Jerry at Posthorn has Schoeps active cable. I think it is $1.25/foot.
1804a is .115" or so. Canare mini star quad is .156" and the Schoeps is .135" (by memory).
It is very very rugged stuff and engineered to not develop handling noise problems. The outer jacket is very heavy and thick. There is a second sealed layer that is also very tough. The shield is also very thick. It is bare copper with no plating. There are only 3 conductors, that is all you need. They are copper with no plating.
Thanks for the info!
Are there two shields or just one? The shield is braided (not foil) right?
It is a custom cable and I'm sure they could have gone silver clad. I have always wondered how the kc5 would sound with different cables. Same for 4022's...
I honestly don't believe in all this "silver coated" stuff. And if Neumann or Scheops use plain copper, that should be fine. They obviously know what they are doing
Maybe silver coated is better for longer runs? Can anyone explain this?
Neumann seems to use a similar cable but I've never cut any open and don't have a source. We should try and get some.
The 1804a shield coverage is low at 78% so it is more prone to handling noise. It is also an "un paired" cable.
What do you mean by "handling noise"? And why should the shield coverage matter? I thought shield coverage was more relevant for RF leakage, for example. At audio frequencies any degree of coverage should be fine. As long as it is braided, that is what you need for flexibility and wear, it should be fine, right?
So, for actives I'm looking for rugged cable with three or more conductors and a braided shield. 1804a should work.
For other uses, either one or two pairs and a braided shield. I was considering running two mics down a starquad cable, but that is probably not good (crosstalk between channels?). I probably want a cable with either two twisted pairs, or better yet, two self-contained balanced, shielded cables, all within an outer shield.
Which brings the question: Why do we need starquad for a single balanced cable anyway? Can someone provide a technical explanation/reference for this? I have noticed that AT853 cable is like this as well. But in this case the pairs are twisted. I always thought this was just for redundancy, if one of the wires broke. But maybe there is a reason.
I recently made some splitters with 1804 and covered the cable with techflex. I'd consider doing that if using it for actives.
The nbox uses a Mogami cable that appears a little heavier duty than the 1804a. I'm curious about using that for other applications. I don't know what model it is. Anyone?
Thanks again for digging...
Richard