shielded banana cable with ground question

[Homer J Simpson]

Question regarding dual banana jack cable that has ground provisions on both ends.

What is the gain and or benefit of a  banana cable that has the  shielding / grounding provision vs one that does not ?

What voltages / currents would the shielding and grounding make a difference and by how much ?

Usage example - connecting a power supply to a DMM.

[ Specified attachment is not available ]

[Benta]

What is the gain and or benefit of a  banana cable that has the  shielding / grounding provision vs one that does not ?

None at all. And how would you know that the prong spacing fits your instrument? There's no standard for that. Solution looking for a problem.

[sleemanj]

There's no standard for that.

There is a usual spacing between typical pairs of banana sockets, 19mm (0.75"), it's common enough that you could call it a defacto standard. 

Eg measure the Com and Volts sockets on your multimeter, majority will be 19mm apart.

[David Aurora]

What is the gain and or benefit of a  banana cable that has the  shielding / grounding provision vs one that does not ?

None at all. And how would you know that the prong spacing fits your instrument? There's no standard for that. Solution looking for a problem.

1. I can almost guarantee it's 19mm, basically every manufacturer in the world agrees on this (hence companies like Neutrik making dual banana connectors that meet that standard)
2. Benefit of these cables depends on what you're doing with them. This is exactly the kind of cable I would use with various bits of test gear on my shelves (e.g. balanced audio signal generator, attenuator boxes, assorted meters, etc)

[tooki]

What is the gain and or benefit of a  banana cable that has the  shielding / grounding provision vs one that does not ?

None at all. And how would you know that the prong spacing fits your instrument? There's no standard for that. Solution looking for a problem.

Why provide such an actively anti-helpful answer?

1. The fact that these exist indicate there is a use for them.

2. As others have said, 3/4” (~19mm) is the de-facto standard for banana jacks on most things. It’s what you find on test gear, speakers, etc.

[tooki]

Question regarding dual banana jack cable that has ground provisions on both ends.

What is the gain and or benefit of a  banana cable that has the  shielding / grounding provision vs one that does not ?

What voltages / currents would the shielding and grounding make a difference and by how much ?

Usage example - connecting a power supply to a DMM.

(Attachment Link)

A tiny bit of info can be found on that cable’s datasheet: https://www.pomonaelectronics.com/products/cables/coaxial-and-rf-cables/double-banana-plugs-shielded-balanced-line

[tszaboo]

I was calibrating some power supplies a while ago, and the way the leads were connected definitely made a difference in the noise measurements. It's supposed to have max few mV of noise under full load. Having cables like this make the test setup foolproof, otherwise I had to swap cables for different tests.

[abeyer]

You can read about some cabling setups for measurement using the shield & guard terminals here:

Modern Precision Multimeter Measurements

(The details of "What voltages / currents would the shielding and grounding make a difference and by how much?" are left as an exercise for the reader  )

[Tomorokoshi]

Great. Now there's another cable I need to get.