Glossary of Terms
Coaxial Cable Geometry: A cable with two conductors arrayed with a common axis, with a center conductor for positive and a surrounding shield for negative, separated by a insulation material
Twinax Cable Geometry: A pair of insulated conductors surrounded by a shield used as a ground path in balanced applications or simply floated in semi-balanced designs
Semi-Balanced Geometry: The use of a twinax cable to carry a single-ended signal where the two inner conductors often “audio optimized” carry the signal and the surrounding shield is lifted at one end and grounded at the other; usually the side with the lower potential to ground.
Singled-ended Application: A connection between two components that requires two conductors to establish a circuit. Examples include instrument cables, cables with RCA connectors and patches between effects pedals.
Balanced Application: A connection between two components that requires three conductors to establish a circuit that employs a noise-reduction technique known as Common Mode Rejection. Examples include connections between microphones and pre-amps, a DAC and powered Monitor, or other components that require a cable using XLR and/or TRS connectors.
IGL Copper Conductor: Standing for Increased Grain Linearity, IGL copper conductors are type of Oxygen-Free copper that exhibits excellent electrical conductivity and sound quality. It is many times purer than Oxygen-Free High-Conductivity copper, has reduced impurities between it’s grain boundaries
and exceeds the IACS conductivity rating for copper.
IGL-ECS Copper Conductor: Stands for Increased Grain Linearity (with) Enamel Coated Strands, IGL-ECS copper conductors are type of Oxygen-Free copper that exhibit excellent electrical conductivity and sound quality. It is many times purer than Oxygen-Free High-Condcutivity copper, has reduced impurities between it’s grain boundaries and exceeds the IACS conductivity rating for copper. The strands of these conductors are individually insulated to eliminate the negative effects of strand interaction:
Strand-Interaction: The effect where a signal sets up a magnetic field in an individual strand of a conductor’s bundle that modulates the signal in neighboring strands.
Solid-Core conductors: Conductors comprised of a signal strand as opposed to a larger number of smaller strands to achieve a targeted cross-sectional area (AWG). Solid core conductors are more rigid and have a lower flex-life than stranded conductors yet eliminate the negative effects of strand interaction.
Carbon-loaded extrusions: A layer of semi-conductive material extruded over the conductors of a cable designed to dissipate static noises that build up from movement of the cable over floor surfaces or otherwise physically handled during use.
Skin Effect: The nature for high-frequency signals to flow along the conductor’s surface with greater density as you move away from the center of the conductor. This attribute accounts for audible differences in conductor sizes as well as being exacerbated by strand interaction when a stranded conductor’s comprising strands wind through a conductor at varying depth.
Cable Break-in: The insulation of a conductor absorbs and releases current when an audio signal is applied. Over an initial period of use it’s molecules re-align in a uniform order, which leads to an audible improvement between conductors that are brand new and ones that have had signal passing
through them for a period of 10-40 hours.
Helical Array: A twisted-pair cable geometry where the physical separation of conductors between them with an insulating core reduces the magnetic field between all conductors.
Twisted-Pair geometry: A geometry where the positive and negative runs in a cable circuit are twisted together to improve the electromagnetic compatibility and reduce crosstalk.
Parallel-Run geometry: A geometry where the positive and negative runs in a cable run parallel to each other.