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Schoeps KS stereo cable - specs and construction details?

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voltronic:
I have been hearing great things about the Schoeps KS stereo cable from some of the other classical people on GS Remote. It uses Kevlar for high tensile strength and Hytrel for kink resistance. Several people commented about how it lays perfectly flat and hangs perfectly straight, and carrying two channels within a 4.4 mm profile is quite attractive.

What I cannot find anywhere are specifications on its conductor arrangement, shielding, insulation etc. nor can I find any electrical measurements. I contacted Schoeps directly but so far have not heard back. Is it a miniature star-quad, or some other arrangement?

I was considering buying 10 meters or so from Posthorn and making my own cables with miniXLRs to save money, but at $12/meter for the raw cable, I want to know what I am getting into first.

It is my understanding that running two channels on one star-quad cable is normally not advisable due to the potential for crosstalk between the twisted pairs. Gotham specifically addresses this issue with their GAC-4 Ultra Pro by shielding each conductor separately, but that cable is far more expensive and very difficult to find as bulk raw in the US.

Does anyone have any other info on this cable? I also wonder if Schoeps makes their cables in-house, or another manufacturer makes it for them and that third party might have this information.

DavidPuddy:
Sorry, cannot comment on this specific cable, but I made my own "clone" using Canare L-4E5C mini star quad cable and Neutrik NC5MX-B/NC5FX-B due to the cost savings. I can report zero issues running it in many different environments, including one where my nbob recording was rendered unusable due to light interference.

Hopefully you hear back from Schoeps. They have always been expedient with answering questions in my experience, but I believe many in Europe take vacations around this time.

SMsound:
^^Cool find---I'm very interested in what you find out. I invested in a bunch of custom Mogami snakes last year, but I don't actually use them much because I've been doing 'fly in' recording and they take up a lot of luggage space. I'd be pretty excited about a tiny version with chopped XLR's.

voltronic:

--- Quote from: DavidPuddy on June 28, 2022, 04:11:03 PM ---Sorry, cannot comment on this specific cable, but I made my own "clone" using Canare L-4E5C mini star quad cable and Neutrik NC5MX-B/NC5FX-B due to the cost savings. I can report zero issues running it in many different environments, including one where my nbob recording was rendered unusable due to light interference.

Hopefully you hear back from Schoeps. They have always been expedient with answering questions in my experience, but I believe many in Europe take vacations around this time.

--- End quote ---

Thanks for the tip on that Canare mini quad. It's almost as skinny as the Schoeps KS, and super cheap!

What I was considering was the "regular" Gotham GAC-4 as it's still quite inexpensive, but was put off a bit by this statement on the page:

--- Quote ---Stereo & 2 Channels application:
We actually do not support the idea to use a Starquad cable for stereo wiring, however it will be done and can be made with acceptable compromise regarding crosstalk and similar.
--- End quote ---

For connectors, I was going with Rean RT5MC-B / RT5FC-B because they are so much cheaper than the full-size NC5, and would be even more low-profile. When you need 4 of them for each run with the stereo cable itself and the breakouts, it adds up.

voltronic:

--- Quote from: SMsound on June 28, 2022, 06:37:24 PM ---^^Cool find---I'm very interested in what you find out. I invested in a bunch of custom Mogami snakes last year, but I don't actually use them much because I've been doing 'fly in' recording and they take up a lot of luggage space. I'd be pretty excited about a tiny version with chopped XLR's.

--- End quote ---

Funny that you mention Mogami snakes. What I have been using for my DIY stereo runs was Mogami snake cable, the 2-channel version W2930. It's great stuff, but was looking to see if I could do 2-channels in a thinner profile.

For single-channel balanced, I love Gotham GAC-3. It lives up to its claims of high RF immunity in my experience.

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