On the benefits of Canare cabling ...

[Akustic]

I've been fiddling with these Canare products for a while now ..

Compared it to Mogami, Kimber, and various Chi-Fi twisted pair cables ..
Have not compared it to the Belden ... one day maybe ... but the world's recording studios aren't wired with Belden .. they make electrical products.

It makes sense to me that a $10 billion international company that concentrates on making audio cables for the audio industry worldwide has to have a superior product ... and indeed it does..

The level of harmonic detail that is available from properly burned-in Canare twisted pairs astounds me..
It results in a spaciousness that leaves the other cables wanting .. they all end up sounding thin, or 2-dimensional in comparison..
It's frequency balance is neutral and natural .. but soundstaging is it's forte' ..
Interconnects or speaker wire ... applies to both.

At under $1 a foot for unterminated wire, it is a pure and screaming bargain ..

Burn it in 24/7 for at least 10 days though ..
It is Jekyl/Hyde stuff without burn-in .. sounds flat out of the box.

 

[Akustic]

Well, Blue Jean cable sells Belden, pretty inexpensively and is quick on shipping - I got them in 2 day after ordering and I live near Chi-town and BJC is in Washington State. For the price, one can't go wrong with them either.

Burn-in? What does it do? Honestly? Can you measure it? I don't believe in cable burn in. I believe in ear burn-in.

Burn-in pleases the ear ... and could be stabilizing the capacitance of the wire coating ..

Blue Jeans also sells Canare ...

 

[Hajidub]

Pretty easy to prove; measure capacitance before and after burn in? Somehow results never get posted.

 

[Akustic]

I doubt it. stabilizing how? I am trying to understand so it is stupid question time. People say this but never show any proof - I am asking if you have seen any.

Most wire coating is, plastic of some type so I doubt that would change as that would mean the plastic is breaking down.

I didn't go with Canare since the capacitance of the Canare is higher than Belden and since I am running 2 - 18 foot balanced cables from my pre-amp to amp, the higher capacitance would have been bad.

Always the skeptic ... and no you can't measure it with a capacitance meter ..

Each wire coating has differing capacitive properties ... Here's a link that describes some of the materials .. and the effects that could be occurring in the signal cable.

https://www.bicsi.org/docs/default-source/publications/itsimm-7th-chapter-1.pdf?sfvrsn=7bbb90b9_2

Section 1-13 ... Cable Shielding ..

Also a board conversation about the audible effects of signal conductors ..

https://audiokarma.org/forums/index...les-they-are-in-the-signal-path.959069/page-4

 

[Akustic]

Changes in the dielectric capacitive properties of the coating material is a potential answer to audible effects of burning the wire in ...
Capacitive discharge in the coating material could, and certainly does influence the signal without adding measurable capacitance to the cable.

There's an entire cable industry built around the audible effects of differing cable materials and topologies ..
Some studio engineers burn cable in .. and they likely have a reason for it.
The BICSI is an international organization of 20,000 communication and IT professionals, some of whom may be spouting nonsense but I doubt it.
And their nonsense describes the different dielectric properties of differing plastic coating materials..
Canare uses a proprietary x-linked polyethylene ...

I know what I hear .. and I described it ..
The why of it all is just a maybe ...

 

[Akustic]

And it could be that proprietary coating that is requiring an unusually long time before it stabilizes ..

Another maybe.. but long burn-in for Canare is noted in many threads on different boards .....

 

[Akustic]

Like I said, My 175K instrument would have issues if there was such a thing as cable break-in.

Why would a $10 billion company that concentrates it's business on Audio cable bother to develop a proprietary coating material if it had no audible effect ??

Or bother to use cross-linked polyethylene which the BICSI chart identifies as the most diaelectrically stable of the plastics ??

 

[Akustic]

Without "playing" to the market every business is hosed ... I get that..

But Canare's market is the International audio industry, not audiophiles ..

Might be a bit of a stretch to believe that all of those professional audio engineers are crackpots..
Musicians can be crackpots.... and then some .... but I wouldn't question their ears ..

