Ok.. I admit it. I'm not so up-to-date on my audio info. Basically, can someone tell me the difference between sheided and unshielded speaker cable and what they think is preferable?
Many Thanks!
J. Vigne
Unregistered guest
Posted on
Quite obviously the difference is one has a shield and the other doesn't. But I've never heard of shielded speaker wire. Shields are used on low level interconnects due to their susceptablity to picking up radio frequency interference that will ride along on the cable carrying a very low level signal, sometimes no more than millivolts. A speaker cable operates at a different impedance and voltage and should not require a shield. A professional sound installation that you would find in a theater has speaker cables running in close proximity to cables carying the AC voltage to the lighting instruments and those speaker cables are not shielded. AC cables are one of the most likely sources of interference in an audio system and when you cross a power cable with either a speaker cable or an interconnect cable you should do so at right angles to minimize the amount of contact they might have. Other than that you should not need a shield on your speaker cable.