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How essential is shielding?

Both my analog interconnects and my speaker cables are unshielded, yet my system is pretty much dead quiet. This is making me wonder whether the importance of shielding is sometimes exaggerated.

The majority of cable manufacturers seem to emphasize shielding as an essential feature of design. I don't doubt that there are many situations where shielding is both necessary and effective. But my results with unshielded cables makes me suspect that there are also situations where shielding is unnecessary or even detrimental, and that these situations may be more common than would be suggested by the dominance of shielded designs.

How essential do you think shielding is?

Thanks for any input,
Bryon
bryoncunningham
mapman's avatar
mapman
22,322 posts
 
I have found it can make a difference in noise levels in some cases and not in others.

You have to experiment to determine.

Orientation and position relative to other wires with current passing through or powered devices with transformers that emit EM fields matters a lot.
hasse
230 posts
 
What are your thoughts on (Synergistic´s) active shielded cables?
mapman's avatar
mapman
22,322 posts
 
"What are your thoughts on (Synergistic´s) active shielded cables?"

Very high tech and very expensive.

I'd have to hear them to make any value judgement.

Personally, I prefer an effective shielding approach that is not active, like mu metal, which I already use to good effect to shield my phono step-up device and ICs from external noise inducing EM fields.

FWIW my Audioquest CV6 speaker wires use a similar but lower tech and cost active approach with their DBS devices. These speaker wires are very good but I have not been able to determine how much DBS has to do with it.

Of course, low level ICs and speaker wires are two different beasts as well to start with.
kijanki's avatar
kijanki
4,428 posts
 
Hasse, Active shielding means placing buffered common mode signal back on the shield thus reducing capacitance and therefore pickup. It is technique widely used in low level amps like EKG amps but Synergistic's definition is different. They just claim putting battery on the shield. Battery with high voltage is used by Audioquest to polarize dielectric (dipoles) and make it sound the best even if not used for a while (no break-in). Synergestic is a little vague on this.
bryoncunningham OP
890 posts
 
What are your thoughts on (Synergistic´s) active shielded cables?

Hasse - I owned Synergistic's top-of-the-line Apex interconnects for a few months. At least for me, Synergistic's active shielding worked as advertised. With the Apex cables in the system, backgrounds became spooky quiet.

I didn't keep them because, in my system, they didn't have a natural tonal balance. Of course, YMMV.

Bryon
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