Canare L-4CFB Component Video Cable Set

 Canare L-4CFB Pro Series Precision Component Video Cable Set

This picture shows a 2 meter set with our "standard" yellow jackets*.  The actual length of the cable offered for sale on this page is 3 meter (9.8 foot).

This Canare L-4CFB Pro-Series Component Video Cable Set is made with Canare's remarkable
L-4CFB Serial Digital cable.  We use Canare's matching "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.

Here is an upgrade for your system that will be hard to miss - from the professional look and feel of the cables themselves, to the superior quality of the video that they provide.  Perfect for DVD or HDTV hook-ups!

If you are not sure which component cable to choose, please check out the comparison of Canare component video cables on our website.

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?

If one takes the time to compare video cables, one will see many claims as to the superiority of one brand of cable versus another. Most of the rhetoric is about the features of the cable itself - conductivity, resistance, capacitance, exotic materials and even the mechanical arrangement of the conductors.  Some of the claims have a basis in science and some are just nonsense.  There is less talk about the connectors and even less yet about how the connectors join the cable.

Exotic materials are fine, but the connector design and the cable to connector interface are arguably the most critical factors in any scientific comparison between cable assemblies.  The cable to connector interface is where impedance mismatch can occur.  Impedance mismatch is easy to measure scientifically, and the effects of mismatch are well known and understood by engineers.  If one considers the fact that Canare is a company that markets their products primarily to engineers and people who work with engineers, one can begin to appreciate their obsession with connector design.

To that end, Canare has done something that virtually no other company has done before or since - they engineered a line of high-performance coaxial cables, and then they engineered matching connectors, purpose-made for each of their excellent cables.  That accomplishment is, in itself , worthy of praise, but Canare went a step farther by also engineering a set of proprietary tools that are, once again, purpose-made to terminate their cables with their connectors while maintaining a high degree of precision and repeatability.  In our experience, no other system is as complete as Canare's.

Other cable shops offer cables and/or connectors that look like Canare's, but the similarity ends with the looks.  Knock-offs may be less expensive, but if one wants cable assemblies that take complete advantage of Canare's expertly engineered matching cable, connector and tool system, one cannot substitute a non-Canare cable, connector, or tool and expect to get the same results.

RCA 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 proprietary Canare tool that 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.

Ironically, the most common connector used for interconnecting consumer A/V gear may also be the worst connector in general use today.  Generic RCA type audio plugs and cables have been around since the 1940s, but the old solder-type plugs typically have an impedance of about 25 ohms. As a result, they exhibit extremely poor return loss performance, even when mated to high quality cable. Some of the most expensive "high end" cables still rely on connector designs that are both electrically and mechanically inferior.

Canare's "True 75 Ohm" RCA crimp plugs solve these problems. They are impedance matched to achieve excellent performance in both digital and analog applications.  They have a usable bandwidth of over 200 MHz and VSWR is typically less than 1.1:1 from DC to 200 MHz!  This low standing wave ratio minimizes reflected signals for maximum signal transfer and clear sound.

If you look at the picture at the right, you can see the gold-plated center shaft.  If you click on the picture, you can get a better look at the internal gold-plated beryllium copper pressure fingers.  The design ensures good contact, while solving the "grip of death" problem that can be an issue with Monster and some of the other manufacturers' 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.

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 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.

The Cable

These cables are made with Canare's remarkable L-4CFB Serial Digital cable.  They are lightweight and flexible  - more flexible than any of the Monster cables we tested. They have PVC jackets with a smooth, non-glare finish.  They have a foamed dielectric for amazingly low loss and faster velocity of propagation.  They are double shielded for 100% coverage -- the inner shield is aluminum foil and the outer shield is tinned braided copper.  Here are some specs on the cable:

• Outside diameter, 6.1mm (.240 in.)
• Low loss - less than .029 dB per meter at 10 MHz, and less than 4.3 dB even at 2 GHz!
• Tightly woven tinned all-copper shield with greater than 93% coverage, combined with an aluminum foil shield with 100% coverage
• Nominal capacitance, 55 pF per meter at 1 KHz
• Nominal impedance, 75 ohms
• Velocity of propagation, 79%

To tell you the truth, the CFB series cables bend and even break some of our own rules.  The specifications and performance are very high, to be sure, but you should be aware that these cables were designed primarily for facility wiring applications.  They are double-shielded - the center conductor is solid copper, the inner shield is aluminum foil, and the outer shield is tinned stranded copper.  They are less flexible than Canare cables that have all stranded conductors, such as LV-61S video cable, so one would expect performance to degrade with repeated handling or movement. Canare's crimp system goes a long way in solving problems associated with cable of this type, so if you demand specifications at this level, you can take comfort in knowing that Canare's system is the best we have ever seen.  If you are able to install the cables where they won't get a lot of handling or movement, you should be very pleased indeed.

If greater flexibility, flex life, and handling characteristics are more important to you, or if you want a more extensive choice of colors, please consider our Canare LV-61S cable assemblies.

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 in our real-world tests, Canare always prevailed.

*Be sure to include a note with your payment to let us know which of the included jacket colors and connectors you prefer.  If you do not specify, we will use our "standard" configuration which is yellow cable jackets, RCA to RCA.