Canare 4S11 Star Quad cables for speaker

The spiral wrapped starquad geometry when properly configured ( staggered polarity i.e. + - + - ) helps to lower the nominal impedance of the cable. This not only increases power transfer, but also broadens bandwidth and improves transient response.

Compared to a twisted pair, a star quad offers an appr 40 dB reduction in RFI / EMI radiation and susceptability. I don't have the figures as to how much "better" a starquad is in comparison to a standard side by side "zip cord" type design in these regards, but i would have to assume that it would be a staggering figure to say the least. I base this "assumption" on the fact that a twisted pair is far superior to zip cord and the starquad blows the twisted pair away.

Having said that, it's not fabulous cable, but it is much better than just about anything else that you're going to get for anywhere near the money. Sean
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Hello Sean, good to see you.

So while EMI/RFI and resistance could be reduced (matters only if it was a problem in the first place), what are the effects on capacitance and inductance?

Without knowing, I'd have to venture a guess that the (L/C) properties suffer in some way at because of the design to improve other properties (low EMI emission/low series resistance).

My point is everything (I know of) has a trade-off. If one is going to extol potential benefits, give equal billing potential drawbacks.

Again, it's fine cable for the $$. Just several different perspectives...

Here's a link to the Canare website's table of the Mechanical Specifications of the 4S11 speaker cable (including capacitance specs).

Whoaru99: This type of cable suffers from the same type of signal degradation that most other speaker cables suffer from. That is, it uses lower grade dielectric and more of it due to having four conductors rather than two. On top of that, it is also a stranded conductor, so you'll run into more of what is termed "strand jumping" and "skin effect". Getting around either of these problems involves using very thin aka "flat" conductors and much more costly dielectric in a specific geometry.

As to the electrical drawbacks due to having reduced EMI / RFI potential, the main "drawback" ( if you can call it that ) is that the cable is of wider bandwidth and of lower impedance. This combo can send some gear into high frequency oscillation. Most of whether this happens would be depending on the stability of the amplifier itself. Under most circumstances, both of these traits ( wide bandwidth and lower nominal impedance ) would be considered highly desirable traits, so unless the system is highly flawed electrically and / or the owner refuses to take some simple precautionary steps such as using Zobel networks, there's really not much to be concerned about with these. Sean
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