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Black outer jacket with red, green and blue color-coded channels, and matching silicone strain-relief
boots, fitted with your choice of RCA or BNC connectors
This is a three-channel jacketed component video cable, made with Canare's
V3-3C precision cable. This cable assembly features Canare's high-quality,
"True 75 Ohm" connectors, fitted with flexible color-coded silicone strain-relief boots.
The boots enhance the appearance of the cables and avoid sharp bends at the connectors while providing
visual identification of the channels.
This mid-sized, multi-channel cable is a perfect choice for shorter runs, where the appearance of a single
cable jacket is preferable to that of multiple discrete cables. The smaller profile makes for a highly
flexible cable, with outstanding flex life, making it ideal for portable installations or for routing behind
your equipment. Performance is excellent, nearly equaling that of Canare LV-61S, and far exceeding that
of most consumer-grade component video cables.
If you are not sure which component cable
to choose, please
click here for a comparison of Canare
component video cables.
Why Component?
In a word, simplicity. Component video hook-ups eliminate some encoding and decoding steps.
This is likely to improve picture quality because encoding or decoding a color signal is not a very clean
process. Invariably some information is lost, and undesirable artifacts such as chroma crawl, busy edges,
loss of detail in colored areas, and cross-color rainbows are generated. Each pass through the process adds
to the problem, so the fewer times a signal is encoded and decoded, the better. If your equipment supports
component video connections, you will certainly want to take advantage of it.
What Makes Canare So Great?
You can tell by looking that Canare cables and connectors are well made, and you can tell by reading the rave
reviews that Canare cables are great performers! Canare is the choice of professionals and discriminating
enthusiasts, alike.
In our experience, the key to great video cables is in the connectors. Exotic conductors
and shielding are fine, but it's the connectors that really make the
difference. The Monster brand is very popular, but from reading their website,
at the time of this writing, we cannot not see that they even claim to
be using constant impedance connectors on their cables. Tributaries, StraghtWire,
MIT, AudioQuest...I know you've seen the
adds...most of the advertising looks more
like superstition than science. It's
all very confusing, because a higher price
does not necessarily equate to better
performance, and most of the "technical
data" on high-end cables is just a bunch of
mumbo-jumbo, with little or no basis in
fact. Unfortunately, superlatives do
not render a superior picture. In
fact, in our own testing, no cable (at any
price) has outperformed a similarly sized
Canare cable. Even this mid-sized
Canare cable stands up very well against
larger, and much more expensive cables from
other manufacturers.
The Connectors
It is hard to imagine a finer RCA connector than Canare's. They are precision machined to maintain a
constant 75 ohm impedance. We install them using a Canare tool which always prepares the
cable ends, just right. The connectors are crimped in place, using heavy, precision-machined dies.
The crimps are so tight that oxygen is excluded, and thus corrosion is prevented. It's an awesome system,
and the resulting terminations are in a class of their own.
Generic RCA plugs and cables have been around for over 50 years, but the old solder-type plugs typically have an
impedance of about 25 ohms. They exhibit extremely poor return loss performance, even when mated to high
quality cable. Some of the so-called "high end" cables use exotic-sounding materials and make unsupportable
claims, but still fail to solve this very real and important problem.
Canare's new 75 ohm RCA crimp plugs solve these problems. They are
impedance matched and achieve excellent digital and analog performance with a
usable bandwidth to over 200 MHz! The connector design ensures consistent and
extremely reliable terminations. VSWR is typically less than 1.1 from DC
to 200 MHz. The crimp design excludes oxygen, preventing corrosion
associated with dissimilar metals, which can degrade even the best soldered
connections.
The center shaft is gold plated. If you look closely at the picture at
the right, you can see the internal gold-plated beryllium copper pressure fingers, which ensure good contact,
while avoiding the "grip of death", that afflicts Monster's connectors. Those "grip of death" connectors put
unnecessary strain on your equipment. Canare connectors connect up
smoothly, and maintain good contact, while protecting your equipment investment.
The BNC Connectors
The BNC-type connector is the best connector that is commonly available for
applications of this type. In general, it is both mechanically and
electrically superior to an RCA connector. It has a twist-lock mechanism
to ensure that the the connection is mechanically secure, and the electrical
design of the connector does a good job of maintaining constant impedance at the
connector.
Canare takes this inherent superiority to the next level. For example,
many BNC connectors have a characteristic impedance of only 50 ohms, but
Canare connectors are engineered to maintain a constant impedance of 75
ohms. This make a lot of sense because virtually all A/V equipment is
designed to work best with 75 ohm cables. It follows that if you want the
best performance your equipment can deliver, you will need cables and connectors
that maintain this impedance.
This electrical superiority is the result of superior mechanical design, high-quality materials and precision manufacturing. Canare's BNC connectors are
almost artful in their design...and they work very well indeed.
In our experience, the key to great video cables is in the connectors. Exotic
conductors and shielding are fine, but it's the connectors that really make the
difference.
