BEST INTERCONNECT FOR $25 EACH?

All,

I am announcing my purchase. 

Grannyring commented a little while back. 
He makes cables under the name “Acoustic BBQ” right here on Audiogon.

I bucked up and spent more than anticipated, but I am convinced they are the best setup for the money, and he didn’t have to sell me at all. I spend several hours researching with your help.

I purchased 4 IC cables with the following:
1. 2ft 16awg Duelund wire with impregnated oil. 16awg for a bit more meat than 20awg.
2. Cardas GSMO RCA connectors 
3. WBT Silver Solder
3. Not shielded as to not close the sound. The risk of interference is less than the negative effect that shielding creates. Plus, worst case scenario it can always be added.
4. Jacket over twisted wires 
5. Shrink wrap for support. 

Thank you Bill and everybody for your input! 

terry9

The problem with connecting the shield to the source end is that if a source has no ground connection, you will end up with an ungrounded shield.

Almost all components today have a separate ground. If not, you can always run a wire from the chassis to ground.

If you always ground at the source end, it’s easy to maintain star grounding. That helps avoid noise and hum by keeping all grounds at the same potential.

Many turntables and tonearms are like that, especially vintage ones - think two-prong plugs.

The typical pickup arm/phono cartridge assembly has a separate ground wire - it’s a balanced circuit with a separate ground intended to be connected to the preamplifier. Again, that helps maintain star grounding.

Zu cables on Ebay

@cleeds 

"Almost all components today have a separate ground. If not, you can always run a wire from the chassis to ground."

Agreed. But for those which do not ...

"If you always ground at the source end, it’s easy to maintain star grounding. That helps avoid noise and hum by keeping all grounds at the same potential."

A star ground is important if ground is used as a circuit element, such as a signal return. A shield attached at one end is not part of the circuit, and cannot form a ground loop, or hum. Also, the term 'source tend' seems ambiguous to me - is it the turntable or the preamp?

"The typical pickup arm/phono cartridge assembly has a separate ground wire - it’s a balanced circuit with a separate ground intended to be connected to the preamplifier. Again, that helps maintain star grounding."

As noted, star grounding is unimportant in this case. The rest, I agree with - but vintage gear may vary.

Nice discussing with you Cleeds, helps me to clarify my thinking.