Shielded RCA Cables Vs Twisted Pair RCA Cables

[nirtime]

Hey all, I was at the audio shop this morning and I noticed that they were selling the famous Stinger Twisted Pair RCA cables pretty cheaply.

Currently I am using an Audiopipe straight through interconnect cable. There doesn't seem to be any shielding or any braiding what so ever. It seems to do its job very well.(Props to a decent install)

However, I also own a Boss TRCA3 which is a twisted, foil shielded pair of rca cables. How would The Boss Twisted pair of cables with the Foil shield compare to the Stinger Unshielded Twisted Pair? Is there much of a difference between the two?

Do the Stingers actually eliminate noise from EMI? I've heard from a lot of online resources where people suffered coil whine issues and if it was not intense, using Stinger's twisted pair would greatly help or rid the problem. What do you think?

 

[Steven Ramadar]

The Stinger RCA's in question is the red and black one?
Referring to the color of the insulation btw

 

[nirtime]

Yes Steven the red and black. I believe its the 4000 series

 

[Steven Ramadar]

Really can't compare both because I haven't used Boss cables.

What you can do however is separate your RCA's from your power wires (including ground and remote) and if I remember correctly you have a Pioneer deck so ground the deck to itself.

Did this is my car and you can barely hear the whining, even with the A/C on full blast and the car in high RPM's

 

[nirtime]

I was just asking for the sake of the actual cable performance to shield against EMI. I've heard a lot of people boast the Stingers were able to kill their noise 70% for the least or totally, etc... So with a little bit of noise in my system which is probably due to my no choice option but to run near some power wires and given the price of the Stingers, I was wondering if I should buy a set or just replace with my Boss twisted pair which is wrapped in foil under the insulation.

Research seems to point to the Foil wrapped twisted pair cable being better but people claim otherwise so before I go interfering I may as well know for sure.

Yes Pioneers are notorious for the blown RCA shield ground which is generally rectified by grounding the rca shield of the cable to the deck housing. Luckily my deck is "virgin" and the only time an installer has interfered with it has been once prior to myself and I am very confident he did it properly.

I had intense coil whine on an old JVC KD-DV5100 that had a blown internal fuse. I was never really able to take a proper look at the deck internals and grounding to the housing helped the majority but wasn't perfect despite running new rcas and speaker wire on the opposite side.(There was 0 noise when using an external source player).

Btw, does a truly silent system without any whine exist once using separate ground points for both amp and head unit?

 

[Steven Ramadar]

To answer your question I've been in vehicles that don't ground the amp to the body of the car but instead have batteries for each amp. Never heard any noise from those vehicles. I don't mind a little noise.

 

[nirtime]

True batteries would be the best ground.

I dont like the noise honestly, even if its just a little bit.

Still not sure if to swap the rcas

 

[Steven Ramadar]

If it's cheap what does it hurt to try. Even if it doesn't work at least you get an extra set of RCA's

 

[nirtime]

True I may as well. Will post back on my results when I swap over.

 

[nirtime]

OK so now I can say my truck is wired with Stinger. I'm using stinger 16awg in the doors and stinger 2000 series interconnect cables.

When combined with a properly sanded ground, my system is almost dead quiet.
I'm very glad I tried the Stinger rca and also realise that a ground that isn't 100% fastened under a bolt will make noise.

As for the noise debate, these cables are essentially almost nonshielded since they have a tiny piece of shielding inside alone. Now given my no choice option I had to run close to my remote wire at first and then close to my 12awg power seat wiring. My speaker wire is also ran along with my RCA's and its still very quiet. I'm very happy with these cheap stingers and I won't hesitate to buy another when the time comes.