.) But, I'm subscribed. I watch your videos quite often and I've learned plenty. But, I'm not going to play dumb. In your video prior to this one, I was a detractor. I asked why you overcharge for your product. My question remains, so does my interest.
Very confused lol. Didn't you start the video off by saying that shielding interferes with the amplification of the signal to the speakers in shielded cables for speakers, and then end the video suggesting to use shielded speaker cables? :P
Yeah, you're right. Sorry about that. I got off onto interocnnects and didn't separate the two. To be clear, I do not like shielded speaker cables. Thanks for pointing that out.
@@Paulmcgowanpsaudio Okay thank you, I was just looking at making speaker cables the other day so I was glad you posted this one. I made them out of unshielded lamp cord for my Fender amp to my 2x12 speaker cab just like Dad taught me.
@@anotheryoutubed Which is fine depending on what you're trying to achieve but, for HiFi listening purposes, get rid of the stranded lamp cord. No bass. Try solid core instead. Even household Romex will sound much beefier than lamp cord.
I use a 14 gauge silver wire wrapped by an 8 gauge teflon jacket. Not terminated. Silver transparency plus air. That’s what I get when I connect my powered speakers.
I noticed that with unbalanced cables that are shielded, the sound is constrained, we lose high frequencies. I then tried unshielded RCA cables, and the sound is more open with an extension of high frequencies. Try unshielded interconnect cables, just to see, you will be surprised!
"just 'cause" is a wonderful, apt, honest description for a lot of things, but especially in the world of Hi-Fi and beyond.
I think the question wasn’t very clear and something got lost in translation. The viewer said he biamps and then asked if he should shield the XLR cable from his pre to his speakers: the speakers are definitely active.
So it’s not a speaker cable we are talking about but a signal cable.
In which case he should definitely use a dual differential balanced XLR connection.
No. You will get better sound with RCA. Unless you are talking about 30’+ of cable length, balanced will degrade the sound because you have double the number of components, including transformers.
I think, you‘re right, but what translation ? And to split hair just for the fun of it, when you write „active „, you mean self powered.
@@kaiulrich6185 - Paul did not correctly understand the question, therefore the question was incorrectly "translated". Paul then proceeded to pile on the bullshit and confusion with his goofy answer to a question he initially "mis-translated".
@@Fluterra
Balanced connections have not used transformers in half a century.
These days the process is handled by op-amps both as phase splitters before transmitting the signal and as a "differentiator" when receiving the signals.
At the receiving end the signal is converted from balanced to single ended for the innards of the device... the device does it's thing... then the signal is converted again to balanced.
There have been a few "fully balanced" devices made that do not differentiate at the input, but instead, pass the balanced signal through two discrete channels internally ... This entirely defeats the noise cancelling features of balanced audio. It also doubles the component count, increases heat and risk of part failures. It's just the dumbest way to handle balanced signals imaginable.
This is a very confused answer. The questioner effectively has powered speakers. The answer is to use balanced connections if available. The answer went off at a tangent to speaker cables. Shielded cables are pointless for speakers. The speaker circuit is low impedance and relatively high power. Any interference picked up by the cable is tiny compared to the music signal and is shunted to ground by the low impedance. 12 or 14 gauge twin copper wire is perfectly fine.
Balanced connectors will not reduce noise and distortion coming from a preamp. Picking holes in Paul’s technical explanations is the only pleasure I have left in life.
Does this also mean that ferrite rings applied round the ends of speaker cables are also pointless (or worse, "constricting the sound")?
@@connorduke4619 Yes, pointless. Paul’s “constricting sound” claim is nonsense.
@@connorduke4619 A single pass of speaker wire through a ferrite would have so little inductance that it probably does nothing at audio frequencies; the overall amp-wire-speaker-wire-amp loop is relatively low impedance and already has the inductance of the drivers (if cone or dome type). If there are enough passes through the ferrite, it will likely start to become apparent through hysteresis and saturation (both bad for sound). The only real use of ferrites on speaker wires would be if your wires are somehow backfeeding a problematic EMF into the amp, interconnects or other components and causing an issue with something with poor noise rejection, or maybe if you have a really bad/old/misused class-D amp.
Balanced connections were originally designed specifically for microphone use in studios and on stages. Microphones typically have very tiny output signal levels and in studios and on stages the distance between the microphone and the mixer can be quite long, think 30+ feet and often even far more, so those cables have to be balanced to shield the signals against interference. High-end audio USED to use "simple" but high-quality RCA connectors, until some brands started implementing balanced output and inputs, CLAIMING they provided better sound. Personally I couldn't tell the difference between balanced and RCA when hooking up a high-end cd-player to a high-end pre-amplifier at the audio shop of a friend of mine, but there were people who claimed they could hear a vast difference. So at best I'd say the influence on the sound would be very subtle. Balanced interlinks can make a difference in a noisy (electronically speaking) environment, but in my opinion, you'd then have to ask yourself if it wouldn't be better to move to another room or even another house if the present room or house is that terribly noisy. But that's just my two cents.
