WANTED: Recommendations for Cable sleeve to reject for EMI and RFI

[Wakefield Turntables]

Guys,

As you've probably read over the last few weeks I'm finally getting my ar$e into gear and getting new mains cables and IC's for my system. I've managed to source nearly everything but would like recommendations for a cable sleeve that can reject electromagnetic interference (EMI) and radiofrequency interference (RFI) I quite like the look of the Isotek sleeve on the Elite range of power cables. If anyone knows of anything better I would to hear from you. Costs not an object and it's going to be used to screen 3 teflon coated solid core silver strands, probably terminated with either Furutech or IegO components.

Andy.

[Reid Malenfant]

Well as you are making balanced cables there will be a good bit of common mode rejection from the equipment for starters. What i suggest you do is take a leaf out of the book of many cable manufacturers & do as they do....

Some kind of aluminised mylar overall coating as a complete screen & then on top of that a woven copper screen with as much overall coverage as possible ;)

Won't be easy to make though... The mylar will be simple, but the woven copper (or silver plated copper) screen will be a pita withought some kind of machinery :eek:

I wish you the best of luck, i might get a bit anal about speaker design but the thought of hand winding a braided screen would have me giving up before i even started in all honesty :mental:

[sq225917]

I'd be keen to hear any mains cable shielding make a difference. I've heard differences from thicker gnd wires, but never from just shielding of the mains.

What exactly is it that you think will be gained from shielded mains, do you have issues with noise from your speakers?

[Effem]

Save your money Andy because I don't know of any screening that will reject interference within a mains cable. Look at it this way; RFI would have to be at such intensity it would make your teeth fillings rise to red hot levels before it could even enter a mains cable and overwrite an AC waveform running at 240 volts and 13 amps. My brother-in-law works on shipborne radar in the navy and has had his tooth fillings hotted up once or twice, so he says LOL Still, metal braiding looks lovely within a transparent cover ;)

I waved an EMI meter around some mains cables a few years ago and was surprised at the intensity of magnetic fields being chucked out by the average mains cable - screen or NO screen. Double steel screens and casings around the mains transformers inside my CD player, DAC and amps made no difference whatsoever, which did surprise me to say the least. The only material that had any effect on reducing EMI was a plate made out of Mu-metal.

[sq225917]

Totally agree with Effem. I shielded the motor in my then LP12 with 1.2mm of Mu-metal, made bugger all difference to the noise picked up by the cart when pushed towards the motor location when running. You'd need some pretty serious shielding to make any difference on mains cables that's for sure. There's probably some graphs of the measurements I did at the time floating about in the ether still.

[Wakefield Turntables]

As always a big THANKYOU! I've had a look at the composition of various cables on the net and ones which I have bought. I decided that including some of the basics into cable construction would give me a reasonable outcome and improve what I already have! The only time I have noise through the speakers is when I turn the pre-amp reasonably loud and then I just get a low hum in the background, at normal levels everything is silent. Anyone, thanks for the tips regarding the braiding. I may just buy some now for Aesthetic reasons and not worry about the effects of EMI or RFI. :cool: