In a conversation with Brent McCall, he mentioned to me that "shielding introduces its own problems." We didn't discuss it.

As far back as movie audio racks in the 50s,* cable shields were grounded only at one end, the source end. The general idea with audio (and the reason that Monster Cable audio cables had arrows on them) is that interference picked up by the shield would go to ground at the source end, which was very low impedance, and have very little effect on the signal. If the cable was connected with the shield going to ground at the input of the following stage, signal was likely to be injected. Part of the reason it could be injected is that inputs usually are of higher impedance than sources, so are more susceptible to interference.

The only thing I can add is that there were, a few years ago, some "baluns" that required use of the shield AS A CONDUCTOR to get HD from one place to another. It was not an issue of shielding from interference. It was a matter of getting the signal there or not.

So... what's the product you're talking about? What do the instructions say about grounding of the shield?



*As a kid I had a summer job at Ryder Sound in Hollywood, where I first encountered jack panel cables made with the shields grounded at the source end. No, that was not the 50s. It was later than that. But the equipment was old.