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So, Jonathan, let's talk a little bit about cabling. It's often overlooked, I think, in AV projects, but it's very important. So, I'll tell you a story about what happened this week in one of our major projects. We obviously went to a great deal of effort and time to specify particular cabling for the customer in the project, and it's of a very high standard and quality. However, the installation company maybe didn't pay attention and put in a lesser grade quality of cable, which is unfortunate because now that cabling is going to have to be removed and replaced with the right cabling, which is time and money and not a great result for the project. So, I thought, you know, based on that experience it might be a good idea, just to share maybe the Top Three reasons why choosing the right quality of cable for the application is so important.
So, what would be the First Tip or reason you might have?
Yeah, so look when I think of the cabling it really is such a critical part of an audio visual or technology system. And the analogy I like to use is one of a road. So, imagine we've got a Ferrari, we've purchased some great equipment on either end of the road. We've got a perfect car. It's beautiful. It can go really fast. Now, if we put that Ferrari on a nice motorway. It's nice and smooth and we can really make use of that Ferrari and the capabilities. Same with a technology system. Now, if that road had potholes, or it was one lane, or had a lot of traffic at traffic lights on it. All of a sudden, even though you've purchased a fantastic car, you're not actually able to make use of it because of the poor quality of the road. Now, exactly the same thing can be said for cables as well. I can have great displays. I can have great sources. But if that cable, that road, is not high quality, then I'm not actually making use of my systems that I have paid so much money for.
So, the integrity of the signal gets compromised and degraded somewhat, which is not a good result.
Absolutely! Then there's the installing of the cable as well. So, there's two other factors. Yes, I've selected the right type of cable. You know, I'm going to build a motorway, but now we've to think about how to install it. We want to try and make it straight and without any breaks. Okay so no traffic lights stopping along the way. Perfect! And the other one is when we physically install it is we want to make sure we adhere to all of the manufacturer's requirements so that we can get the maximum performance. Now imagine laying the road. You poured the right tarmac, but you haven't installed it correctly, and now it's all deformed with those potholes. Same thing can be said for installing cables. So that's why we need to make sure we terminate, maintain bend radius and install it as per the manufacturer's instructions.
And just going back to the breaks in the chain concept. That's also a design related aspect, isn't it? You want to have that integrity of signal and reduce the breaks in the chain as much as possible because even little terminations, even if they're terminated correctly and installed correctly, it's still potential signal loss or degradation, which compromises the ultimate image or your sound that you're hearing or control signal.
That's right. It's an opportunity to leak.
Perfect! Alright thanks, Jonathan. Hopefully, viewers find that useful. If you'd like to know a bit more information, maybe at a technical level, feel free to reach out to especially Jonathan here at konnectus. Thanks for watching.
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Really didn't tell me very much about how to specify the "correct quality" of cable
Hi @Phil King. Thanks for the comment. That is true. Specifying the correct quality cable would be a longer video and more project or system example related. This video is more high level and shares some basic best practices. Cheers. David