Cable snake oil?

[Mick Bailey]

I had some 'directional Cables' in for repair. Just the usual stuff - broken centre conductor. While I had them I ran a variety of signals through them and scoped the other end. Then reversed them. No Difference. So tried them both ways with a guitar/amp. couldn't tell any difference. I'd always suspected the claims but never come across anyone who'd laid out good money to buy them. The look and behave like regular cables. But 7 times the price.

Using the standard model for production-to-retail, a standard cable would sell for between 5 & 6 times its production cost. If these are snake oil then they could be selling at up to 42 times.

You know what? they don't even cure diphtheria, gout or rickets. So I won't be buying any.

[Leo_Gnardo]

Common hi fi voodoo doodoo meant to extract money from the buyers' pockets. It IS possible someone with proper instrumentation and deep experience could ascertain the average electron spin coefficients and the way they affect cable inductance on a quantum level. SGM - this looks like a case for you! It may have some discernable effect on entertainment media intended for consumption by certain space aliens who enjoy their music bandwidth out beyond the terahertz range. And I hope they keep it there. Squeaky hi end always bothers me. Put fingers-in-ears smiley thing here.

[Chuck H]

Directional cables! That's a hoot! I bet the manufacturer even had little arrows printed on them to verify directionality.?. I wonder if there's an instruction sheet that warns against installing them in the wrong orientation? How the hell can the manufacturer know what the phase angle is for a given system anyway (electron spin!?! What?) Nice work taking the time to test them while in your possession

[Mick Bailey]

I bet the manufacturer even had little arrows printed on them to verify directionality

They sure did!

Standard Neutrik plugs on them, though. That must confuse the electrons - like driving down a one-way street that suddenly changes to two-way at the the end, but no signs.

I had the idea when checking them out that software could be used to advantage, not only with cables but other circuits - a real-world AC sweep analysis to play around with tone stacks, caps etc. Sweep a signal generated from a sound card in one end and plot the output from the other. Then you could have the ability to save or compare sweeps. Could be set to single sweep or continuous, in which case you'd get a TSC type of real-time response with (say) a tone stack.

[Leo_Gnardo]

There IS the technique of not serving the shield to ground at one end of a cable - I've made a few like that and they occasionally get me out of a ground-loop pinch. But not worth 6-7x the cost of a standard cable that's for dang sure.

For your Sunday morning funnies entertainment here's the complete baloney on snake oil cables:

Electron spin - remember "twinning?" What Einstein called "spooky action at a distance." A result of relativity he didn't much agree with but since has proven to be the case. Now - if the manufacturer of these hi tech cables could "load" the cable with twinned electrons that spin one way, their mates spinning the opposite way in the other cable would react instantly to what happened in the first one. (A property of metals in bulk is having lots of electrons loose to carry current, that's what makes them conductors. Are we "all aboard" with that? Tickets please!) And that "communication" ignores the speed of light limit. If a customer bought one of these cables with +1/2 spin (the spin quantum is half not one - go figure) then another customer with the -1/2 spin cable would find customer #1's music or whatever coming out of his system, mysteriously transported via twinning. So - you pay 42 times the going rate for a cable and get free entertainment, you just don't get a choice what it is. Depending on how the cables are distributed, you could get a different program on every one. Hope you like hip hop on your left channel, and opera on your right. If you don't believe me, ask Professor Irwin Corey, the World's Foremost Expert. Ol' Doc Corey will be 100 on July 29. Unless you believe his driver's license, then he'll be 102. And still going...

[soundguruman]

Yes there can be a ground lift at one end of the cable.

Other than that, AC, audio, has no direction...But there is a sucker born every minute.

$5 cables from Amazon, or radio shack, or garage sale, will work equally well. There's no difference.

[Mick Bailey]

There IS the technique of not serving the shield to ground at one end of a cable - I've made a few like that and they occasionally get me out of a ground-loop pinch. But not worth 6-7x the cost of a standard cable that's for dang sure.

I wire the Roland synth access cables like this and reassign the spare pin for the signal ground, then mark the synth end. A lot less background noise.

There's the trick for guitar use with two-core + screen where you treat the unbalanced signal as balanced and only ground the screen at the amp end.

[Chuck H]

Yes there can be a ground lift at one end of the cable.

Other than that, AC, audio, has no direction...But there is a sucker born every minute.

$5 cables from Amazon, or radio shack, or garage sale, will work equally well. There's no difference.

Well I think that's too far to drive the point home, but generally yes. On a more critical note...

Audio cables CAN be better or worse, but not usually in the parameters touted by the snake oil peddlers.

Because they're shielded they have capacitive properties. I use to take my DMM into the local guitar store and test different brands when I'd shop for cables. They love that incidentally.

Because different shields and insulations can have static properties some cables make noise when you move them around!!! How that ever gets by the manufacturer is beyond me but such cables still make their way into guitar stores. Try one such cable with a modern uber gain amp!!!

Because different plastics, metal alloys and even natural materials have different flexibilities, resilience and oxidation rates good cables can be made to last and wear much longer than bad ones.

And it doesn't hurt if a signal cable is at least a little burly so it can stand some current. You never know when some novice or kid is going to use an instrument cable as a speaker cable (Having them both with the same general appearance and end plugs was always a bad idea).

[ReadyTeddy]

Well

Because different shields and insulations can have static properties some cables make noise when you move them around!!! How that ever gets by the manufacturer is beyond me but such cables still make their way into guitar stores. Try one such cable with a modern uber gain amp!!!

.

