Leaning up against a turntable... My father would throw me out of the house and never let me back in.

@crodoc69

9 ай бұрын

Exactly!

The concept of grounding a cable (or wire pair) shield at one end only has been known for many years. The "gap" has also been known in coax cable used for RF signal. Just look at how, say, RG6 cable is constructed. The center conductor is inside a thick insulator which gives it a specific "gap" between it, and the outer shield. The gap in (older) RG58/59 is smaller and why RG6 is preferred for TV signals. Now I am going to have to experiment with this for the AC cables on some of my equipment! I am sure the results will be for the better. Thanks again Paul for the insight.

Makes a lot of sense, Paul. The shielding acts as an antenna for RF and sends it to ground. If it's connected to the input side of the device, it would just keep it in the system. (Apologies to Ohm's Law readers. I'm a mechanical technologist not an electrical tech.).

I think he meant "constrict the soundstage" - that's what I hear comparing shielded to unshielded cables (apart from, depending the application, a possible decrease in transformer hum using shielded cables). Overall size and depth may change to where the comparison will stand up to a blind test. I can't hear a difference in dynamics (although rarely in low-level resolution, which may be thought of as the same thing, i.e downward dynamics into the noise floor, micro versus macro dynamics). In my experience, unshielded cables sound best where they don't cause problems, and if the matter is one of limiting hum or noise in the system, I'd start using shielded cables for digital components, (again, if possible) not analogue, except perhaps in a recording studio where the sheer quantity and length of cable runs pose greater problems than in the context of one's home system. One thing I like about Paul is he keeps reminding audiophiles there's an order of priorities in which areas should be addressed, and no doubt, tweaks of any kind should be last on one's list. It makes me scratch my head when I seen people sink more money into tweaking their system than e.g. speakers, a source component or an amp…

I see Albert King's "Born Under A Bad Sign."! Somebody there is a blues fan.🎸

I'm replacing bad phono cable coming out of my Technics SL-1300 turntable. Shielded or not? Thank you, Artie. PS- I don't understand HOW it can be shielded at one end, and not the other as you state here, because I thought the shielding is the ground wire wrapped around the insulated hot wire, and the insulated plastic covering of the wire over that.

Monster power cable - One thing is theory, one thing is measurability, one thing is audibility and last but not least is the placebo effect. As long as power cable is as good as the house cable in terms of conductor thickness or low resistivity (e.g. copper), there is no effect with these monster power cables. The only advantage of a better cable is that it has a SHIELD that can prevent the leakage of noise (eg 50hz) which can affect other signal cables that are in the same area connected too your sound system. Grounded to give the best effect. Regarding signal cables, it is a completely different story. But yes it pimps your sound system 🙂

So if I made a Pair on RCA Interconnects cable, which END would I SHIELD? So, coming out of the Pre-amp to the Power Amp, which end is Shielded Pre-Amp out or the Power AMP end?

@Gamertrus

3 жыл бұрын

Maybe a bit late but I would choose the shortest way to ground but in the end you can always switch and listen for yourself

I wonder if in the standard power cables that come with audio devices (amplifiers, etc) have the shield and ground wire joined on both ends?

@sean_heisler

Жыл бұрын

Most all power cables that come with audio components are not shielded, they are unshielded cords. Unfortunately. Shielded power cord cost more and so manufacturers elect not to include them with their products. If a cheap, standard, molded power cord is shielded it will say it on the jacket.

I just added some good interconnects to my system and they opened up the sound to an extent I would not have thought possible but these cables are not shielded and although it does not seem to matter on low powered gear (preamps, CD players, preamps) it does matter with power amps which are six feet away. When I turned everything on I noticed a buzz and narrowed it down to the power amps. The buzz would change as soon as I moved the interconnect cables that fed the power amps (M700's) so it was apparent that hash was coming from those amps. I used to do a lot of EMI testing on the equipment we made (power supplies) to get EMI certification from the FCC so I am familiar with this kind of problem. The switching of heavy duty input AC rectifiers can be a problem as can any digital hash caused by switchmode power electronics. I am now putting together a pair of one meter power cables with oyaida shielded power cable (feels like frozen garden hose) and good quality ends and I'm going to use a shielded interconnect to feed those amps. The combination should stop that power hash from leaking into the signal path.

thx Paul thats great! I wonder if a braided shield wold be better than say a copper tube given that the copper tube would have a foam insulator with the cable hole down the middle?

@ionut5350

4 жыл бұрын

for RF braiding is necessary to compensate for the skin effect, but at the 50hz or so of mains it would work just as well.

