When making DIY power cable for an amp, do you:

I may not have been mentioned exactly like that, but me being ignorant of the process...that’s what I interpreted it as. 

What are your thoughts on shielded power cable versus non-shielded?

I’ve got a response from one supplier/maker of higher end power cables about the use of shielded versus non-shielded and his response was:




Hello,

Thanks for your message. This cable is made with XXXXXX XXXXX XXXXX which is not a shielded cable. Our philosophy with shielded AC cable is that any benefits it may have, slightly lower magnetic leakage currents, are mitigated by the increased cable capacitance of the cable due to the shielding.

This equates a lack of dynamic range when comparing a shielded cable to its non-shielded counterpart, all things being equal.

During the testing phase of this design I concluded that even with unshielded unbalanced interconnects connected to the same device as this cable, I did not find any EM noise induced from this cable to the unshielded interconnects.

Thanks,


XXXXXXXXXXXX

In my experience cables without a shield can be more open. Clear Day Cables I believe have no shield on their IC’s and I’ve never had an issue with them picking up EM/RFI - they sound pretty darn good. I have several Kimber Kable PC’s that I believe have no shield as well and no problems in my system. If you’re going to build your own or buy a cable with the shield make or have them make it so you can float the shield to see how it works in your system. As mentioned above I believe, on a PC the shield if needed is connected at the wall receptacle only. With the proper cable geometry that cancels EM/RFI a shield is not required. Phono cables more than likely do need to be shielded.