 

[soundmig]

Canare makes good cable as does Mogami. You probably see more Mogami in Studios than Canare - maybe??? I stopped using Canare and Mogami about 18 years ago as there are better options (IMO). BTW the Belden Iconoclast brand is very interesting and has been well reviewed - a Belden cable scientist is behind the design. I'm not a EE, so I can't really evaluate the validity of the "science", but since Belden is The BIG cable company it may be worth a look??? Pricey.

 

[Akustic]

Canare makes good cable as does Mogami. You probably see more Mogami in Studios than Canare - maybe??? I stopped using Canare and Mogami about 18 years ago as there are better options (IMO). BTW the Belden Iconoclast brand is very interesting and has been well reviewed - a Belden cable scientist is behind the design. I'm not a EE, so I can't really evaluate the validity of the "science", but since Belden is The BIG cable company it may be worth a look??? Pricey.

That's a balanced way to look at it ..
In American studios maybe ??
And from an American perspective..

Canare is about 5 times bigger than Belden .. one American and one Japanese .. Mogami is a small American offshoot of Marshall (amps)
Their sales numbers, product lines, and markets pretty much answer that question ... 55% of Belden's sales are inside America.
Canare began as an audio cable (for microphones) company and remains primarily an audio cable company..
The majority of their sales are outside of Japan...

 

[soundmig]

That's a balanced way to look at it ..
In American studios maybe ??
And from an American perspective..

Canare is about 5 times bigger than Belden .. one American and one Japanese .. Mogami is a small American offshoot of Marshall (amps)
Their sales numbers, product lines, and markets pretty much answer that question ... 55% of Belden's sales are inside America.
Canare began as an audio cable (for microphones) company and remains primarily an audio cable company..
The majority of their sales are outside of Japan...

Interesting information. I've used a lot of Canare in pro-sound applications and like it very well. Mogami is a little easier to work with (build cables with), but my "opinion" is that the Canare is a touch better (very quite - star quad has like zero handling noise/and excellent shield).

 

[ehoove]

I am in the Canare Star-Quad camp. All Balanced Interconnects and the 26ft. balanced runs from my ARC LS17SE to my crossovers.
Regards,
Jim

 

[Akustic]

They began with microphone cables ...

And a mic requires ...
The highest level of detail and lowest noise floor possible at very low signal levels ...
It kind of makes sense that after 45 years of perfecting it, their wire is reproducing this level of harmonic detail, and spatial echoes ...

It's that detail that creates the spaciousness and soundstaging that I'm hearing ..

 

[mfrench]

I bought a 500' spool of L4E6S Quad-Star, and, proceeded to make balanced mic cable out of all of it. The extra lengths got turned into unbalanced RCA connects. This was in excess of 25 years ago. In that time, I have had no failures of any of the cable.
I'm an audio recordist in the live music realm. This means that these cables get regularly pulled out, stretched, walked on by the musicians who just don't care, pulled back and over-under coiled. Wash, rinse, repeat, for literal decades, and no problems.

 

[whell]

I can't say that I've ever "heard" a cable, other than a busted one.

 

[Akustic]

Construction and materials ...makes all the difference..
And my ear is consistently preferring twisted pairs for wiring .. Speakers or interconnects ..

Been messing with Canare 4e6s star quad mic cable ... 4 twisted wires inside a braided shield in a rubber jacket ..
Have a bunch of them with 2 blue wires to the pin and 2 white wires to the ground leafs and the shield connected to ground at one end to create a shield cage ..
Excellent, well balanced, detailed and a huge soundstage ..
A true bargain ...

Ordered a 6 footer for the truck, but from a different source than usual (ebay Miami surprise).. yuck.. flat, grainy, not at all what I'm used to hearing ..
Pulled it apart and all 4 wires were soldered to the center pin and the braid was soldered to ground .. wrong, wrong ..