@eded8045

4 жыл бұрын

@@ionut5350 to be clear you say cooper tube is as good?

@darkwinter6028

4 жыл бұрын

Solid is OK - it’s just not very flexible. High-power transmitters such as those used by TV stations use coaxial waveguides that consist of a copper pipe with a solid rod suspended in the center. For shielding, it doesn’t have to be copper, either - anything conductive works. Many shielded cables use aluminized Mylar that’s wrapped around the outside of the cable. So, running a cable in grounded metallic conduit works also.

I have shielded power cables, and they don't restrict dynamics. On the contrary, it's very good for dynamics. Supra from Sweden.

@oysteinsoreide4323

4 жыл бұрын

@Brent Knoerl Ferrites is some of the worst things you can do to analog sound signals. Careful use on digital cable might help. But it's a no go on all analog signal equipment.

@oysteinsoreide4323

4 жыл бұрын

@Brent Knoerl Was it advertised to improve the sound quality by the way?

@oysteinsoreide4323

4 жыл бұрын

@Brent Knoerl The electric chord lose dynamics by using ferrites. It's better to be using shielded power cables. But it's not as been using them in the signal path. But I guess you could clean up some noise, but you are increasing the input impedance of all the devices which could lead to a bit less dynamics.

@oysteinsoreide4323

4 жыл бұрын

@Brent Knoerl I don't have experience with Furman. I guess they do the same as my supra filter. The most critical thing is to not restrict the power to the power amplifier. Furman filters is much used in studio and pa situations. So I guess that they should be doing their job. The best had been to have a power regenerator like power plant of ps audio, audioquest, or Furman. But it's quite expensive to get something good. I'm not going that route yet. Future will tell if I do, but I have a very good sounding system now. I'm happy with my power solution now.

@oysteinsoreide4323

4 жыл бұрын

@Brent Knoerl the two upgrades that I did for my system was: Get power filter and power cables from Supra. Secondly: Isolating the speakers from the floor. Both these things was night and day difference. I don't spend much on interconnects and speaker cables. Just a bit better than the freebies.

Following that logic, would there be a benefit to using BX cable from the main breaker box to the ac outlets, 10 ga with a 20 amp ?

@Peter_S_

4 жыл бұрын

IMHO, absolutely, but the caveat is any time that uninsulated BX comes into contact with another run of BX or a water pipe in the course of its run, you run the risk of establishing a ground loop so be cognisant of that and you're golden.

@SuperMcgenius

4 жыл бұрын

Yes, good point.

@SuperMcgenius

4 жыл бұрын

Peter S I am no genius, just figured out how to change user name to 45 th parallel as I grew up in nyc ,but now live in Montreal. Thanks for the tip.

If there's no earth on the equipment as it's double insulated, it doesn't matter if the drain / shied are connected at that end or not. No one seems to mention this?

Are there any $50 power cables made with only one end shielded?

Dear Paul, thank you for all these videos to keep me busy during lockdown! Having been persuaded by you to consider power cables, this video answered an important question. If I may summarise what it says, (SPOILER ALERT) I believe it is that shielding the power cord to the amp(s) is in principle unhelpful. However it is extremely beneficial to the other elements in a hifi system. The potentially negative effects of shielding can be mitigated if the design is done sympathetically. As a result you recommend shielding the power cable - "in the right way". Assuming I have understood correctly, I have one question. If there are only downsides to having the shielding, then not having to risk the negative effects of shielding the amp power cable would presumably be preferable. If everything else is shielded, is shielding of the power cable still beneficial? With everything else already shielded, is it not better to avoid the risk of shielding the power cable? Thank you!

The shield gets rid of the power company hitchhikers. If you have a power regenerator does that get rid of the shielding problem between it and the equipment? The cables from the regenerator to the equipment can be regular unshielded?

Very instructive - thanks (again) for spreading the knowledge.

Does PSAudio provide shielded cables with it’s products?

@bc527c

4 жыл бұрын

Probably not, and that doesn't mean anything. Nobody provides upscale cables because there are so many people who would cry it's a ripoff, so it is left for you to make the choice as you wish.

@Bannockburn111

4 жыл бұрын

He addressed this recently. Basically the PS Audio philosophy is that most high-end audio buyers want to go through the process of choosing their own cables, so providing more expensive cables that might be discarded doesn't make a lot of sense. It's better to provide lower-cost cables that don't waste the customer's money so much if they choose something else.

