Cable Management....

[wingnut4772]

.....a very important process in the HT/Audio set up or a colossal waste of time?

Discuss amongst yourselves.....

[DarqueKnight]

1. Tangled cables can cause noise (hum), particularly if you have a lot of components.
2. If you are always swapping gear in and out of your system, cable management can save some time, particularly if you have a lot of components.
3. Neatness never hurts and contributes to an ordered and more relaxed state of mind, again, particularly if you have a lot of components.

[wingnut4772]

I just spent about three hours tonight trying to manage my bird's nest. Essentially I was able to effectively separate my power cords from my audio cables and my interconnects from my speaker cables etc. I am just curious as to how there is sound degredation and hum without the cable management?What is it that happens?

[DarqueKnight]

1. Current flowing through a wire generates an electric field around the wire. The strength of the electric field is proportional to the level of current in the wire.

2. An electric field can generate (induce) a flow of current in a wire placed in the field.

3. Power cables and speaker cables carry relatively large currents and can potentially generate relatively large electric fields around themselves.

4. Interconnects carry relatively small signals which are at higher risk of being affected by induced currents.

5. If an interconnect is placed within close proximity to a power or speaker cable that is generating a strong enough electric field, new electric currents may be generated (induced) in the interconnect by the electric field. These new currents represent noise.


Proper cable shielding and component noise rejection circuitry goes a long way towards eliminating or at least reducing induced hum. However, if you have an audio or video system with a lot of power cables and speaker cables (like the typical HT system), the collective electric field strength can be enough to overcome the best of shielding. In this case, separating interconnect cables from power and speaker cables is usually required.

There are cases of prople being electrocuted after touching a metal surface (that was not electrically connected to anything) or by picking up a piece of uninsulated wire (again, not electrically connected to anything) in the presence of a strong electric field generated by high voltage wires. The term for it is "electrocution by induction".

[BlueMDPicker]

What is it that happens?
Inductance is the most likely culprit. You can also pick-up RF.

(PS - The Harmony works great. Five remotes hit the storage room.)