[sdiy] non shield cable

[Dave Krooshof]

The analogue studio at www.koncon.nl where I studied, the famous BEA5,
which is basically one wall of analogue synth (4 by 2 meters) 1.5 wall of
tapemachines, and a 1 by 1.5 meter sequencer, uses only banana jacks.
It might have some extra bonus points in this discussion as it originated
in the 'synth' philips gave to Varese for Poem Electronique...

They did use a few tricks to get less disturbance though.

I use 1/8" jacks too, but the shield is only connected to one of the plugs.
Reason: no ground loops, yes shielding.

The connector flamewar, however, was won by the guy who uses
jacks for inputs, bananas for outputs.
Reason 1: This way, you can't confuse in- and outputs (one shouldn't
connect outputs)
Reason 2: you can stack banana plugs in outputs (it's OK to route outputs
to various inputs but you shouldn't do that with inputs, as you connect
outputs in doing so. See reason 1.)
Reason 3: Shielding is bound to be connected to one side only.

(reason 4 might be that as long as this isn't a standard, your patchcables
are not very likely to end up being patched into other peoples synths.)


groets,

_          >^v<        _

website http://www.dendriet.nl


>In general, I find no problem with unshielded cables except for VCA and VCF
>inputs.  These can pick up hum, etc, especially when you put your 
>hand on them.
>
>I'm using 1/8" jacks... most of them with a single unshielded conductor... but
>if I need
>a shielded one I have those too...
>
>H^) harry
>
>Fernando de Izuzquiza wrote:
>
>>  Hi all,
>>
>>  Wondering about risks of using non-shielded cable for patching.
>>  Crosstalk? EMI? RFI?, where is the "danger"?
>>  Planning to use 4mm banana cabling but not shure of potential problems,
>>  mostly for audio signals but also for CV.
>>
>>  Imagine a 3 or 4 rack frames modular, each 12U, so lots of modules. Heavily
>>  patched. Cords interpatching frames too. One PSU per frame at about 1 meter
>>  away in the floor.
>>  What happens if all cables are 4mm banana patchcords? (except output cables
>>  to amps)
>>
>>  How much will the audio and CV signals suffer, degrade or be prone to
>>  interference, etc?
>>
>>  Thank you,
>>
>>  Fernando
>>
>>  <br><br>
>>  Direccion.com<br>
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