@barneyjones5174

4 жыл бұрын

@@Bannockburn111 In other words, a non inexpensive product is being sold with a lesser power cable that doesn't allow the performance it was designed to do?

Just show measurments on osciloscope with antena (just a meter or two of wire will do) or something.

Thank you Paul for explaining . No it's from a sound bar audiophile.to stereo speaker now Lol keep it up Paul.

If messing with your power cord is having an impact on your system’s performance then there’s something grossly wrong with your power supply... the only way that should be possible is if the power supply is seriously undersized; and unable to keep the voltage rails up under dynamic loading. Adding a tiny bit of capacitance to the input side of the power supply (which is what you get as a side effect when you shield a cable - the shield forms one plate of capacitor to ground) should not reduce the power supply’s dynamic response capability. And I haven’t even gotten into PSRR... Good quality DC power supplies for analog applications (digital is a lot less sensitive) should have a lot of rejection of anything that isn’t DC in their output stages; if EMI being picked up from the AC input is making it through then the proper way to deal with it is to fix the power supply design. At the other end of things - emissions - shielding the power cable will help; but only in the immediate proximity of the power cable. However, as with the other factors mentioned above; the proper approach is to start with the power supply (by adding line filtration to the AC input, etc). As soon as it reaches the wall, the power line transitions to either THHN or Romex; neither of which are shielded. All signal cables should be shielded; especially those driving a high-impedance voltage-mode input (as all your line-level interconnects are). Low-impedance current-mode devices (like speakers) take a lot more energy to shift the signal by any given amount than high-impedance ones do; so for pickup concerns, shielding here isn’t as important (but, running all that power thru an unshielded cable can be an emissions issue). You don’t have to spend a lot on a shielded power cable, either - conductive braiding is readily available for not much money; and slips right over a standard power cord. Just ground it at the wall plug end, and make sure that the ends don’t short to the hot or neutral lines (some heat shrink tubing helps with that).

Shameless *plug* ! I’ll see myself out...

So just to confirm, the shield should be connected to the wall plug ground?

@bc527c

4 жыл бұрын

yes, so the noise it collects is drained straight out to the ground and not into the equipment.

@eded8045

4 жыл бұрын

@@ebarbie5016 try your theory on an oscilloscope and report back )))

@ionut5350

4 жыл бұрын

if you ground the shield at both ends you get a ground loop between the amplifier ground and mains ground, meaning your entire shield basically becomes an antenna for hum from the power cable.

@andydelle4509

4 жыл бұрын

@@ionut5350 Ground loops are not that simple. You either try hit and miss, which a lot of pros do, or do a complete current flow analysis of the entire system. Got CATV or a dish hooked to your TV and the HDMI going to your AV receiver which has a feed from your high end music system? How many devices have three wire plugs and are all those on the same electrical circuit? Lifting the shield at one end on any shielded cable does not guarantee you won't have a ground loop. In fact connecting the shield at both ends sometimes solves a ground loop problem. I build large TV and mastering plants. I always tie grounds at both ends for both analog and digital balanced signals. This is the typical practice except sometimes on microphone circuits. I have rarely run into a ground loop problem with line level balanced circuits.

@humanitech

4 жыл бұрын

Hi Paul could you please confirm if your method it to connect the shield to the wall plug ground as my original thread has started the usual mixed responses. Therefore would like to have your confirmation. thanks kindly

If only someone would design a plug in for ac outlet that harvested noise and output the energy into a little led

@thegrimyeaper

4 жыл бұрын

You're in luck, Bill! PS Audio has designed the very thing that you are suggesting!

@Avayah_Me

4 жыл бұрын

Lol

@hardcorecap

4 жыл бұрын

Lmao

@AFGSstudio

4 жыл бұрын

Only one led? Man, I was hoping the hippy still left in Paul would have a light show of sorts! Lol.

@golfman9290

4 жыл бұрын

@@thegrimyeaper Carefull, you don't want to give him any ideas:¬} "what our little led does is suck out all the unwanted electrons that distorts the sound right out of the signal path, so when you buy our $1200 led spike sucker from PoS audio, you can be assured that you've overpaid for something that's literally a PoS audio product."

My amps don’t have ground ! Quad QMP 🤔

please recommend a good noise sniffer. Thank you.

@birb4095

4 жыл бұрын

When you get that noise sniffer, get someone else to add and remove the sniffer for you, with you being blindfolded or just not knowing. Listen to your music, and try to guess whether or not it's installed. You'll see how powerful the placebo effect really is.