@@tjroelsma Yes, for short runs in a typical home system RCA connections are perfectly fine. If XLR connections are available on your equipment then you may as well use them. If only unbalanced RCA connections are available then there is really no issue as any audible difference is probably imaginary.
Yep ... shielded interconnects (balanced or single) and unshielded speaker wires is the way to go. The impedance of a speaker loop is 8 ohms or less. Interconnects can run 50k or higher... higher impedances mean less immunity to interference so the grounded shield tends to shunt off most of the external interference. But in speaker loops the impedance is so low that any external interference has little or no impact.
Does this also mean that ferrite rings applied round the ends of speaker cables are also pointless (or worse, "constricting the sound")?
@@connorduke4619
Ferrite chokes are generally used to oppose Radio Frequency Interference and have almost no effect on audio frequencies. So aside from any coincidental decorative value, they're not going to do anything for a speaker loop.
I bought shielded mogami speaker wire for my bookshelf speakers and the difference was very pleasant. No more RF noises I'd pick up from time to time. Best part is that the speakers sound better.. at least to me they do and that's all that matters. 💯
I believe the Mogami speaker cables use a star-quad configuration to help reduce electromagnetic interference (EMI), rather than a shield.
@@SteveD-m6z Mogami makes several different cables in several different configurations, who knows which one the OP used.
If your book speaks are powered then yes you can use shielded balanced cable. If your sending power to the speaks then no do not use shielded cable.
You have to have empathy for Paul. He is trying to explain stuff to people, who some of them have no clue at all about physics but pretend they do. And he has to pretend they do as well as they are part of the Service Available Market. I think this is typical for the consumer audio hobby/industry. So pinching sound it is, well said :)
Plus Paul's understanding of Physics is somewhat limited
I used to live in Maryland. It is not a Merry Land.
It certainly is not.
Baltimore is underwhelming
@@cengeb Baltimore is a crap hole and is getting worse everyday. Maryland was named after Queen Mary of England. Mary's-land.
Not sure why it's not Henriettaland or Marialand. There's probably a good reason
The DemonRats sadly tend to driver out merry.
I have a balanced output question for the room. There's a $30K+ phono stage from England by a company that rhymes with Tom Sevenz which has just RCA outputs. Isn't that kinda crappy that it doesn't have balanced outputs to go to the pre-amp, or are they best for the pre-amp-to-amp connection? Any thoughts?
Your cartridge does not produce a balanced signal and most phono preamps I’m aware of are in fact single ended circuits. With all due respect to Paul, I’m not sure a balanced interconnect accomplishes anything unless the preamp and amp are fully balanced circuits.
The only balanced component I own is a pair of Manley mono tape head preamps. It’s wired direct from the tape heads of my Ampex ATR102. The output of the Manley I had David modify for single ended since both my amp and preamps at the time, some 30 years ago, were single ended only. While our home theater setup does employ balanced amps, I’ve never owned a balanced amplifier or preamp and with my fondness for SET DHT amps and horn loaded speakers, it’s unlikely I ever will. As such, balanced interconnects seems kinda pointless
Paul I think you misread the letter, the question was “from preamp to speakers“ implying that the person has active speakers or speakers with a built-in amplifier that accept a balanced connection, in which case they definitely should use shielded cables because it’s line level voltages
He does answer this in the second half.
Are there many active speakers that also have bi-wiring from a preamp?
@@benwu7980 there could be, but I’ve never heard of any… Edit: if there are, they are probably Chi-Fi active speakers that have it to seem like it’s deluxe, but I’d expect some active speakers over the thousand dollar range may be biamped internally with hard programmed DSP. Biamping a passive speaker can easily lead to more problems than benefits unless you’re connecting it to a DSP for biamplified speakers, because how do you know what frequencies range to send to your Tweeter and woofer? How much overlap? Getting into the weeds for not much return there. Better to just rely on the manufacturer building a good crossover network if you’re paying for high dollar speakers.
Fyi, sometimes you have no choice.. such as, if you use a Fosi class D amp, you’ll likely need a shielded interconnect cable, else you’ll likely have a popping sound issue.. I had this issue and Fosi themselves told me to use shielded and it did fix the popping sound issues. For context, I pair a fosi amp with svs soundpath wireless adapter to make my rear surrounds wireless bc I could not run cables through ceiling or floor in my situation. Works great too. Just had to use shielded interconnect for the amp/adapter connection
Been wondering about this, thanks Paul 👍
Fully agree on balanced vs. single-ended, but the explanation on shielded/unshielded low-level vs. speaker-level must raise some eyebrows. Well, the signal and the fields it creates may be 30 times weaker before the amplifier, then they get to the amplifier, where they get amplified to the speaker-level again.
