Why solder the coax shield on one side only?

[sonicmojo]

This probably has been covered before but I cannot find it in my searching. What ill effect, if any would soldering both sides of the coax shield have on an amp? The reason I ask is I have an amp that was set up this way with coax from the input jacks and grounded to the chassis on both ends. Is there any disadvantage to doing this or is it just unnecessary? This particular amp has some thick gray coax and I was going to replace with thinner RG174.

Bryan

[splgeo]

You mean have both side of the shield to ground? If yes the is you do you can create alt of problems with ground loops and such

[xtian]

+1 ground loops.

[glasman]

Yup it is ground loops.

The shield should be soldered to the low impedance side of the circuit for best noise performance.

Gary

[glasman]

BTW, RG-316 is a much more elegant cable to use. Teflon but easy to work with.

Gary

[sonicmojo]

Thanks for the responses! I thought ground loops might be the case. I'll remove the one side and see if i can hear any audible change.

I've used RG188 Teflon before but I've still got a big spool of RG174 that I picked up from a shop that was going out of business. I do like the white stuff better since it does not melt.

Gary, the reason I was thinking of changing the wire in the first place was because I saw your analysis from way back about the Beldon wire versus RG174!

[glasman]

Thanks for the responses! I thought ground loops might be the case. I'll remove the one side and see if i can hear any audible change.

I've used RG188 Teflon before but I've still got a big spool of RG174 that I picked up from a shop that was going out of business. I do like the white stuff better since it does not melt.

Gary, the reason I was thinking of changing the wire in the first place was because I saw your analysis from way back about the Beldon wire versus RG174!

Thats pretty funny, I had a HELL of a time getting any highs out of that poor old amp. Still got it, still as it was built in 2002-2003 timeframe.

I tried the RG-188 on the early SOD II amps. Only lasted on the first fw amps, the center conductor was so thin that I had a LOT of wire breakage. I stopped using it in 2009.

After building the Glaswerks amps now since 2006, I have BOXES of wire, caps and other crap that did not make the grade lol.