@MalteWilsen

4 жыл бұрын

Eels are the best in that domain.

@DasAntiNaziBroetchen

3 жыл бұрын

@@birb4095 I think you misunderstood. With "noise sniffer" he meant a device to show the noise that is present (for example an oscilloscope). It has nothing to do with improving audio quality.

Pauls is pretty much on point here. There are specific FCC rules and regulations for radio emissions of any electronic device that contains a 10Khz oscillator and above. Pretty much any electronic device today contains a 10Khz oscillator in it. Keeping all that shielded within the chassis can be a challenge. The input power cord does operate as an antenna for rf emissions generated from within the chassis. Switching power supplies are one source. This is all Black Art electronics keeping it all buttoned up inside. Power cord shielding, ferrite beads placed as close to the chassis as possible, where the shield is grounded is all part of the process to pass FCC Certification. And of course as Paul said, keeping those RF emissions from getting into other audio components and degrading the sound of the overall system.

@wilcalint

4 жыл бұрын

Here it is: www.fcc.gov/engineering-technology/laboratory-division/general/equipment-authorization One can make a career out of this stuff. And I admit that when I was in school this was one discipline I was interested in. I've personally gone through the certification testing process for a handful of consumer electronics. Not an easy thing to do.

There is a lot to like about PS Audio and nobody really beats Paul. He gets our passion for audio to reach new heights. However, one thing that bothers me is when things that can be precisely understood and measured end up being claimed using vague terms of how it sounds different. Everything about power cables is completely measurable and scientifically explainable. If a power cable does something better that’s audible, please explain what happens. When I listen to digital FLAC music I might have > 100dB of dynamic range and equipment noise is not audible at all. Any noise that is emitted or received on a shielded power cable is not audible to me even at low volumes. What frequencies of noise at what point in the signal path doing what can make me hear the effect of a shielded power cable? Of course I have had cases in the past of getting EMI issues through the power cables but modern equipment rarely suffer from it when the power supply inside has proper filtering. An old amp with dried out Vcc filtering capacitors might sound better by using a shielded power cable, but the right cure would be to fix the caps.

@ThinkingBetter

4 жыл бұрын

ThinkLearnSolve Yes, I do indeed know this. On this specific matter, what is not measurable is not worth spending money on other than for the visual effects of making stuff look more high end.

I really would have to hear this difference. Can you demonstrate this? Just put a switch on the shield so you can disconnect it while playing a tone. You could do this right on KZread.

@terrywho22

4 жыл бұрын

Never gonna happen... I'll let you conclude why. 😉

@JingoLoBa57

Жыл бұрын

Why don’t you two try it and post your video?

It not going to hurt anything to use shielded power cords but they are largely unnecessary. They might be used to further reduce EMI and RFI egress from large switch mode power supplies. I have seen them supplied on commercial devices that have these hundred amp plus switching power supplies. As for home HiFi, just keep power cords away from your audio cables, especially turntable cables, by at least 6 inches and you should be fine. I should mention about the worst thing you can do is to coil excess power or signal cables near each other. A coil of wire is just that, a coil, an excellent low frequency antenna.

Is the wiring in your walls shielded? Are the big power lines from the power plant to your house shielded? If not, then you are just passing along whatever noise is already there. I guess it can't hurt to have your power cables shielded, but I doubt that it helps, either. Still, surely the guy who designed your gear knew what he was doing and thought enough of his product to include an appropriate cable. Are Pass cables shielded? Are Esoteric cables shielded? I really don't know.

@johnsweda2999

4 жыл бұрын

Yes the outside wires are arm shielded

@brianmoore581

4 жыл бұрын

@@johnsweda2999 I didn't know, so I Googled it. Apparently 90% of power lines aren't even insulated. Mostly it's just bare wire. I know a lot of what I see where I live is just bare metal. I also know nobody wants to live under power lines because they cause cancer. I don't know what "arm shielded" is, and I didn't find anything about it. What is it? How do you shield a bare wire?

@darkwinter6028

4 жыл бұрын

From what I understand, the link between overhead power cables and cancer turned out to be not the power cables themselves, but what the utility companies were spraying on the area under them to keep the weeds down. It wasn’t Roundup, it was something else that’s now been banned, but I don’t remember what exactly it was...

@mornecoetzee735

4 жыл бұрын

And that is why you regenerate the power and plug it into a regenerator.