I was an adiophile as early in my life as I remember, and for that reason, I went on to study electronics - and I just can't follow Paul's logic here
OMG pre-amp connecting to a power amp, long distance (like 10mtr) should always be balanced AND shielded. I think Paul would agree on that.
And how many people know that New York is a Viking name? The original Vikings called it Jorvik where the "J" is soft like a "Y" and eventually most shortened Yorvik to York and later New York.
I knew that - been to the Jovrik viking village in York England.
@@connorduke4619 - Yup, I say they are proud that they have a Viking heritage.
Paul, as always thanks for your videos and sharing your knowledge. What is your view on Kimber speaker cable thats mechanicaly shieked due to its cable geometry. Many thanks.
I tried some mic xlr cables from my pre amp to power amp just to hear the difference. Yes it sounded better! Before this i had unbalanced RCA cables from Tara Labs on my Electrocompaniet pre amp & power amp.
She always said it isn't the pinching. It's the additional twisting.
You'd probably have to look at a high power transmitter cable to find a shielded cable comparable thickness to a good speaker wire. Although some audiophile may have done it with 10 gauge silver for all I know.
There are two types of detractors: Constructive and destructive.
0:15 the I'm so high right now moment
Would this be this the same for pro audio or connections from a guitar amp to speaker cab?
Shielding is unnecessary if the cables are elevated with Tinker Toys.
I've always thought the problem with shielded speaker leads is the added capacitance that the amplifier does not expect, so can become unstable, or kind of unstable and not performing as designed.
Most amplifiers expect to see a mostly inductive load of voice coils, so give them what they expect and all will be well.
ok, but i use passive speakers. do i use a shielded speaker cable or just plain old OFC copper wire?
Good old all-copper 16ga lamp cord still makes the best speaker wires.
No man. The waves need to breathe before they get to the speaker or the sound will be constricted. Sound like your amp is in a tunnel. Seriously, in the early days I understand that cable experimenters tried RF coaxial cable to their speakers and claimed it sounded better. Well the DC resistance of large coax cable is pretty low and designed to handle several kilowatts of RF signals. All I can think of as a benefit is that if you are getting RF rectification from a nearby transmitter in your amplifier it might help shield that out.
And there's a place in England called New York Lincolnshire it was before New York of America
Wouldn't the preamp and speakers need to be designed for shielded cables? Otherwise, how is the shield terminated? In a traditional single ended setup, the shield adds nothing- might make it worse if terminated to signal ground.
Nothing I have has XLR except for the QSC amps I use. I guess I'm keeping it old school.
😑 I just bought 12m of fisual Havana XL quad. The main selling feature for me was the polyethylene dielectric. I got it for £2 a meter so still a steal even if now this video has me tempted to remove the shielded case and just run them twisted!
This is a very interesting question that I never thought about. I can understand what Paul is saying. I have to do my own research now but what Paul is describing certainly makes sense.
But with power cables I believe you say shield is better? But doesn't it increase capacitance and limiting dynamics?
If you have audio on your power cables, your system is seriously flawed. On a power cable you're talking about 120v/60hz or 220v/50hz... and nothing else.
@@Douglas_Blake Well well you might need to visit a dedicated HIFI forum on that topic..
@@Forollo9210
Why? I know how it works.
@ of course you do.
@@Forollo9210
40 years in the trade ...
99% of the time UNbalanced sounds better. This is why the ultra high end brands (Nagra, DartZeel, to name two) ALWAYS recommend unbalanced RCA interconnects.
You don’t know what you don’t know, Paul.
You only need shielded cables for line or mic levels.
Another question sure to spark emotion. Shield connected at source or destination and why. Assuming not both.
ALWAYS both. An unterminated length of wire can and will become an antenna that can pick up some RF interference... the exact opposite of what shielding is supposed to do.
@@Douglas_Blake Interesting you say that. In my past life as a broadcast engineer, it was never both as that creates ground loops.
@@alfonsodelafreg259
Virtually every RCA cable now made is shield grounded at both ends. It can expose ground loops. But the cable is not the cause, the loop will originate in your other gear. The cable merely makes it obvious.
@@Douglas_Blake Yes, that's because single ended signals are referenced to ground. One reason single ended cables should be kept as short as possible. You can also have a two wire single ended cable with a shield. But I digress. We are speaking about balanced cables here.
pfff pointless discussion, the real question is which cable risers to buy....
not. 😅
Merryland indeed....
Merryshielding
I am a balanced commentator. Most of the time when I bitch and moan is when the questions are just too sophomoric.
