L-4E6AT - that's the stuff - 20AWG conductors instead of the 21AWG L-4E6S...

Everyone is worried about shielding, and unless you are running near a high magnetic or RF field (big AC or next to noisy computers) either will do just fine.

As many have said, foil is for more permanent installations, braid is more flexable. This rule is not stead fast though.

But since you are using a Star Quad cable, you have added more CMR (Common Mode Rejection) which is the function of a balanced line.

Remember, a balanced line is + (pin 2,tip) and - (pin 3,ring) floating from Ground (pin 1, shield). the + and - signals are 180 degrees out from each other. So any noise introdused into the signal will cancel out at the receiving end of the cable with an active op-amp or transformer.

At +4 you can run a balanced signal down unshileded twisted phone line for thousands of miles. Bell did it for years.

Capacitance is measured in pf so 28pf is .000000000028/f. Unless you are planning a 500' run, it's really not an issue. You have potentially graeter losses in connectors and circuits.

One thing Star Quad does not do well is communications. If you have a Clearcom, Telex/RTS intercom, use a regular cable as most intercoms are unbalanced. Same rule for headphone cable.

Bingo - my runs are 50' or less, so I'm gonna stick with Canare. What the heck - it's cheaper, too.

Thanks for the tip on unbalanced applications - I never would have considered this an issue. Probaby would've wired up some guitar cables for the heck of it.

Anyone got a source other than Markertek that they're especially fond of?

I suggest using the word polarity rather than phase. To be accurate, the + and - signals are opposite polarity and there is no timing shift.

The word phase means a timing shift, since for two waves to be 180 degrees out of phase one signal has to be delayed in time, exactly half of one complete cycle to allow the complete cancellation necessary for a CMRR balanced circuit when the signals are recombined. Complete cancellation will only happen with steady state symmetrical signals like sine waves that stay at the same frequency.

Greg

OK, true statement.