low capacitance wiring

[sean]

I am planning on running unbalanced connections between my CR and both LR's. I have read that AES/EBU cable can be used for unbalanced runs and that its beneficial because its is very low capacitance. My questions are. 1) is this true, and 2) how do you make the connections. I was thinking of Magami W3159 AES/EBU because its only $.26/ft at redco but it looks like its 4 conducter (or 3 conducter and a shield). Do you can you just connect i wire and the shield and leave the others unconnected? I am also running digital coax RCA coonections between rooms. Can this cable be used for those connections as well. I appreciate any help you guys could give me on this one. Thanks.

[knightfly]

AES cables typically use either XLR (mic type) connectors or TRS (1/4" stereo phone connectors, and they do use 3 leads; but as long as you use the same color code on both ends of the cable, you can just ignore the extra conductors (trim them back when making the connections) -

RCA type SP/DIF cables, however, use 75 ohm coax cable (same as video cable) so won't work right with runs longer than maybe 3-4 feet with anything BUT the correct cable.

With ANY digital signal, you need to use the type cable it's designed for or you may (or may not) get bit errors due to either impedance mis-match or by excess capacitance in the cable causing pulses to be "rounded off" - enough of the pulse edge distorted, and you can lose the transition from low to high or high to low.

Analog audio - any cable will work, but with single-ended cables a lower capacitance cable will give better treble response.

Digital audio - use what's recommended, or take a chance on signal loss or strange "bugs" in the system... Steve