cables

I don't buy it - "IN THEORY" crosstalk may be an issue - in practice - unless the round cable or connector is damaged, no way. The round cable makers account for crosstalk by adding twists to the wires so that they do not run parallel to each other the whole length of the cable. The signal strength is just not enough to be induced into adjacent wires and any that might be susceptable to these "eddy currents" is then cancelled out by the twists.

The restricted air flow with flat cables should be of more concern than cross talk.

I think they just did not want to spend the extra couple dollars for the round cables and wanted to use the cheap flat cables provided by the drive makers.

That is true - but then you might need some very long cables.

But, and perhaps more importantly, bending cables is typically frowned upon, from an engineering/technician's viewpoint. Bending a cable so that there is a "kink" or permanent bend in the wiring puts undue stress on the insulation and possible damage. Bending wires can create micro-stress fractures in the wiring - which can actually change the electrical characteristic of the wire that is bent. This is because of "skin effect" - that property that says that current flows on the outside of a conductor. When you physically bend the wire, you change the shape of the outside of the conductor, much more so than when there is a gentle curve. The cumulative effect of 5 or 6 added bends may affect total resistance in the conductor.

Round cables come in 12, 18, as well as 24 inch length - I feel these allow for some tight fits without the fancy bending and routing of cables - much easier if you have to get in to swap something out.

Point taken with the analogy, but to be fair, we're talking about comparing the human ear to a computer. I would think that the computer would be a lot more discriminating than our ears.


Anyway, I would expect that the quality of manufacturing of the motherboards and the hard drive is such that it shouldn't be a problem.

Oh yeah - i found the article and here's the quote:

"Falcon does not use rounded IDE cables for their optical drives because they have found through experience that there has been too much crosstalk in the wires when they are bundled together so tightly."


http://www.twitchguru.com/2006/01/ [...] page6.html

My point was, sure anything is possible in terms of 'cross-talk'
but it's not something I would be concerned about. The fact
that a company claims they do something for any reason should
always be treated with a certain degree of skepticism.

Does Falcon use certain wires to prevent cross-talk? Possibly.
Does Falcon use certain wires because they look nicer and
they can charge more? Probably.

That was my point and I'm sorry I wasn't a little more clear, it had
been a long day of drinkin' and quadin' in our little snowstorm yest.