RCA Cable The Iconoclast RCA cable presents the same materials and electricals as our XLR cable -- using the same air tube design but in a coaxial rather than a star quad architecture. A bare copper conductor (or four, in the case of the Gen 2 model) is suspended in a Teflon air tube using a glass-and-Teflon spacer thread; over this are three layers: a PTFE insulating tube, a heavy double-braid TPC copper shield, and a jacket of translucent PTFE.
TPC Electrolytic Tough-Pitch Copper: 99.9% pure; used in most quality communications cable99.9% pureOFE Oxygen-Free Electrolytic Copper: 99.99% pure, higher grade than traditional OFHC99.99% pureUPOCC Ultra-Pure Ohno Continuous Cast: 99.998% pure, made for specialty aerospace applications99.998% pureQuiet Double-braid copper shield provides excellent shielding and reduces differences in ground potentialPrecise Gen-2 product has four separate parallel center conductors, held a hair's breadth apart by a tiny X-splineAiry Conductor is suspended in an air tube by a unique glass-and-Teflon spacer
Design Details: Center Conductor:
The signal conductors are available in three copper grades: TPC, OFE or UPOCC. In Generation 1 cables, these are solid 25 AWG copper; in Generation 2, a tiny X-shaped spline separates four 30 AWG copper wires, for a significant reduction in inductance at only slight cost in capacitance.
The conductors: Generation 1, above, solid 25 AWG; Generation 2, below, four bare 30 AWG wires separated and helically wound around an X-shaped spline.
Separator:
Air is the best dielectric, but a conductor left in an air tube with no spacing separator will tend to press itself against the solid dielectric. To avoid this we use a unique round separator thread. If this were made purely in soft dielectric material, it would not be able to retain a rounded profile -- and hence minimal contact with the wire -- well through the cable; we have solved this problem by using a glass thread as the separator core, with PTFE extruded over it: a perfect combination of strength and dielectric quality.
Our Generation 2 conductor, with separator thread wrapped around it Shield:
Over the air tube containing the center conductor, we add two high-coverage bare TPC copper braids, one right over the other. Shielding in an RCA interconnect can be critically important: unlike a balanced circuit, an unbalanced circuit provides no common-mode noise rejection, and so the shield is the one and only defense against EMI and RFI using the cable as an entry point. Additionally, the heavy shielding provides a low-resistance ground contact between devices to help keep them at the same ground potential, to avoid ground loop problems.
High-coverage double TPC shield braid for added noise rejection and low-resistance ground path
Jacket:
Atop the shield is a translucent PTFE jacket, color-coded by copper type: Red for TPC, Blue for OFE, and Green for UPOCC.
Translucent PTFE jackets -- OCC, OFE and TPC" Connectors:
We use the Cardas SRCA connector on all Iconoclast RCA products. The Cardas is a dense brass-bodied connector with a large ground contact area, providing for tight, low-resistance solder joints.
Cardas SRCA Connector
For a Deeper Dive:
All of the engineering work in support of these designs is laid out in a series of papers by Galen Gareis, available in our technical library: In particular, for these XLR designs, see the papers titled Time, RCA/XLR Design Brief, and 1x4 and 4x4 Design.
"From what I have used, Iconoclast more than owns this territory. But it's not simply a good bang for the buck. Don’t be surprised if it gives you more sonic satisfaction than other cables costing 2 or 3 times the price."
RCA Cable