Flawless
Results
Here's what you need if you want the finest video that your equipment can
deliver. You need video cables that are capable of maintaining a constant
impedance. You don't want any bumps at the connectors, and you don't want
the cable itself to change impedance when it bends. Even the finest cable
changes impedance a little bit when it is bent sharply, so avoid doing so.
Nice, smooth, consistent, 75 ohm impedance. That's what your equipment
wants, and that's what will deliver the best picture.
You also want superior mechanical integrity. Nice, tight connections
that will not degrade over time. You want to avoid dissimilar metals,
which can lead to corrosion and degrade connections. To avoid dissimilar
metals, try to stay away from soldered connections wherever you can, because
solder almost guarantees that dissimilar metals will be in contact. Good
solder work minimizes the problem, but there is also the challenge of making a
solder connection without heat deforming the dielectric material of the
cable. Any dimensional change in the dielectric will affect the impedance
of the cable at that point.
Cable Specs
Of course you also want high quality cable. Flexibility is desirable
because it avoids stress on your equipment and the interconnects. Flex
life is important because it prevents cable performance from degrading over
time. Try to avoid multiple materials in the conductors or shielding, because
of the problems associated with dissimilar metals. Low loss is desirable, but don't
sacrifice mechanical integrity in favor of small differences in loss specs! Cables
with foamed dielectric materials generally have lower loss, but foam is not without it's own
inherent problems. Shielding is important, but don't be confused by exorbitant
claims. Electrical shielding is not the same as waterproofing -- you don't need two,
three, four, or more layers of shielding to get good electrical shielding. All the extra
layers make the cables stiff, and tend to make good terminations more difficult to install,
and more prone to failure.
This three-channel Canare cable is lightweight and extremely flexible. Considerably
more flexible than the Monster cables we tested. It has a PVC jacket with a smooth, non-glare
finish, and it stays flexible even at sub-zero temperatures! Here are some specs on the cable:
- Outside jacket diameter, 11.5 mm (.453 in.)
- Individual channel OD, 4.4 mm (.173 in.)
- Low loss - less than .015 db per meter at 1 MHz, and less than .49 db even at 1 GHz!
- Tightly woven all-copper shield with greater than 97% coverage
- Nominal capacitance, 67 pF per meter
- Nominal impedance, 75 ohms
- Velocity of propagation, 66%
- Less than 2.2 nanosecond differential delay between channels
See For Yourself !
We have tested these Canare cables against Monster, and some other more
esoteric cables. In our test setup, no other cable outperformed a Canare cable of
a similar size. If you don't believe it, you can try it yourself. If you don't
already have it, get a copy of the Video Essentials or Avia test disks for your DVD or laserdisc
player, and take a look at the test patterns. Watch for the artifacts
mentioned above that can creep in with lesser cables, then switch to the Canare cables and look
for the difference that constant impedance can make. We tested cables ranging in length from
1 meter to 100 meters. Some of the cables that we tested had specs that looked better on paper
than Canare's, but our my real-world tests, Canare always prevailed.
Why Cable Solutions?
Customer service is our first priority. We do our best to help you find the
best solutions for your particular application. We're enthusiasts too, so
we know what it's like to wait for cables to hook up new gear. We stock
all of the components needed to build all of the items listed on
our site, so we are
able to do something that most cable shops do not - we build and ship most
orders within one business day. We also know how important it is to be able to
get a response when you need help, so you'll often find us working
long hours in an effort to get you the answers that you need. It takes
good people to do outstanding work...the kind of workmanship you want for your
custom cables. It usually costs more to keep good people, but the
importance of high-quality workmanship is second only to the importance of
superior service. I'll let you figure out for yourself why paying too
little for a cable can turn out to be just as bad as paying too much. Our
pricing is based upon the actual cost of building the cables.
Canare cable, Canare connectors, and Canare tools - an all Canare
system. When you take a system this good and put it in the hands of
technicians as good as ours, it becomes an awesome system! Design excellence,
high quality materials, meticulous workmanship, and superior service...put it all
together and you get a superior product. Don't get stuck with bad advice, poor
service, slow shipment or an inferior product. If you want the best, here it is.
Miscellaneous
Please click here to read our policies and disclaimer.
Thanks for reading all of this!
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Click on any of the pictures below for a closer view!
This picture shows a 3 meter cable - please select the length that you need below.
Here is a closer look at the end preparations.
Here is a closer look at the RCA connectors. The green, blue and red silicone strain-relief boots provide
industry-standard color-coding for quick and easy hook-up.
Our "standard" connectors are RCA, as shown here, but you may also choose Canare's high-performance
BNC connectors - you can customize your connector preferences below.
This close-up will give you a good look at the internal gold-plated beryllium copper pressure fingers
and gold-plated center shaft that are unique to Canare's amazing "True 75 Ohm" impedance-matched
RCA connectors.
Shown here are the optional BNC
connectors. Notice the heavy connector
bodies and gold-plated pins..
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