So I Kracked open some Krystal RCA Kable

[helotaxi 5,000+ posts]

His point was mostly that the difference in your alt whine could be attributed to the smaller guage wire in your cables having a higher resistance and breaking or at least reducing the ground loop.

If you honestly think that the car environment is noisier on an EMI level than the house...last I checked the house is full of 60hz noise sources. Don't know of anything that radiates significant EMI in the car except the alt (hope you aren't running your signal cables near that!) the fan motor and in some cases the fuel pump. If your signal cables aren't near (almost touching) any of those, you shouldn't have a problem with radiated noise. Alt whine is NOT radiated noise and the shielding on the cable will not have any bearing on it.

 

[Megalomaniac 5,000+ posts]

His point was mostly that the difference in your alt whine could be attributed to the smaller guage wire in your cables having a higher resistance and breaking or at least reducing the ground loop.
If you honestly think that the car environment is noisier on an EMI level than the house...last I checked the house is full of 60hz noise sources. Don't know of anything that radites significant EMI in the car except the alt (hope you aren't running your signal cables near that!) the fan motor and in some cases the fuel pump. If your signal cables aren't near (almost touching) any of those, you shouldn't have a problem with radiated noise. Alt whine is NOT radiated noise and the shielding on the cable will not have any bearing on it.

The noise is coming from my ground in the back car, its need to be redone imo. I tried avoiding as much obtrusive things as possible as far as the rca is concerned. I am not or never have blamed my whine completely on the RCAs. But i am stating that noise level did get reduced quite a bit in my car.

btw taxi, my 100' cable i mentioned brings your post even more into the light, to show that my BNC cable that used a 26 awg wire did not show an issue, and it was a video signal too. showed no signs of diminishing and it was also shielded with a ground.

In the future I hope Knu takes into consideration(since I am a consumer) my wants of a grounded shield on that Krystal cable. If not no biggie, I will look else where for a different product.

I have not bashed Knu head on, I dont think at least in this thread, I just showed a few pictures and posted some comments.

 

[helotaxi 5,000+ posts]

I'm not saying that the signal is diminshed, I'm explaining why the incidence of noise was reduced from the ground loop (the CAUSE of the whine) because of the higher resistance of the thinner wire.

 

[Megalomaniac 5,000+ posts]

I'm not saying that the signal is diminshed, I'm explaining why the incidence of noise was reduced from the ground loop (the CAUSE of the whine) because of the higher resistance of the thinner wire.

I see what you are saying, I guess its time to order some 21.5 awg wire and see if it does it any worse compared to the knu...//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/eek.gif.771b7a90cf45cabdc554ff1121c21c4a.gif

 

[audiolife 5,000+ posts]

i use the old school skinny lightning strikes or the likes of them as far as i can tell they dont have foil or anything but a rubber/plastic cover and 2 conductors. that would be like the Karma SS wouldnt it?

 

[req 5,000+ posts]

I see what you are saying, I guess its time to order some 21.5 awg wire and see if it does it any worse compared to the knu...//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/eek.gif.771b7a90cf45cabdc554ff1121c21c4a.gif

this is another reason why grounding the shield helps. it increases the ground potential AROUND the RCA instead of through the rca, does it not?

 

[ultimate157 5,000+ posts]

im sorry I worded that bad. I meant they would not stay on the amp, I could easily slide them off. Could be an eD problem though.

I had the opposite problem with my Krystal RCA's and my Opti amp -- It was hard to push it onto the RCA receptors. Then again the margin between too tight and too loose is ~ 1 mm in diameter.

 

[helotaxi 5,000+ posts]

this is another reason why grounding the shield helps. it increases the ground potential AROUND the RCA instead of through the rca, does it not?

You don't want the shield conducting a current that has a ripple on it like the DC power in the car. That is a sure recipe for alt whine made wores by inductive coupling with the signal wire.

Good amp input design coupled with a solid source unit and processor ground are the ways to prevent alt whine.

 

[knukonceptz 10+ year member]

So taking this one step further, I searched the Stinger Catalog, found their nearest similar cable and found the New HPM Series 3 RCA to be a twisted pair "double shield". i went looking for a local shop that stocked Stinger RCA's, no such luck, online to the rescue....then the sticker shock- $50 for a 20' Cable, WOW, must really be something great about it for that price. I went with a shorter model to save some cost in this "experiment" Here is what you get - smaller photos posted, click the link for full high res (1mb+)

http://www.knukonceptz.com/images/proto/IMG_3541.jpg

Image of the contestants - KnuKonceptz Krystal Kable vs Stinger HPM3. Megalomaniac already has photos of ours so below is those of Stingers $50 cable

http://www.knukonceptz.com/images/proto/IMG_3527.jpg

Un-terminated shield at end Number 1

http://www.knukonceptz.com/images/proto/IMG_3532.jpg

Un-terminated shield at end Number two

Again use the high res images to get close ups of those area and you'll see its insulated.

So use your own judgment, there are different types of cable geometry used by many manufactures. I think this proves our cable design is just fine and maybe needs a price adjustment after seeing how tiny these HPM 3 cables were. Over all OD is 7.5mm on the Stinger vs the Krystals at 9.2mm, probably from the larger conductors and the extra shielding and at half the price.

I will say that the stinger model was built with abuse in mind, every connection is molded in place. Overall it was pretty stout. I think they could have used thicker "legs" at the ends, it makes the cables feel cheap. Also the buldge at the split could make pulling that cable rather hard with a 1/2" diameter metal spacer at each split. It also could vibrate against the car causing unwanted noise, some tape would fix that.

Megalomaniac - You had said you had nothing against us - yet I have found this same post on many other forums. Do me a favor and post an update on each of those, I would appreciate that since your original post of "DO NOT BUY THESE" has no merit and is soley based on your speculation and nothing more.

 

[WALKS UP]

So why isnt the knu rca shield grounded?

 

[knukonceptz 10+ year member]

It is a twisted pair RCA, its not a coaxial type, the Klaity and Karma are coaxial types that have ground shields. The Krystal's shields are isolated as are the Stinger HPM 3's. Its just a different design, like Unshielded twisted pair - those have NO shield, our twisted pair, does, but its not grounded.

Test it out - do you have noise? unplug the RCA at the HU, noise gone? then its not being "absorbed" or radiated into the cable from RF or EMI but rather a ground loop.

 

[WALKS UP]

I havn't tried them yet was planning to, but alot of people said after using krystals and replacing them alot of noise was reduced if not gone. I'm sure its a good product but I must admitt after seeing this I think I'm going to just make my own RCA's. I'll still be placing a big order of 1/0 gauge though

 

[knukonceptz 10+ year member]

Well as the images show, you get pretty much the same cable geometry from Stinger for $50 as you do for $20 in our cable - there's nothing magical about it. Ground loops are a PIA, but can always be fixed.

 

[WALKS UP]

Ya, I get what your saying, just why would your highest quality RCA cable shield not be grounded. Since that seems to be the problem of most engine noise's.

 

[Loud3 10+ year member]

I'm impressed at how well the rep from Knu came back with information instead of name-calling and berating people (like some other company reps have been known to do)

Clearly a company that cares about the consumer, rather than the $ at the end of the day.