@brianmoore581

4 жыл бұрын

@@darkwinter6028 that's probably correct, but still nobody wants to live too close to power lines. Once the thought is planted, it's hard to get rid of it. I actually read a bit about it today, and you are correct that mostly studies have found no link between power lines and cancer, except some weak evidence of an increased risk of childhood leukemia. Still, I have kids, so I ain't taking chances, even slight chances, if there is anything I can do about it.

So what exactly does "constricted sound" sound like? Being that the load impedance is so low and your high grade power supply provides adequate isolation, your just proliferating the myth.

The snake oil screamers are having a tizzy fit watching this one Paul.

paul I really can't see how shielded power cables could affect the sound in any way, the power supply isolates the noise created by the amplifier from mains at the filter caps, plus most high end amplifiers have such low impedance power supplies that none of that matters in the first place. You didn't explain why the distance of the shielding from the power cables matters, and unless I'm missing something, that has to be of no influence for the sound quality.

@musicstevecom

4 жыл бұрын

It makes a difference But not the way he explained it . A shielded cable will help and will reduce the noise that your audio cables might pick up. (noise in the air) To reduces the noise always run your AC Cables together in one path & your Audio Cables in another separate path w a gap between the two (High Voltage side, Low Voltage side) The shield in the AC cable will keep the noise in the cable and put it back to ground (Less noise in the Air) and will reduce the Ac noise to the Audio side cables so always run you AC Cables together & away from your Audio Cables. I doubt like you that the 120vac shield cable will reduce noise to the other side of your audio device. A noisy AC power line will go right into your Audio device and the cable will do nothing to stop it.

Total bloody snake oil Next thing you know people will be bringing back vinyl records , when is all this crap going to stop none of you people are listening to the music , there's one born every minute

So Paul, I now watched the video. Can you explain why the shield on an AC power cord needs to be separated from the conductor insulation? Like I said below I have seen many commercial shielded power cords and the shield, either foil or braid is right against the conductor insulation. You claim makes no sense. If the idea is to reduce EMI and RFI, then the closer the shield to the conductor equates to more capacitance which further attenuates EMI and RFI egress. By separating it, you reduce that effect. Now keeping it close to the conductors does also increase the capacitance against the AC power delivery. But we are talking a 50 or 60hz sinewave here, even with rectifier pulses, the risetime is very slow by RF standards. And we have the near zero impedance of the utility AC source. So just how does that additional capacitance have any effect on AC delivery down a 6 foot power cord? Furthermore can you demonstrate it with standard test equipment like scopes and signal generators? The noise harvester is not a calibrated test instrument .

@ped-away-g1396

4 жыл бұрын

the transformer itself is also a pretty good filter.

@andydelle4509

4 жыл бұрын

@@ped-away-g1396 Yes, it is. Toriods though do leak more RFI than classic EI construction and that can sometimes be a concern like in a phono preamp or any device with millivolt signals. But then a ferrite bead on the cord can quickly fix that. I don't know why anybody would consider a ferrite on a power cord a bad thing other than the sometimes physical nuisance.

@gioponti6359

Жыл бұрын

I assume if the shield is placed at a distance where electric and magnetic fields of hot phase and neutral wires cancel each other out largely, than a shield has less interaction with conductors and influences (increases) capacity to a lesser degree. I think. IIRC, if a power cable was a perfect concentric cable the distance shield to conductors wouldn’t matter..

@andydelle4509

Жыл бұрын

@@gioponti6359 But the neutral and shield are the same potential or very close. In all world wide electrical systems the ground and neutral are bonded at the building electrical service. Thus no cancellation with the hot conductor can take place. The only exception would be a balanced AC power system, which does exist in some recording studios. My questions to Paul are rhetorical. I am an EE and don't buy into a lot of these audiophile theories. I'll stick. I'll stick to well proven and practiced electrical engineering principles.

@gioponti6359

Жыл бұрын

@@andydelle4509 yes you are absolutely right about inexistent cancellation of electric field. Thinking about it.. perhaps the larger diameter shield also had a higher cross section, thus lower impedance and better shielding effect? I guess more info would be needed to understand things better here..

OMG, I have just learned how to talk for 6 minutes and say nothing!

A good down to earth nutshell. Thanks.

Never ever trust any salesperson .

Shielding only helps to protect conductors from induced noise and where is this noise going to come from in a listening room?. Most noise will conducted via house wiring due to switching psu's on other electrical outlets, the switching of outlets (in the UK we have switches on our electrical sockets) and via inductive loads from appliances that include motors and pumps. Shielding does nothing to help with conducted noise.

