Sources for the 2' of audio cable?

[kellinwood]

I'm attempting shield two Strats and do my best to follow the instructions in 'Quieting the Beast'. So far the only place that I've found the two-conductor shielded audio cable for running to the input jack is at Radio Shack, but they only sell spools of 50 feet and I need 4 feet. Its seems like a waste to buy all that cable when I know that the majority of it will just sit in my garage for the rest of eternity. I've looked at buying other short cables with connectors which I'd have to cut off, but I can't tell from the packaging if its the right kind of cable inside or not.

Any ideas?

From Radio Shack it works out to about 20 cents per foot. Maybe if you have some extra cable yourself I can send you $2 and a self addressed stamped envelope and you send me 4 feet of cable.

Ken

[lpf3]

kellinwood -

Do you have an extra USB cable around ?

Seriously , cut the ends off , peel the insulation back enough to poke a hole in the braid . Carefully work the wire out of the braid & you should have 4 conductors in there . Gently pull 2 of them out , & what you'll have left is nice insulated & shielded 2 conductor wire .

Beats waitin ' for the mail....

Good luck & enjoy ,


-lpf3

[kellinwood]

USB 1.1 or 2.0?

just kidding.

I think I do have a spare cable. Thanks for the suggestion.

Ken

[lpf3]

Ken-

USB 1.1 or 2.0

Depends on your style of music , I guess .

On April 23 ChrisK states :

(Although with USB 2.0, one might find that one tends to play a little too fast.)

;D ;D

lpf3

[ChrisK]

USB, SBU, BUS, SUB, 220, 221, whatever.

The cheap audio cables with phono plugs at Radio Shack or any big box (the building, not the item) retail chain.

After all, this isn't a quality cable like the OFC Oxygen Free Copper (or Con Men) stuff.


I've an idea; cut up a guitar cable!

It can't be any worse than a, er, uh, guitar cable.

[RJB]

Most USB cables don't have a braided shield, it's usually a metallic/plastic foil with a 'drain' wire. However every VCR, DVD, DVR (eieio) I've ever purchased came with a triple RCA cable for audio/video. If you have a spare one in a junk drawer somewhere, you could pull a section out of that. These are usually braided shields.

You could also just tightly twist 2 wires together in place of the shielded cable. For a short (6-9") distance it will have "some" noise reducing qualities. Shouldn't be any worse than a cheap 25' guitar cable. This is what custom builder Ron Kirn does as part of his standard QTB on everything he makes. Ron's TDPRI Build Thread, Contains some nice QTB pictures on the previous page.

[ashcatlt]

A guitar cable's only got one conductor inside. The RCA's (per VCR, etc) are only one conductor as well. Course you could always just use 2, if they're small enough to fit through the hole.

A mic cable has 2.

Any stereo (as in TRS) cable will also work.

Got an old pair of headphones you don't need? Some brands of headphones have a strange fabric-like wire which can't really be stripped or soldered correctly, but most of the cheaper sets should work. I've got way too many cheap Radio Shaft headphone extensions, which I use for all kinds of things.

Foil shield isn't all that bad. A bit harder to solder, but you can make it work. You can get foil shielded 2 conductor wire by the foot at Home Despot.

[jb12string]

contact someone that does audio equipment installation. installation mic cable should fill your needs and they usually have a load of scrap laying around