Yes, the noise you hear is caused by triboelectricity. All cables have it unless specifically made to minimize it. Usually, in low tribo-noise coax cables, there is a semiconductive coating placed between the inner dielectric and the shield. This layer can often be identified as a thin black layer applied to the OD of the dielectric.

[S2udio]

Using the standard model for production-to-retail, a standard cable would sell for between 5 & 6 times its production cost. If these are snake oil then they could be selling at up to 42 times.

Thats 42 times the repair cost then

[big_teee]

I just bought 100 ft of heavy duty double shielded instrument cable for a little over $25.
I also purchased a sack full of the switchcraft Plugs.
The plugs are where most of the expense is, but you can use them over and over.
The Rolling Chair is what destroys most instrument Cables.
T

[Leo_Gnardo]

Yes, the noise you hear is caused by triboelectricity. All cables have it unless specifically made to minimize it. Usually, in low tribo-noise coax cables, there is a semiconductive coating placed between the inner dielectric and the shield. This layer can often be identified as a thin black layer applied to the OD of the dielectric.

Can't count how many times I've encountered "factory made" cables where that black plastic - or sometimes cloth - shield layer is leaning up against the signal conductor. "The volume goes up and down." "Cable makes my geetar sound like mud." Gotta trim that shield layer back - then all is - well as good as it's gonna get.

"Tribal" electric effect - is a beeyotch! Some cables that claim the lowest capacitance per foot have it the worst. Grrrr.... Oh they're perfectly good all right. Just don't move one, or step on it. Ka-runch!

[ReadyTeddy]

Can't count how many times I've encountered "factory made" cables where that black plastic - or sometimes cloth - shield layer is leaning up against the signal conductor. "The volume goes up and down." "Cable makes my geetar sound like mud." Gotta trim that shield layer back - then all is - well as good as it's gonna get.

"Tribal" electric effect - is a beeyotch! Some cables that claim the lowest capacitance per foot have it the worst. Grrrr.... Oh they're perfectly good all right. Just don't move one, or step on it. Ka-runch!

I had some low-capacitance low-tribo noise cable once--it was pretty fancy stuff, with a Goretex dielectric and a carbon-loaded Goretex low-noise coating over the Goretex dielectric. It had about 15 pF/foot capacitance and was very quiet. Then again, it was custom cable with a high price per foot. The outer jacket was also Teflon. It was a fairly small-diameter cable, and certainly didn't look like the typical guitar-cord coax. I made a guitar cord out of some and gave it to a friend--he liked it.

[Leo_Gnardo]

I had some low-capacitance low-tribo noise cable once--it was pretty fancy stuff, with a Goretex dielectric and a carbon-loaded Goretex low-noise coating over the Goretex dielectric. It had about 15 pF/foot capacitance and was very quiet. Then again, it was custom cable with a high price per foot. The outer jacket was also Teflon. It was a fairly small-diameter cable, and certainly didn't look like the typical guitar-cord coax. I made a guitar cord out of some and gave it to a friend--he liked it.

That Goretex is pretty handy stuff! Not just for ski jackets anymore. I wonder what the original application was for this custom cable. My dentist turned me on to Goretex dental floss awhile back. Great stuff! I've even repurposed Goretex floss to sew buttons back on - they don't break off anymore. Better living thru chemistry! Smile -

[km6xz]

I wrote one of my long posts but the site died and lost it this afternoon.
A little shorter this time....
Directional cable comes in two types, those sold by con-men to people asking for someone to pick their pockets by citing some magic properties of signals traveling in one direction, as if AC was up for that is the first type.
The second type is found in every studio, remote recording system, broadcast, film location and scoring stage and anyone interested in optimum noise floor, absence of buzz, crackles, hum etc.
The latter type, knows that shield is supposed to be electrostatic as in "static", no current flow to ground because connecting the shields at both ends means the ground potential at either end will flow current from higher potential to lower. They know that a shield is better if no ground currents flow so assuring that only one end is connected, they put an arrow pointing to the grounded end, which is connected to the equipment ground and the shield at the source is floated, not connected to the ground system of the remote device. So it is common to see directional cable in audio systems and some producers of wire even provide a nice printed sheath with the arrows pointing in one direction so the installer knows which end to earth and which to float.
The flim-flam men probably found some of that cable and started pushing it to credulous hi-end hi-fi buyers by creating the magic cable properties sales pitch. But idiot hi-end buff have an excuse, their ARE idiots.
Musicians and those seeking the best DR from their entire system, like as needed when mixing many tracks, the random noise sums as 6db loss in noise floor for every doubling of tracks, have no such excuse. Although most amps, mixers and recorders are very quiet in specs when tested in isolation, the combination of grounding systems, mismatching in signal levels between devices, ignoring stage gain management, and mixing vintage, mid age and modern electronics in the same system, each designed for different I/O conditions means that the typical guitar rig, home studio, pa system etc sounds much noisier and worse than if a reasonably coherent plan was followed for cabling rules, level matching, impedance optimizing and most of all, optimizing the gain within each stage to not compromise the available DR. When you see a guitarist who has 6 pedals connected daisy chain fashion and complains of how his strings, tubes, cable, drivers [fill in any excuse they create as to why they sound like shit], do not sympathize with them, it only encourages their delusions.
Or next time a home recordist says his recording are not good because he needs a new $4000 mic, when he has completely ignored cabling and level protocols, levels between devices and mixing balanced line terminated "vintage" gear with his modern semi-balanced hi z gear or mics not terminated in the design z, walk away. These are the people who keep the con-men in business, begging to be taken and will never produce anything worth listening to. Ignoring free fundamentals and grabbing at the shiny expensive diversions is a trait of these easily identified people