Cable failure

Has anyone experience a set of cables go bad on them out of the blue?
It's the first of the year & I decided to clean my connections. Started w/crossovers & speaker connections. When I turned on my Prima Luna HP, I got a nasty hum out of my low end. Naturally I shut the system down & checked all my wiring to the speakers & crossovers. All's good there. Turned on just the Amp & the hum was still there. Long story short out of nowhere, my RCA's from my amp to my pre were the culprit. Now I never got that far to clean them. Has anyone have a SET of cables go bad on them?

 

Yes, a few. In each instance it was an Audioquest cable. Legit ones too, bought from authorized dealers.

 

Yes I had two different Black Cat interconnects short out after about 2-3 years of normal use. Switched to Zu cables and haven’t looked back.

 

Did you pop the tubes out of the sockets?

Edit: oops just saw that you found the problem, I'm dumb

 

Their Straightwire. Lifetime guarantee! ( we'll see)

 

Not a set but I've had to re-terminate a connecter from time to time.

 

Yes, cold solder joint in RCA ground let go and had me looking for ground loop until I found it. Sold the cable set and got Mogami from Take Five Audio because Gene does a good job. RCA set was from manufacturer in Toronto.

 

I'll never understand how anyone so dedicated to equipment as to participate in boards like this doesn't own a soldering iron and multi-meter to at least test for continuity.

I'm not advocating any music lover become an electronics expert. I'm certainly not one. But all interconnects are a variation on this Switchcraft theme and couldn't be easier to repair. The very nature of any barrel type connector has the potential for the ground to fail especially with repeated connect/disconnects. Rolling your own is also a lot of fun.

 

Yup, you can purchase everything you need for peanuts.

 

I’ve disassembled a few that don’t conform to the “Switchcraft theme” and would be quite a PITA to repair for those lacking dexterity.

 

Yep! My tight fitting (and cheap) line level RCA sub cable bit the dust while trying to reinsert the subs input end. I could not get the fitting's sleeve to unscrew to repair, thus simply replaced...Deep Bass back in business!

Ted

 

Yes, in one headphone extension cable. Immediately after the purchase, one side of the headset did not work. The problem was in one broken wire in that extension cord. I guess it was a factory error. I cut the cable, soldered the broken spot, insulated it and no more problems.

 

I had an interconnect from Cerious Technologies develop a short once the owner of Cerious replaced it right away and acknowledged it was some flaw in some part of the design they changed.

 

Hey man I can't even draw a straight line soldering is just an accident waiting to happen here.

 

Or you can get the Audioquest type, where if the wire breaks in the connector from mishandling, you now have garbage.

(or would have to buy new set of solder RCA connectors)

It's more often the center of coax that breaks. The woven ground braid has stretch and redundancy and is clamped near the solder blob. The center conductor is a wire straight through the cable (surrounded with two layers of plastic to also slip and stretch); attempt to stretch it, and it will break at the weakest point. The connector's jacket clamp can also form a kind of lever when the cable is kinked, putting stress on the center conductor inside.

The beauty of quality RG6 and compression fittings. It has the strength to string between telephone poles.

 

RG6, the most frustrating connection in the Universe! Thank goodness VHS tape players went away.

 

RG6 is a cable, not a connector. Perhaps you are thinking of F-type connectors.

RG-6 is a military designation for the cabling. Much like PG-x equipment is for avian signals.

 

If you pony up for the regulated Weller station, that one comes with a shot of Wild Turkey on top of the beer

 

Once you learn to make your own cables, the thought of paying big money to buy them seems laughable.

 

Right you are, and, when those VHS machines came along with their, como se dice?, "F" connectors, we all quickly figured out what the "F" stood for.

 

Same here. Two pair of Audioquest Evergreen interconnects failed. Started intermittently dropping out. I assume the connectors were losing contact with the wire. No other cable failures of any type, even the cheap stuff boxed with mid-fi gear.

 

Yup, HDMI cable. Nothing had been moved even one iota. After other foolings around, off/on/off, and unplugging and re-plugging, changed the cable. Voilà! Fixed! I do not understand at all how that can happen, and I have an electrical engineering degree. Maybe my faith is not enough.

 

Yeah that's also true. Now some cables like HDMI I'd think to be really hard to make yourself. But even so you'll never find me buying crazy expensive cables, I just don't believe* and more than that I just don't care-any differences that I've maybe heard are small and not BETTER just DIFFERENT
*with maybe some exception in really expensive systems. And it is true that grounding and noise induction issues could cause differences in sound. But no reason to spend big bucks to fix those issues.

 

Funny statement from the Cocaine Capital

 

Pro tip- Don’t hang the soldering iron over the rear view mirror temporarily while installing a car stereo and then forget you hung it there. “What the hell is that horrible smell?! Oh- it’s just the back of my hand sizzling like a hotdog on a grill. Son of a b****!”