Encyclopaedia Shaft Resistance

Characteristic property of a waveguide. More specifically, it is a cable property for high-frequency cables. This property is relevant if the wavelength of the signal transported in the cable is shorter than about four times the cable length, because then wave effects occur in the cable, such as standing waves, reflections, etc..

In practice, in the hi-fi sector, such effects are relevant for antenna cables, and possibly for video cables and digital audio cables. With analog audio the wavelengths are too long in relation to the cable length to have a noticeable effect. For these cases the characteristic impedance of a cable is therefore irrelevant.

See also:

• Knowledge in the Hifi Forum: characteristic impedance
• Article in Wikipedia: characteristic impedance