[BC] audio cable termination

[Cowboy]

On Thursday 03 January 2008 11:51 pm, Mario Hieb wrote:
>  Terminating audio lines and other cables is a subject that interests 
>  me and tends to come up now and again.


>  So I throw the question out to all of you; why do we terminate 
>  cables? When should we terminate cables?

 Depends on why there is a cable there at all !

 In most cases, the objective is to take a signal, or energy, and
 simply transport it from one location to the other, unchanged.
 In other cases, it is desirable to change the signal in some fashion.
 In any case, the cable itself is a circuit component, with its own
 characteristics, which may be desirable characteristics, or
 undesirable characteristics and will have some affect on the
 signal or energy being transported, which may or may not
 be significant.
 If the cable is "short" the effects may be insignificant, in which case
 the decision to terminate will depend solely on what affect on the
 signal is created by the termination itself.
 If the cable is "long" and the effects significant, then the decision
 to terminate will be dependent on whether it is desired to augment,
 mitigate, or in some other fashion affect some control on the effect
 of the cable on the signal, in concert with the affects of the termination.
 Therefore, the decision to terminate, and with what, is a design
 decision based on the function of the system as a whole.

-- 
Cowboy