Cable Asylum Interconnects, speaker wire, power cords. Ask the Cable Guys.

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RE: Length of IC's?

Posted by rick_m (A) on January 21, 2015 at 09:03:13

In Reply to: Length of IC's? posted by Brian McGowan on January 20, 2015 at 22:48:17:

"Too my understanding the shortest IC you can find to do the job without straining the ends is usually always the best!"

Typically, yes.

"What about being able to have the same brand and length for all your IC's in your Setup? "

The length normally should be minimized, but the same brand, maybe...

"Would that help improve the over all balance of the sound between the separate components if one was louder then the other?"

Interconnects don't usually do that sort of thing.

The deal is that there are a lot of factors including the design of the gear at both ends.

I've done a lot of messing with interconnects and there simply isn't a singular solution, too many things in play including...

Your EM environment.
Your equipment implementation and sensitivities.
The topology of your system.
Your sensitivity to particular problems.

Seems like a lot of stuff, doesn't it? And it sort of is. More than anything else I think what you need is patience! I ended up building most of mine which gives one the most latitude but isn't for everybody. Here is what I'd look for in commercial interconnects...

-low capacitance.
-small connectors. (no idea why, but it does seem to matter)
-low dielectric absorption insulation.
-thin, insulated conductors. ("Litz wire")
-low cost.

One factor that seems to complicate things is reflections. If the cable is mismatched at both ends and the dielectric has low loss then energy can bounce back and forth virtually forever. Ironically reducing the dielectric absorption makes the RF ringing worse because that's the main loss factor without terminations. It can come from numerous places either locally or airborne but the chunk that hangs around is stuff where the electrical cable length is a 1/4 wavelength multiple. Both ends can be sensitive to this RF energy and detect it for you, not good. Resistive loss is your friend. From my limited experience if things sound sort of shrill that's the first thing to consider.

I didn't believe that interconnects were very important until my dealer sent me home with a handful to try. Turned out he was right. And to me anyway it wasn't something that was huge and jumped right out, and yet the change in enjoyment was quite dramatic. Most telling is that after getting the cables "right" I essentially quite buying new gear. I think it was one of those "final straw" things but on the good side!

Good luck, I hope the journey brings you as much satisfaction as I've had.

Regards, Rick

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