Cable Building

Discussion in 'DIY' started by Skyline, Sep 30, 2015.

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  1. Xen

    Xen Friend

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    I do not have any experience with Mogami w2528, but I have used Canare Star Quad. My opinion would be to go Star Quad and do 1 cable for 1 channel. While the Mogami w2528 is shielded, it is not twisted and is in "zip" cord formation. I cannot see how dense the shield is for the Mogami. The spec sheet on that Mogami is, unfortunately, very light on details.

    http://www.redco.com/Canare-L-4E6S.html
    The price on the L-4E6S is better. It has lower capacitance. It has lower resistance. It is twisted-paired. It has an excellent copper shield. The outside jacket is silky and pretty enough to use unsheathed.

    EDIT: What uncola said, Blue Jean Cables suggests Belden 1505f as an alternative to their LC-1 cable.
     
  2. PoochZag

    PoochZag The Shadow knows - Friend

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    Thanks for the input, both of you \/

    Blue Jeans and Audioquest Evergreen I have both considered, but are a tad out of my price range especially since I'm going to need a couple that are 7 to 10 feet each (rearranging some things, and added a poweramp for HE-6).

    I may go with that belden coaxial, $1.33/ft is still very reasonable, and could be worth it for peace of mind and to try something new. Maybe that dual channel mogami for some shorter, less important ones.
     
  3. Armaegis

    Armaegis Friend

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    The Benchmark guys (and they're all about the numbers) use Canare L-4E6S.
     
  4. logscool

    logscool Friend

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    Coax is great for unbalanced signals and star quad for balanced. Having twisted wires doesn't do much for you if the signal running through them is unbalanced in that case the superior shielding of high quality coax is better.

    For star quad I am a fan of Canare L-4E6S or L-4E5C if you need something thinner, it has better specs, better shielding, and is thinner and more supple for the same wire gauge compared to Mogami (2534 or 2893).

    For coax belden 1694A is the industry standard. Belden 1505F is great stuff too and is my choice matched up with canare RCAP-C42 connectors when building RCA cables.
     
  5. batriq

    batriq Probably has made you smarter

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    If I want to build very short interconnects ~1ft using 24 awg solid silver wire, do I twist the signal and ground or can I just keep them separated? Should I use a higher gauge for ground (I have 20awg). Note that I'll be covering them in teflon tubing.
     
  6. fraggler

    fraggler A Happy & Busy Life

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    Twist them up gently.
     
  7. batriq

    batriq Probably has made you smarter

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    Thanks! Shall I use 24awg for both signal and return? Also, how do you hold the twist together at the two ends (since the teflon tubes are somewhat rigid)? I have both heat shrink and plumbers teflon tape. What would you prefer?
     
  8. fraggler

    fraggler A Happy & Busy Life

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    w
    I tend to use teflon tape while building, then some minimal heatshrink once finishing. Don't really see a reason to use anything other than 24 for both signal and return.
     
  9. batriq

    batriq Probably has made you smarter

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    Thank you for the advice! It may be a little while but I'll post pics once done.
     
  10. Jh4db536

    Jh4db536 Friend

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    8 Conductor Umbilical 'Black Schnake' (DC Power, SSR trigger)
    Made out of Teflon shielded 22ga cyro treated mil spec wire
    http://www.cryo-parts.com/product/mil-spec-22-awg-silver-plated-ofc/
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
    6 Conductor Umbilical (DC Power) Using leftover materials
    [​IMG]
    Made out of Whiplash Cryo SCSAg and Neutrik NYS231BG 3.5mm - my first ever attempt at DIY cabling. Material is extremely difficult to work with (solid core) and ridiculously expensive. I switched to the other stuff for all my builds.
    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited: Jun 2, 2016
  11. uncola

    uncola Friend

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    nice, would like to see your gamma 3 dac when you finish too :)
     
  12. batriq

    batriq Probably has made you smarter

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    Done!

    IMG_20160619_153645.jpg
     
  13. AllanMarcus

    AllanMarcus Friend

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    Hi. I really need three or four (but I would take as little as one) HD800 pins. I have two pairs of barrels and one pin, and I'm trying to make two cables. If you happen to have any, maybe used and leftover from a re-cabling job, please let me know.

    I tried to order from Luna shops, but they are useless. They claim to have shipped them, but they never arrived. Highly recommend avoiding lunashops
     
  14. bazelio

    bazelio Friend

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    @Jh4db536 nice find that 22awg twisted pair. I might be curious to try it as interconnect.

    Cooked up these XLR-to-RCA cables tonight, in order to use the XLR Yggdrasil outputs to the singled ended ZDS input. These are 2 foot unshielded, with XLR pin 3 unterminated.

