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RE: Cardas Clear RCA: how to recognize drain side?

Posted by Duster on July 1, 2017 at 18:46:45:

A drain wire "drains" conductivity from a shield to ground. The most common use of a drain wire is when a cable features a foil shield only. Since foil cannot be soldered to the ground of a connector, a bare/uninsulated wire is run along the entire length of the cable, which makes conductive contact with the foil shield, of which the drain wire can then be soldered to ground, in most cases to one end of the cable only. Most often, the drain wire is connected to the source end, and left unconnected at the load end. However, this is not always the case.

In the case of a cable that features both a foil shield and a spiral or braided shield, there often is no need for a drain wire since the spiral or braided shield which is connected to ground makes contact with the foil shield along the entire length of the cable, so it functions like a drain wire.

One reason why it can be important to know which end of a cable a shield is connected is when a preamplifier is used as a hub for grounding all cable shields to. Such as a source component with the shield connected to the preamplifier, while the cable shield from the preamplifier to the power amplifier is also connected to the preamplifier. This means one set of cables is plugged-in "backwards" based on what end of the cable shielding is connected to ground.