Dear Members and Visitors,
after asking if it would make sense to use high quality instrument cables for RCA interconnects on this forum i decided to make a pair for testing.
The decision to make a pair for testing purpose was pushed by Gregg (aka Geek - many thanks), because his statement that instrument cables are designed to
transport the the whole frequency range of guitar pick-ups to an amp or recording equipment without losses is a point. That makes a lot of sense!
Studio grade microphones and preamps also use high quality instrument cable wirings for the signal transfer.
Thus - why shouldn't it work for RCA interconnects?
I ordered some meters of Sommer Cable "Tricone MKII" (AWG#23), which is comparable to the Mogami 2319 (AWG#23) or Prefer
MGK-16 (AWG#22). The Tricone cable is very flexible and soft due to its Skin PE material. It comes with a double shielding made of the
copper conductor and an additional layer of carbon coated shield material bound to the signal conductor insulator.
Mogami and Prefer cables come with the same principle. 1 meter is about US$1,70 (4,30Euro / 5m in Europe)
I also ordered some REAN (Neutrik Company) RCA connectors NYS373-2 with red and white colour rings, gold plated contacts and rubber end-boots to hold the cables in place.
This RCA connectors come with an variable inner strain relief for cables with an outer dimension of 4mm to 6mm (see instructions).
The REAN connectors are US$1.30 each at Parts Express (about 2,30 Euro in Europe).
http://www.parts-express.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?Partnumber=092-113I did not want to buy some extraordinary RCA plugs, because the REAN plugs are very good quality plugs (i already used them before).
An other option are the Neutrik NF2C-B/2 plugs for example.
http://www.parts-express.com/pe/showdet ... er=092-114This plugs look really perfect, but you will have to dig a little deeper in your wallet (US$ 16,20 a pair).
The Neutrik website provides pdf documents with informations and assembly instructions for the NYS373-2 plug:
http://www2.neutrik.com/re/en/audio/210 ... etail.aspx Due to the softness of the outer skin it was not easy to strip the cable. I used an older kitchen knife to cut the outer skin. This worked well and did not damage the shield conductor.
The same worked for the inner skin. I wasn't able to use my automatic stripper. Both skins are a bit fiddly to strip.
Here are some photographs of the single steps:
The conclusion:
I must admit i never believed cable quality could change a little. I don't believe in voodoo.
But, it really makes sense. The new cables have less capacitance and the shielding is hearable better.
I have measured my old "standard style" interconnects and the new interconnects:
Old = 1 pair with 56pF / 1m
Old = 1 pair with 62pF / 1m
New = 3 pairs with 26 to 28 pF / 1m
The new set of interconnect is a real improvement.
Noise floor is much lower now (speaker tested at full volume level with shorted inputs and scoped out).
I can say that the mids and highs are clearer and i think more detailed (my impressions).
This was tested using 2 speakers next to each other. One chanel connected with the standard (stock)interconnects and one channel with the new ones.
I switched between the two channels to check for a difference. The signal was a mix of repetitive audio snippets converted to
two channel mono (Audacity). 5 and 10 seconds on left channel then the right channel. It was a little tiring, but it worked well.
The speakers i used were the Klipsch RF-62 series II.
This interconnects are better interconnects. The costs are low but the gain is high!
It is definately worth to give them a try. I believe you will never think about using standard stock type interconnects again.
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Thanks!
