The Silver Serpent Balanced microphone
cable is constructed with 42 strands of 40 AWG Silver-coated copper. This
high number strands gives this cable ultra-flexibility. Around the twisted
pair is a braided-serve shield which is a combination of serve and braiding
technology. Serves, also called spiral shields, are well known for their
flexibility, but they have a tendency to open up when the cable is flexed
thus compromising their noise rejection. By braiding the two serves, this
prevents them from opening when the cable is flexed. The resulting shield
gives unsurpassed shield coverage well into RF frequencies. Finally, the
Silver Serpent Balanced cables are hand-terminated with Silver solder.
When used as an analog balanced mic cable, analog performance is based
on two factors resistance and reactance. Since resistance is linear,
that is it affects all frequencies equally, it is often ignored. Our 24
AWG conductors have significantly low resistance: less than 27.7 ohms per
thousand feet. Of greater importance is capacitance that produces high-frequency
attenuation. The higher the capacitance, the worse the effect. Our Silver
Serpent Balanced cable has VERY low capacitance (15 pF/ft).
The Silver Serpent Balanced cable is also an outstanding digital (AES/EBU)
cable. The Audio Engineering Society and European Broadcast Union
(AES/EBU) set the standards for digital audio. While there are many sampling
rates, the most common for consumers is 44.1 kHz, the sampling rate
used in a CD. The actual bandwidth of this signal is 5.6448 MHz.
Digital signals are affected by capacitance but in a different way than
analog signals. Capacitance turns the ones-and-zeros from square waves
into waves which are less square. As this effect continues, it becomes
harder and harder for the destination device to determine just where the
transition is between one and zero (and zero-to-one). These transitions
are the "clock" by which everything is timed. So, eventually, the receiving
device cannot make sense of the clock and the device turns off. At 6 MHz,
the maximum safe distance for a cable of 24 AWG such as this one is 699
ft. (213 meters). Of course, this is more than enough for even the largest
home system. Further, the AES/EBU calls out a specific impedance for digital
audio: 110 ohms +/- 20% (88-132 ohms). This cable exceeds this specification
and is 110 ohms +/-10%. Such impedance precision reduces impedance mismatching
between devices and cables, so the maximum signal arrives at the destination
device.
If you are looking for a world-class analog or digital balanced cable,
the performance of the Silver Serpent is hard to beat - AT ANY PRICE!
XLR connectors are manufactured by Neutrik.
$89