No, the subject is very very simple: Shielded power cables (or speaker cables!) are pure nonsense invented by clever sellers. You need not much knowledge of *communications engineering* to accept that. Same goes for "Directional Cables", "Bi-Wiring" or all that other BS about Cables...

"constrict the sound" huh... i really wonder if there's any of his videos that isn't full of this gut feeling thing. i guess it's his technique of gaining a fan base. easy to understand and conforms to the audience's own gut feelings confirming their preexisting beliefs so they click. he's a salesman after all.

@andydelle4509

4 жыл бұрын

I didn't watch the video as my work desktop is bandwidth restricted to about 2 frames per second! But of course the idea of a shielded cord restricting the sound is hogwash. The capacitance of a shielded power cable against the line impedance is irrelevant. Of course a too thin power cord on a large power amp can "restrict" the sound but we should already know that from the endless power cord debates.

@AFGSstudio

4 жыл бұрын

Assuming he's talking about power supply issues constricting headroom?

@hardcorecap

4 жыл бұрын

@@AFGSstudio in bringing up power supplies in the past, PS audio's response has been that the power amplification stage is separate and has what i remember to be a linear power supply so that's why they market the power plant thing yadda yadda yadda

@poserwanabe

4 жыл бұрын

@Ped-Away-G This channels comment section never ceases to amaze me, you cannot make this shit up...smh

@ChrisMag100

4 жыл бұрын

Galen Gareis, a senior engineer for Belden has this to say about shielding on interconnects. It shows how complex the topic is from an empirical standpoint: “4.0 Shield material and design considerations. We have a core tube and know the electricals, so now what? The braid is much more important than people think, and for a different reason than people think. No, it isn’t shielding, either. True, a double 90%+ braid have 90 dB RF shield properties but, I sure hope your equipment isn’t THAT sensitive to RF. Foils are much better and more economical for RF than a single 80% braid and the shield reaches the 90 dB mark far more cheaply. RF cables are “shielded” to RF noise and IMMUNE to low frequency nose (outside their pass band) because the shields have a low resistance to RF, measured as transfer impedance. This is sort of like low DCR at audio frequencies, but relates to how high frequencies work. Audio cables are not RF cables! We need to look at how unbalanced circuits work. They SHARE a ground...or do they? They are SUPPOSED to SHARE a ground. They don’t. RCA unbalanced cables use the CHASSIS as a ground to the wall outlet or it is floating in some cases but the REFERENCE between the grounds is still there. In ALL cases, there is that pesky WIRE thing called the SHIELD between the ground points on every piece of RCA equipment you use. That wire has RESISTANCE and that resistance creates a ground potential difference so current starts to flow between the two end grounds. E=I*R, remember that? A VOLTAGE is impressed against the center wire and the magnitude of that voltage is the current times the resistance. We can CONTROL the “R” by using TWO 98% copper braids. This is $$$ to do, but it is the RIGHT thing to do. No, those braids won’t shield MAGNETIC interference. The HUM you hear is more than likely ground loop current through the braids resistance called SIN; Shield Induced Noise. The lower the braid DCR is the better the SIN rejection. You need low permeability shield to block low frequency magnetic waves (anything below about 1 MHz starts to have a considerable B-field bent over E- field). Good audio RCA cables ARE NOT going to shield B-fields. They will shield E-fields and reduce SIN noise. To shield magnetic B-fields a MAGNET needs to be able to STICK to the shield. This is an indicator that the material is “influencing” the magnetic field flux lines INTO the metal and OUT OF the air. We can manage the SIN noise with a good ground, but true extraneous magnetic noise is still tough with unbalanced cables. Now you know why. It’s the ground system it uses.” So, if the RCA cables shield is attached to the chassis ground and the chassis ground is connected to the power cable’s ground, there’s a risk that noise on said A/C ground can be picked up by the low level signal in the interconnect. Some power cables have built in noise filters on the ground plane (Shunyata, for example). Some power conditioners specifically target ground-based noise also (Audioquest Niagara product for example), and very likely PS Audio Powerplants also.

Winners and losers. Smart, and poor choosers...

"Constricts the sound" Please quantify using physical quantities. The only thing this stuff constricts is my wallet.

Only connected to the male end not the female end isn't that a strap-on you should know Paul ha ha What do you think about shielded wires been completely isolated from the equipment, connecting by running a separate wire and crocodile clips to the Shield connected with 100 ohm resistor on each cable. If you have the resistor you don't need the Shield so far away quarter of an inch you said