I need some info on audio cable. I usually spec rg59sd for my jobs that require custom audio cables and I was wondering if this is my best bet. I know Liberty (our custom cable source) makes cables labled for audio use, but the 59 seems to work great.

Is there any downside to using 59 for audio? Should I only use it for video?

Thanks for any help on this.

-Mike

One downside is that you can't use it to make balanced cables, which is pretty important if you're doing any long runs.

let's assume short runs (less than 30 feet)

There's more cable theories then there are cable companies. If it's a well shielded, solid copper cable then I'd see no reason why it wouldn't work.

However, there's lots of opinions on skin effect and using stranded cable cables to transmit audio.

I'm sure that someone else here would love to chime in on the subject.

I could be wrong, but I think the impedence for 59 is less than ideal for audio. RG-59 is 75-Ohm cable and I believe that 50-Ohms is ideal for audio. Not to mention that it isn't balanced. However, I doubt that you would notice the effect at shorter distances.

I always use balanced line-level or microphone cable for audio. I have run it 200 ft. without significant noise levels or sound degradation.

But if you are asking whether 59 is okay for audio, you will probably not know about balanced cables.


As I understand it, impedance becomes an issue if the wire length is more than one quarter of a wavelength. Let's see; wavelength in meters times frequency in MegaSchmerz equals 300; wavelength at 1 mHz is 300 meters, at 100 kHz is 3000 meters, at 20 kHz is 15 kilometers. Okay; if your cable is in the range of one quarter of that, or about four kilometers, then impedance might be an issue.