Separating cables, is there a mat to help along the way?


I'm trying to tackle separating my power cables from speaker and interconnects and ethernet/hdmi video and other cables  from each other. I will do the best I can behind my TV/console area but also wanted to use some kind of shielding if it is available for places I can't keep them far enough away. It's a bit tight back there but I do have verticle space which I may want to build a quasi shelf to hang cables on/from..  I figured if I could get them far enough away from each other and use something to wrap the rest of the cables so they would be separated that way.

Maybe even tape or something that would help, but I would hate to "ruin" my expensive cables with tape, but not out of the question if it would work, as I plan to keep my current cables permanently. 

I'm also planning on replacing all wall warts with some kind of lps to reduce unwanted noise even more. I'll plan on running those new cables away from the current ones I have now. Just planning for future upgrades now, with possibly Sbooster or  Uptone Js2 or something.  I've had a mess of cables behind my equipment for a while and have decided to clean it up.

Any ideas about the shielded mat or tape or covers?

Thanks for reading.
cissado

Showing 1 response by millercarbon

Don't wrap, and don't put anything between them. Too long a story, too many misconceptions to unravel for me to try and explain. Just do this:

First figure out kind of a general way of dressing the wires that achieves a good balance between spacing, keeping signal away from power, and everything being off the floor. Also no kinks or coils. Finally, where wires do come close try and have them cross at sharp angles. Avoid having them run parallel.  

Next, use Cable Elevators or ceramic insulators (same thing) to raise everything up off the floor. You can use other materials like plastic or wood, ceramic is just a little better.  

If some wires are close that's okay. Electric fields attenuate with distance following the inverse square law. In effect this means doubling the distance from 1" to 2" is 1/4 the field strength. So even that small distance made a big difference. But by the time you get to a foot the field is so infinitesimally small its simply not worth the effort. So just avoid them touching and then don't stress.  

Study mine for example, notice some are fairly close but almost none are touching. https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/8367   

Finally, suspending everything will be better. The opposite of wrapping, you want all wires to be able to move freely. Rubber bands are free and handy. Its hard to see but the yellow bands on the cable elevator is stretched so that it suspends the cable above the ceramic insulator. If you touch the cable it will bounce slightly. That is what you want. This sounds loopy but is actually the biggest improvement of all.