Differences between Cables

[samth3mancgp]

What are the differences between using solid wire, stranded wire, high gauge, lower gauge? I have a bunch of 24 gauge solid wire from radio shack that. I heard that 24 is a decent gauge for interconnect cables. I was wondering if this would be good for cabling for modding a mixer. Each cable will be under 1 foot long.

Is there a noticeable difference in quality between different types of cables? I have modded some channels already just using spare high gauge (20-26) stranded wire from all kinds of things. I have recorded with them and I cant really tell if they are causing any trouble with the signal. Maybe because my AB was between Project Mix I/O pres and the Soundcraft ones. (I'm pretty sure the transformers in the pres are made by Sowter.

 

[dementedchord]

the only thing i use solid wire on is internal jumper wiring in repairing... though some folks swear by useing video coax for interconnects... as to guage the only real issue afaik is in power to speaker where bigger is better though that;s somewhat dependent on length too... longer becomes more important...

 

[samth3mancgp]

Yea it seems like stranded is the most common in audio cables. although I did see a friend's audiophile setup that had solid wires.

Will 24 gauge solid wire thats about 1 foot degrade the signal enough to be noticeable? I'd like to know before I mod all the rest of the channels.

 

[dementedchord]

what exactly are you useing it for???

 

[CalKid]

Using high strand count wire reduces resistance as electricity travels on the outside of the wire so, more surface area provides lower resistance. That is important for long speaker level runs of wire. Short distances don't matter much. One foot of 24ga. solid wire should not affect the sound. It's good to use solid for hook-ups inside a device as, when soldering stranded wires the strands can 'birdcage' if untwisted. But, generally, for audio, stranded wire is used due to flexibility and slightly lower resistance.

The real concern for wire in this industry is with guitar cables. Since pickups are high-impedance, the guitar cable's capacitance will affect the sound quite a bit. There was a great article on this about 3 months ago in Sound on Sound Magazine. They explain what cables to use for how you want to 'filter' your guitar sound.

 

[samth3mancgp]

I am using it to tap into a point on the PC board of a preamp. The cable will go to the jack That I installed into the chassis of the mixer. they are Direct Outputs.

 

[dementedchord]

Using high strand count wire reduces resistance as electricity travels on the outside of the wire so, more surface area provides lower resistance. .

well irepped ya for knowing something about this how ever i can remember a couplw years ago being taken to task by some anal retentive brit on the skin effect... and in truth it seems that it only comes into play at frquencies well above the audio spectrum... unfortunately i didn't care enough to bookmark the link so if ya wanna know more guess you'll have to google it...

 

[CalKid]

Yes, I've heard that as well but, I was only talking about the resistance of the wire as it relates to voltage delivered to the speaker (aka volume). He may have been refering to the frequency response of the wire and yes, that only comes into play at higher (radio) frequecies. For the US Navy, I worked on an RF switch device that I tested down to 16kHz. So solid or strainded should have about the same frequency response but different resistance. That being said, many poeple claim better bass response with Monster or hi-strand count wire.

 

[dementedchord]

not sure why your trying to differenciate voltage interms of resistence as "opposed" to frquency response... there's not alotta difference in fact it's mostly spelling... impedence...

 

[samth3mancgp]

I thought I might add this to the thread I already started but what is a good gauge of stranded wire to use for making my own cables. I will be making 1/4" mono cables and I am looking at getting spools of speaker wire. I see lots of spools at 14-18 AWG but that seems kind of thick? Most 1/4" line level cables that I have are in the 18-24 AWG range. It's sooo much cheaper to make these 1/4" cables than pay for eacvh one separately and I need quite a few of them. I just want good quality at a low price.

Here is an idea of what I am looking at

http://cgi.ebay.com/20-Gauge-500-ft-Spool-of-High-Quality-Speaker-Zip-Wire_W0QQitemZ370292437905QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item5637263391

http://cgi.ebay.com/500-Spool-of-16ga-Speaker-Wire_W0QQitemZ220550066835QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item3359cef293

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=130364690134&fromMakeTrack=true&ssPageName=VIP:watchlink:top:en

 

[Beck]

I am using it to tap into a point on the PC board of a preamp. The cable will go to the jack That I installed into the chassis of the mixer. they are Direct Outputs.

Are you talking about coax cable here or just unshielded wire? There’s no significant difference between solid and stranded as far as audio signal quality with that short a length. However, even inside a device you should use coax to reduce interference (EMI/RFI).

1 ft is a short length when considering only accurate transmission of an audio signal, but it can be a long length as far as interference is concerned. Thus it's best to use shielded cable. If you want a single wire for each connection you would still use shielded cable and ground the shielding on one end.

 

[samth3mancgp]

What exactly makes up a shielded cable? the ones I am using are insulated with the plastic coating but I dont think thats the same as shielding?

I'm guessing that I should be using shielded cable on the 1/4" cables that I want to make? Are any of those eBay auctions that I showed shielded?

Thanks for the help

 

[samth3mancgp]

OH MAN! there we go.. I was searching "audio cable spool" "cable spool" "pro audio spool" and stuff like that. When I searched "bulk mic cable" "bulk pro audio" stuff like that I found what I needed. All that other eBay stuff was not what I was looking for at all. Heres a better idea of what I would like to get. Great price too.

500ft bulk mic cable

300 ft bulk mic cable

I am also getting..

20pk 1/4" mono

Thoughts? How many insulated conductors are needed for balanced mic cables? is the shield used as the ground? 1 conductor is hot the other is cold and the last is ground?

 

[Beck]

Oh man, I totally lost track of this thread... sorry for the delay in answering.

Use shielded audio cable, as small in diameter as practical, but with enough copper to carry a good signal... 22 gage stranded is fine. Even Radio Shack stuff is good for short jumpers in a device.

http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2062643#

In a cable like this you can use one or both inner wires, depending on what you're trying to accomplish. The important thing is that the shield be grounded on one end. You can also use the braided shield for the negative signal, so it would be grounded at both ends. But with two-wire mic cable like the Radio Shack stuff above I like to use the shield only to reduce interference and use the two inner wires to carry signal. So that's how I do my jumpers when moding something or building something from scratch.

Hope that helps.

 

[Zeppe]

OH MAN! there we go.. I was searching "audio cable spool" "cable spool" "pro audio spool" and stuff like that. When I searched "bulk mic cable" "bulk pro audio" stuff like that I found what I needed. All that other eBay stuff was not what I was looking for at all. Heres a better idea of what I would like to get. Great price too.

500ft bulk mic cable

300 ft bulk mic cable

I am also getting..

20pk 1/4" mono

Thoughts? How many insulated conductors are needed for balanced mic cables? is the shield used as the ground? 1 conductor is hot the other is cold and the last is ground?

The Shielding you're referring to is a braided wire that wraps around the conductors.
You need two conductors for a balanced mic cable. For an unbalanced instrument cable you only need 1 conductor and shielding/ground.

Pin #1 = Cold
Pin #2 = Hot
Pin #3 = Ground

Here in the US....