"Colin Bigam" wrote in message
m...
Oh yes, more cable questions! Let the flaming begin!

Seriously folks, I've been planning on making some more cables (have done
so
in the past), and was wondering about the relative technical merits of
shielded
two-conductor cables vs. shielded single conductor (esp. coax), for
unbalanced
runs. What I did in the past (with Belden 8761, I vaguely recall) was run
signal and ground along the two conductors, and connect the (foil) shield
to
the ground at one end only. This 'shield-attached' end was plugged into
the
(integrated) amplifier for all components.

No problem, as long as you only connect the sheild at one end. Matter of
experimentationas to which way around better, if any effect. As to whether
or not any audible benefit suck it and see, but I doubt it's worth the
effort.

geoff

Now I'm thinking here that I've got a twisted pair for induced-noise
cancellation plus a 100% coverage foil shield, and a fairly low
capacitance
value (something like 25pF/m). Should be pretty good, right? However, am I
in any danger of causing problems by having both centre conductor and
shield
tied to ground? I _think_ that having all of the shield-attached ends on
the
same component should avoid ground loops,

You'll have ground loops with each additional cable through the siganl
ground conductor. Connect the sheild at both ends and you'll have an extra
one per cable.

my head. One question that comes to mind is why do almost all except the
most
extreme (weird) high-end commercial interconnects use either coax or at
least
single-conductor-with-shield geometries? Another one is am I mucking up
the
low impedance factor by wiring it up this way?

Sheilded cable, not coax. They are different things. No, you won't be
mucking up impedences. They are pretty irrelevant at those frequencies and
lengths anyway.

Do you have a problem with 'reguar' interconnects, or just experimenting ?

geoff