    Here's a parts breakdown and cost:

    8' 99.995% 24 AWG solid silver wire: $14
    8' 22 AWG teflon tube: $2.08
    2 Canare RCA connectors: $8.12
    2 Amphenol XLR female connectors (gold plated contacts): $12.16
    16" heatshrink: $0.79 or so.

    Total cost 2' solid silver XLR to RCA interconnects: $37.15
    Alternate solutions involving transformers (e.g. ISOMax PC-2XR): $329.99

    Note: this is the first time I've seen Amphenol connectors. I like Neutrik better for sure, but I do like the strain relief system in the Amphenol for these small wires.

    [​IMG]
     
  15. PoochZag

    PoochZag The Shadow knows - Friend

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    I built a braided ZMF Blackwood with Canare Star Quad cable last night while watching football, and snapped some pictures. I put together a captioned imgur album below on the basics and stripping, sleeving, braiding...etc. It's likely noob city for many of the members subscribed to this thread, but maybe it will prove useful to a person or two who stumble upon it in the future.

    http://imgur.com/a/iTZco


    Came out decent though, one of my better ones as far as fit-and-finish. I still need some work on the 2-strand twist after the Y

    [​IMG][/IMG] [​IMG][/IMG] [​IMG]
     
  16. Xen

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    Nice album on the processes!
     
  17. Torq

    Torq MOT: Headphone.com

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    In anticipation of my resolve faltering and me winding up picking up a Jotunheim, I figured I should make up a suitably light and flexible balanced cable for my HD650. And even if I don't go that path, it'll work with my other amps anyway.

    I wanted something very light and flexible, so I used Canare L-4E6S as the core and kept it in it's star-quad configuration (rather than pulling it apart and braiding it). This has the advantage of making for a much faster build, and it's possible to run standard #550 paracord right over the core of the L-4E6S without even having to remove the paper wrap or fibers from the wire bundle. I did have to remove the outer jacket and shield, but that's a quick and easy deal.

    The splitter is a little Eidolic one, and at the split I just separated the two twisted pairs from the main bundle, pulled the fibres out, and ran more #550 along it.

    Cable.jpg Splitter.jpg XLR.jpg

    Next up I'll likely do a braided version, mostly to see how it compares in terms of flexibility, along with a phase-reversal adapter and a converter to 1/4" phono.

    And finally, and I'll post proper details on this when I do it (hopefully on Thursday), something I've been meaning to play with for a while ... a headphone cable with actively biased dielectric. I've done this with interconnects before but never with a headphone cable, so that's overdue. Not making any comments/predictions on audible differences or lack-thereof at this point.

    Adding a variation on a similar theme, since I was asked in PM but can't upload images there:

    HD650 Cryo.jpg
     
    Last edited: Mar 31, 2017
  18. pedalhead

    pedalhead Friend

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    Lovely job there Torq. I particularly like the heatshrink on the wires going into the XLR, must have been fiddly!

    Just learning the cable ropes at the moment, I've made a mostly ok RCA cable & want to have a go at a balanced cable for my incoming HD650. Any thoughts please from anyone on whether 110 ohm cable is ok for this purpose? I have 10 metres of Van Damme tour grade AES cable here & it'd be handy if it's a runner. Cheers.
     
  19. Kattefjaes

    Kattefjaes Mostly Harmless

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    That's a stylish-looking cable!

    One question.. I had something very similar built for me by a well-known cable maker, and found that having the braiding after the Y-split made it quite microphonic (similar to the stock HiFIMAN cables). Although it looked slick and was fairly comfortable to use, every time I so much as blinked, it made noise.

    How noisy is yours, so far?

    (The story had a happy ending. The well-known cable maker was more than happy to take it back and refund me. I was so impressed with their service that I told them to put the money towards a direct replacement for the stock HE-400i cable in fancy braided copper, which is fantastic.)

    Have you considered grabbing a spare official HD650 cable and re-terminating it? They're quite cheap, and already have the right connectors on t'other end:

    https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sennheiser-3m-Replacement-Cable-HD650-Black/dp/B0028PGXRE

    It's not a fancy cable, but it works just fine, and doesn't cost a fortune.. You could also chop it down to a saner length in the process.

    (Yeah, I now shamefacedly admit that I bought one that had been re-terminated for me, as I couldn't find my soldering iron... )
     
    Last edited: Sep 29, 2016
  20. uncola

    uncola Friend

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    pedalhead 110 ohm digital cable is ok to use for analog cables but not the reverse.. but I think aes cable is only 3 conductor(shield counts).. for balanced headphone I think you need 4
     

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