why twisted?

[blong131 10+ year member]

i need new rcas...y r some twisted? is the signal clearer or soemthing?

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[XanderMoser 10+ year member]

Here's the deal. It all started with some manufacturers claiming to have "balanced RCAs." Anyone who knows anything about balanced and unbalanced systems knows that it's impossible to have balanced RCAs. You need three conductors: +, -, and ground. RCAs have only 2 conductors for each channel. Some company started the whole "balanced twisted" RCA thing and everyone copied them. I really don't understand it.

Don't buy twisted RCAs. They have no way to reject or block noise. A standard RCA cable has a shield which picks up the noise and transfers it away from the signal path. A twisted RCA can't do this.

Balanced cables have a +, -, and ground. The plus is just the regular signal. The - is essentially the signal, flipped 180 degrees out of phase. Now, when the cable picks up noise, it will pick it up in both the + and the -. When this all gets to the device at the end of the cable, the device takes the signal on the - and flips it back around 180 degrees, noise and all. It now adds the + and the - signals together. The original signal is added back on itself, but all of the noise is now 180 out of phase with itself, so it completely cancels out (in a perfect world).

So you see, for a balanced system, the device itself needs to be balanced. So ignore the balanced and twisted RCA gimmick. Get some good shielded RCAs and you're good to go.

 

[bigbang 10+ year member]

Informative!

 

[blong131 10+ year member]

thank you much!