There are scores of good quality cables that are made (purposely) without any shielding. Those manufactures are of the opinion that shielding does more harm than good, (robbing dynamics and openness for example) especially if RF is not an issue for their customer base. Some use shielding very judiciously where just a little is enough.I have heard shielded cables in beta testing some new IC's coming to market that sounded poor due to too much RF shielding with ERS Cloth. It made the sound so dull and sterile with lacking bass and highs that was very obvious. The point is if you don't have RF issues or noise with non-shielded cables, you probably don't need a lick of shielding on your IC's. Keep in mind that we are speaking strictly of line level IC's from component to component hook up. The use of a non-shielded IC as a low level phono cable from TT to your pre amp or Phono pre is another story, if your tables can run a dedicated IC... and most find you need a shielded cable in this application, and usually do have a dedicated ground wire.. the shorter run ( 0.75-1M or so..) the better to keep hum from being audible. The use of a non shielded phono cables is not a great idea there, but for hi-level IC's..usually no problem at all. |
Keep in mind that the shield of an unbalanced interconnect not only reduces emi/rfi pickup, but must provide a connection path that is as low impedance as possible, in order to minimize pickup of low frequency hum and high frequency buzz due to common impedance coupling from ground loops that may be present to some degree. And that requirement is generally much more important than shielding against airborne pickup, as explained in this paper: http://www.jensen-transformers.com/an/an004.pdf The coiled construction of the return conductor of the Anti-Cables interconnects leads me to wonder if their impedance at high frequencies, due to the resulting inductance, may lead to unacceptable ground loop problems in some setups. Particularly if the cables connect components that are plugged into separate dedicated ac lines, or ac outlets that are independently filtered by power conditioners, and particularly if high frequency distortion components (such as may be caused by dimmer switches, for example) are present on the ac line. Regards, -- Al |
