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a question about using "digital" video cable for audio


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OK. I've got a 10 foot yellow "digital" video cable, which just a yellow cable with a male rca on each end. I'd picked it up used years ago and never used it myself. It's a pretty nice silver cable.

My question, is there anything that would make this cable unsuitable to serve as an ordinary interconnect?

I've been thinking that I'd like to use it as stock to make a pair of interconnects.

Any thoughts appreciated.

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for digital audio you need a 75ohm cable and connector. yes it may work, but other will work better. i know this from doing it, a simple canare 75 ohm cable with a canare 75 ohm connector can be used for anything in HT. (Sub, analog audio, analog video, component, or digital audio). in all aspects will work perfect and not have any "Loss."

if it's a well built Yellow cable it may be a 75 ohm type.

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I've been doing it for years. Some of the R,W,Y, cables have a larger Y and I'll use a pair of cables using Y only. May be my imagination but they've sounded better than the tiny R & W cables. Maybe? I think?

Either way, they sound fine. Never an issue.

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My question, is there anything that would make this cable unsuitable to serve as an ordinary interconnect?

I'm not sure whether you're asking, "Is it okay to use a 'digital' video cable as and 'analog' video cable?", or, "Is it okay to use a video cable as an audio cable?" Either way, the answer is, "Yes."

Cables only care about bandwidth. Bandwidth requirements of digital and analog video are roughly comparable ... at least, they're both well within the capabilities of a good RF cable. However, bandwidth requirements for video and audio are considerably different. Some audio interconnects cannot extend high enough in frequency to handle video. I have, on occasion, used a handy audio cable as a video cable, just to see if signal was present. The video was there, but the quality was poor. Very poor.

I have purposely avoided the issue of cable impedance. For video it's important, but since you're asking specifically about a video cable, I'm assuming that the impedance is appropriate. For short audio interconnects, it's not nearly so important because the frequencies are so low (wavelengths are so long that the cable is acting much more like a wire than a transmission line).

Greg

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Thanks all.

Larry, yes, it's silver cable. I've been thinking about that, too. My experience with silver interconnects some years back is that they did not carry the bass part of he signal well. I did think I was hearing more detail in the mid and hf. Ultimately not a good tradeoff in my system at the time, with those cables.

I'll be listening for the lean sound in these, too.

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I tried these as well and my take was exactly the same as yours Dee...sounded nice and detailed but no bass...perhaps the clearer detail was because I wasn't getting the bass I am used to???...don't know but I won't waste the money...good luck with your cable choice...

Bill

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