At least in my experience ...
Same wire for signal and return, twisted to cancel EMF ... sounds better.. cleaner, much more detailed.
And I have no idea what the capacitance of this cable is ..certainly not low ... 4 wires connected to the pin ??....... why

 

[Akustic]

These were clearly constructed by someone who didn't understand the principles of audio signal propagation ..
The cable is intended for balanced connectors but can be wired with RCA's unbalanced ..

But it's not Coax ..

I seriously understand the variety of internet reviews on the Canare .. and ditto for Mogami mic cables used as RCA interconnects ..
Between improper construction, a wide variety of RCA connectors, and failure to stabilize (burn-in) the materials prior to serious listening ...
Pretty much anything's possible ..

 

[Akustic]

World's Best Cable makes properly constructed directional Canare Star-Quad cables and sells them on Amazon ..
Redco and maybe Markertec will construct the cable as you specify but no returns ..

Amazon is easy to return anything that is not to your satisfaction .. easy to audition a pair ..

 

[Akustic]

Conceptually, coaxial signal cables don't make sense to me ..
Make it symetrical .... Same wire out and back to match the dielectric properties, and twist it to cancel the fields ...
So far, in my experience the sonics support it .. Kimber, mic cables .. they're cleaner and more detailed, with deeper soundstages ..

And I've constructed unshielded bare wires laid out parallel on masking tape that never experienced any hum ..also detailed and deep but again symetrical.
(wouldn't use it on a turntable though)

Anything else is like sending the signal out down a smooth road and pulling it back over gravel ..
Then wondering why it's not as quick and detailed as using two smooth roads ..

 

[klamsoss]

My biggest difficulty with believing that the extraordinarily expensive (and somewhat less extraordinarily expensive) cables offered by many companies make the difference claimed by those companies and the legions of 'satisfied customers' is that they always seem to make claims that are impossibly bold.
Anything that starts with "night and day difference" but then qualifies it by saying that you have to have a stratospheric system to realize said benefits, is highly suspect in my book. When a set of superlatives is used which would indicate a change commensurate with order of magnitude increase in price, were it applied to say... power amplifier, I simply can't take such claims seriously when they have no data to back them up.
Do I believe cables make a difference? Absolutely! I have used cables that sound bad. Typically these cables create an easily audible shift in frequency response and/or signal amplitude. These are measurable characteristics. I've had the opportunity to use a variety of what I suppose is now considered low- to mid-priced cables ($100-600 per pair for 1m RCA and $250-850 for 10ft speaker wires) and the main difference between them has always been build quality. I have NEVER experienced anything I would describe as a "night and day" or "dramatic" or "mind boggling" difference between any of the well-made cables i have run across.

Frankly, I think there probably is at least some truth to some aspects of the claims about the scientific/physical properties of uber priced cables, but the impact of these properties is so over-sold that I can't help but laugh at the majority of the marketing and support these cables get. I am honestly confused as to why there is such a degree of hyperbole involved with advertising and generally in discussions about cables. Even the most dedicated devotee has to realize that all of the rest of their statements are cheapened when they wax poetic over the vast improvement wrought by swapping these copper and silver atoms for those. Similarly, any advertising guru worth their salt knows that too much hype makes a product seem gimmicky. So, why? Why over-sell it so much? Why, when you know you'll sound like a boardwalk pitch-man, or the guy who just forked over his paycheck to the same and is desperate for affirmation that he got a great deal?
I do actually believe that there is something to be gained by using good quality cables designed for the application in which they are used. But logic and physics dictate that the law of diminishing returns is especially applicable to this particular aspect of musical reproduction. A well constructed cable that observes applicable electromagnetic principles is appropriate and can have meaningful (and measurable) impacts on signal quality. Many of the companies mentioned here have great examples of cables that achieve very high levels of signal purity based on these principles. But once you can reliably transfer a high purity signal, there's nothing really left to do. After all, the front and back ends of the system still rely on gross physical movement of a physical object (either the microphone transducer picking up the air waves that comprise sound, or a speaker that stimulates air into waves that comprise sound) and everything between those two events lives within the physical limitations that exist with those two ends.