Tony,
I’m driving the GTI up with a case of BIG-K diet soda and mixed nuts! I already mounted the TOLL pass RFID tag on that clear stick-em so I can remove it for next year and on and on. I also checked and put 40 PSI in the tires and 60 PSI into the mini spare. I check that one every spring.
Galen
Didn’t realize you were driving! Safe trip!
Many asked about another presentation at AXPONA 2027. OK, you talked me into it. I was kind of shocked, in a good way, so many have seen the VIDEO section of the ICONOCLAST web site.
I am going to work up a presentation on the development of the IC cables, and how the ICONOCLAST isn’t a one trick pony design. SEVERAL things had to all be aligned to get what I wanted out of them for me, and you, to hear. I didn’t just address Vp alignment between the balanced and unbalanced cables. I’ll go through all that and if it worked, and how to even tell if it really worked (measurement).
This isn’t new, of course, but it isn’t really compartmentalized for easier mental digestion. I’ll do that and, also of course, many have no idea all this information exists so I’ll make it into a presentation format for AXPONA next year. Kurt has already supported the topic and idea for something fun, interesting and factual.
All the gory stuff will be explained so everyone can see what the design is doing, how it does it, and why. Also, this topic can apply to ANY balanced to unbalanced if a designer is even aware of how to do it. So until next year!
Galen
Wait. You mean waving hands, using made up buzzwords, and claiming having sourced a rare supply of military / aerospace 12 9s copper infused with an unobtanium version of graphene isn’t the way to show you know what you’re talking about? 
A note of thank you to our MANY friends and customers who stopped to visit and speak with Kurt and Galen at Axpona. I hear that it was extremely busy. As always, Treehaus Audiolabs used a full loom Iconoclast set up on the very impressive system upstairs. Thank you Rich!
Rumor has it that the foretold price increase could take place as early as next week.
This would be a great time to fill any gaps or needs for cable assemblies!
Great sounding room, with great speakers and a cool looking equipment rack!
I have my sources and preamp wall mounted on the side and two pairs of amps between my speakers. My speakers are split with a planar magnetic tweeter and midrange on top and a dual servo controlled subwoofer section below. One amp for the top and one for the bottom. From the preamp I ran a 15’ pair of BAV RCA interconnects to my upper amps where I had RCA splitters and a short BAV RCA cable to each sub amp.
With this arrangement I got very good sound but also a small amount of transformer hum which I could never quite get rid of. AC filter, DC filter, didn’t matter. Fortunately it was low enough that when the music was playing I could hardly hear it. Not perfect and only somewhat annoying due to the prices involved but I still had options to sort it out.
A few weeks ago I jumped on a 15’ pair of 4x4 XLR interconnects before the price increase. I put them between my preamp and the upper amps. I took out the rca splitters and short cables to the sub amps and plugged the long RCAs directly into the sub amps.
Fired everything up and…
Nothing. No hum. No noise. Everything was dead quiet. I played some music with acoustic guitar and it sprung forth from the nothing sounding both relaxed and vibrant simultaneously. Last night I listened for two hours and had to pry myself away to go to bed! A pricey upgrade but they took my system to the next level!
With the splitters in the RCA, you likely created a ground loop between the two sides not being perfectly equal, and the hum. The issue is going to be random depending on all the grounds potential to true ground. The BAV or ICONOCLAST will both give the same result as both use the same ground DCR shield. One will just have a finer voltage signal, but not a better ground differential. Don’t try to buy up to get out of this problem, you can’t unless the shield DCR is LOWER!!
Running an RCA to each side separate, the ground differential isn’t as bad thus no hum. An RCA is limited by the outer shield DCR to mitigate the end to end DCR differential that single ended will ALWAYS have, and why we use two super heavy braids to keep longer lengths noise floor as low as practical (30 feet or so). We have a wire between the ends that has to have DCR, so we creat a bigger and bigger current loop the farther we go. It is that simple. Don’t go for any answer other than the right one.
What RCA remove is CUB imbalance. We have ONE voltage to a signal ground reference and XLR are nor perfectly balanced from plus to minus sides and have capacitance unbalance, CUB. But, in a longer run that 1%-3% CUB is way better than HUM. Short RCA’s have the most accurate voltage transfer since no CUB imbalance is there and the DCR imbalance can be low in proper length runs so we don’t have noise above -100 dB or better. Many fine and super high level amps are unbalanced for that reason.
An XLR doesn’t use a “ground” as a reference but a floating virtual ground between PIN 2 and 3. PIN 1 is a true RF shield with BOTH ends GROUNDED at each end!! The signal doesn’t use or see PIN 1. XLR distances are more attenuation and driver limited assuming the driver circuit is balanced properly. Not all are. An XLR circuit is more complex and expensive to get right. Both the cable and the driver/receiver have to be “identical” to keep the differential voltage levels what they are meant to be.
Each cable used right is the answer, and you found it!
Best, Galen