Surely, the shorter the speaker cable and the thinner cross sectional area combined with the higher dielectric strength of the insulator Will result in a lower capacitive resistance. Which will improve bandwidth and reduce inductive reactance reactance. And therefore improve power transfer aka power factor. Otherwise a battery would discharge due to coupling to the earth 🌎
Capacitive reactance, stupid spelling check
And yet, the Furutech DSS-4.1 speaker cable, is the finest speaker cable I've heard to this date.. 🤔
How about when you connect it to speakers?
@paulb4661 Off course I have them connected to my speakers, what do you mean?? 😅
@5starmaniac My apologies, it was a question with mildly saracastic undertones, relating to the fact that it has been demonstrated numerous times, that listeners cannot tell the difference between reasonably priced and overpriced cables. Not once to the contrary. There is a strong correlation between seeing and hearing the cable and once blindfolded, the results invariably tend to drop to zero, or 50/50 by another metric. Nevertheless, enjoy your fancy looking investment!
@@paulb4661 I don't give a rat's arse how they look, but they sound brilliant 👌 The difference compared to my prior cables was so huge, that my 7 year old son asked if I had a totally new setup
There is always nay sayers lol, especially keyboard warriors!!!
Been wondering about this as well, thanks!
Maryland's name has no relationship to "merry". Taking it apart (@0:07) will show that Maryland's name is based on Henrietta Maria of France.
don't often comment, but, paul, I would suggest that a shield introduces capacitance. Capacitance can change the sound significantly
Shield does indeed add capacitance. But its influence on the sound depends on the output resistance of the source, because that series resistance with the capacitance to ground forms a low pass filter.
In reality its influence can be neglected. Suppose you have a 10 m long signal cable with 100 pF/m, resulting in a capacitance of 1 nF. On a 600 ohm line output, the cut-off frequency would then be 1/(2 * pi * 1 nF * 600 ohm), equalling 265 kHz. So, no problem at all. And the lower the output resistance, the higher the cut-off frequency.
And New York was named Nieuw Amsterdam(New Amsterdam)...😄...named after Amsterdam from the Netherlands...
Balanced has double voltage, so less strain on the power amp=more headroom. Also the main pollution you get is local. Balanced will always help with that.
Merry vs Mary
This Mark always uses XLR.
The terms audiophiles use feel like nails on a chalkboard. “Unshielded, unbalanced,” etc just seem like a lot of work. Seems you would have to remove shielding to “un-“ do it. Why put it in to begin with? Should be single ended, or plain wire. Like ordering iced tea, or tea, when do we think tea is sweet to begin with? “Unsweet,” is removing the sugar? 😅
Not shielded 🙂
Detractor Here: Shields add inductance, which slows the rise-time of the current in the cable causing a high frequency roll-off that gets worse with frequency. So, yes.. they will sound "pinched"... Just like ferrite beads that limit radio interference (>MHz) in small signals, the end result is a function of the shield material, quantity and the level of current.
On the other hand: Interconnects should be shielded because the signal current is 1000x less and the impedance of the shield is negligible compared to the impedance of the XLR input.
Your "detractors"? Really? Your detractors are your audience. Sometimes they might agree with you, sometimes not. Maybe they make efforts to keep you honest? (Not in the sense of dishonesty per se.) But, I'm subscribed. I watch your videos quite often and I've learned plenty. But, I'm not going to play dumb. In your video prior to this one, I was a detractor. I asked why you overcharge for your product. My question remains, so does my interest.
Mary land was named after Mary as in Jesus and Mary since there were a lot of Catholics that settled up there
Very confused lol. Didn't you start the video off by saying that shielding interferes with the amplification of the signal to the speakers in shielded cables for speakers, and then end the video suggesting to use shielded speaker cables? :P
Yeah, you're right. Sorry about that. I got off onto interocnnects and didn't separate the two. To be clear, I do not like shielded speaker cables. Thanks for pointing that out.
@@Paulmcgowanpsaudio Okay thank you, I was just looking at making speaker cables the other day so I was glad you posted this one. I made them out of unshielded lamp cord for my Fender amp to my 2x12 speaker cab just like Dad taught me.
@@anotheryoutubed Which is fine depending on what you're trying to achieve but, for HiFi listening purposes, get rid of the stranded lamp cord. No bass. Try solid core instead. Even household Romex will sound much beefier than lamp cord.
Can this guy read English? He is getting old, and simple..it's not merry...oy vey.
Correct, the shielding allows an Emf to be induced redirecting energy that you want going to the transducers to the field.
I use a 14 gauge silver wire wrapped by an 8 gauge teflon jacket. Not terminated.
Silver transparency plus air. That’s what I get when I connect my powered speakers.
I noticed that with unbalanced cables that are shielded, the sound is constrained, we lose high frequencies.
I then tried unshielded RCA cables, and the sound is more open with an extension of high frequencies.
Try unshielded interconnect cables, just to see, you will be surprised!
Oy vey,making up nonsense...constricts the sound. Oy vey,this is beyond stupid