Cable Building

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

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  1. AllanMarcus

    AllanMarcus Friend

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    There’s a guy in Colorado that claims to have designed those, and he sells them on eBay.
    https://www.ebay.com/itm/HD650-Conn...D650-HD600-HD565-HD580-HD414-DIY/112846308638
    Out of stock, but if you message him in eBay, he might be getting some in.
    I used a pair and they work great for sennheiser; not so well for fostex.
     
  2. gixxerwimp

    gixxerwimp Professional tricycle rider

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    The listing says "Does not ship to Taiwan" (for possibly obvious reasons). If anyone gets hold of some, I'd be interested in a couple to try my hand at making a cable with the Norne wire, so enamored I am with the one I now have for my Clears.
     
  3. fraggler

    fraggler A Happy & Busy Life

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    Do I need to post a video on the 8 wire braid for you :D?
     
  4. gixxerwimp

    gixxerwimp Professional tricycle rider

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    I'm going to ask for it eventually ;)

    Edit: and the twist above the y-split :p
     
    Last edited: Sep 25, 2019
  5. gixxerwimp

    gixxerwimp Professional tricycle rider

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  6. AllanMarcus

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  7. Baten

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  8. gixxerwimp

    gixxerwimp Professional tricycle rider

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    You mean how L/R are stamped on the stock connectors and face outwards? You could use a black marker on the clear part to indicate the outward facing side of each connector.

    Would you mind taking a photo of them plugged into HD650? Does the cylindrical section sit exactly flush with the bottom of the cup?

    Are there any provisions for strain relief?

    Do you know what these small plugs are for? Are they for use with thinner cables?

    [​IMG]
     
  9. fraggler

    fraggler A Happy & Busy Life

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    Flip those small plugs around in your mind. The narrower part should go out the bottom. And yes, they are for smaller wires. I have a set on order, as I like the 5mm opening.
     
  10. AllanMarcus

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    Sorry for the delay...
    IMG_1048.JPG IMG_1049.JPG
     

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  11. willsw

    willsw Friend

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    @AllanMarcus Thanks for the pictures, those do look like a step up from your standard heat-sensitive snap-together style.
     
  12. Azimuth

    Azimuth FKA rtaylor76, Friend

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    My cable for my Fostex T-50's came out pretty fair.

    [​IMG]

    Canre quad Mic cable with paracord. I used that balanced right angle connector because it was the only one that was a decent quality right angle 1/8" connector to fit the recessed jack on the Fostex headphones. No, not balanced, and I did not want to mod the Fostex headphones at the moment with a different type connector.

    The black rubber strain relief is a piece of the outer rubber jacket of the original mic cable.

    There was a definite volume jump as compared to a Vmoda cable out of my Vali 2 with an adaper. Things also sounded less "phasey" and had a more direct sound.
     
    Last edited: Oct 2, 2019
  13. gixxerwimp

    gixxerwimp Professional tricycle rider

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    @AllanMarcus Nice pics.

    Are there any provisions for strain relief? There doesn't seem to be a chuck or screw to secure the cable inside the housing. Would one have to rely on a blob of hot glue or something?
     
  14. AllanMarcus

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    Correct
     
  15. Azimuth

    Azimuth FKA rtaylor76, Friend

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    Those rubber collars I believe go inside the screw on housing for strain relief. I could be wrong.

    My set just came in and will be installing once my Y splitter gets here from Hong Kong.
     
  16. gixxerwimp

    gixxerwimp Professional tricycle rider

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    Ah, I didn't realize those collars were rubber. Something still needs to clamp/squeeze onto the cable to hold it in place though, right? And if doing a thicc 8-wire build or something with sleeving that has a larger OD, then one might not be able to use them.

    Sorry for the newbie questions/comments. All of this will likely be obvious for you experienced cable builders.

    In any case, next time someone orders these and doesn't mind forwarding me a pair or 2, please shoot me a PM, as this one also says "Does not ship to Taiwan".
     
  17. fraggler

    fraggler A Happy & Busy Life

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    I don't know of any HD6xx connectors that have any sort or real strain relief like a clamp. Up until recently no HD800 connectors either. Just had to rely on good soldering and hotglue or epoxy with heatshrink.
     
  18. monacelli

    monacelli Friend

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    I recently had an experience that opened my eyes to the sonic differences that cables can make. For a long time I had been using a super shitty $5 RCA cable (this one) to connect my DAC to my SYS. I finally got around to replacing it with a nice star quad cable from Ghent Audio, based on Canare L-4E6S. I'm not going to get into the woo-woo aspects of comparing cables, but the differences were stark. Big enough to make me think I should pay at least some attention to cables and connectors.

    So I decided to build a cable for my HD600. Since I got along well with my star quad interconnects, I decided to use Canare L-4E3-2P. It's essentially 2-channel interleaved star quad. It's beautifully made and inexpensive, something like $2/ft at Markertek. I'm still waiting for the Sennheiser connectors, but I figured since I had most of the parts I might as well make myself an IEM impedance adapter for my Vali 2. I love the modded JVC HA-FD01, but the hum on low-gain made it a no-go with the Vali 2. Some people may find it silly to build an impedance adapter using an 8-conductor shielded cable, but hey, why not?

    I will say up front that this project was a real PITA. I actually aborted my first attempt, bought new parts and started over. Shoehorning 4-resistors into the body of a 1/4" plug connector is not my idea of a good time. Unbraiding the shields on the star quad channels also required a lot of patience. I poked a little hole in the copper shield using the business end of a tweezer and carefully teased it apart. Once I had it all separated, I twisted the strands back together and crimped the shields together with the cable bundle drain using a parallel splice. I then snipped all but the drain conductor from the splice and soldered it to the ground of the jack end. This made my life a little easier since I could leave the shield(s) floating on the plug end where the resistors were already taking up too much space. Like some others in this thread who completed their first headphone cable project, I acquired a newfound respect for cable building.

    The sonic returns are good so far! I managed to not f**k up the left-right channels which is a bonus, and I haven't blown up my IEMs or my amp (yet, hehe). It is dead silent on low gain, and actually quiet enough that I could listen on high gain if desired. To my ears, high gain does not sound as good here, likely because the damping factor starts to get too low. I will say, this is the best I have heard the FD01 sound by a good margin. Spacious, well-controlled, very clean. They respond really well to quality amplification provided the noise floor is low enough.

    Here are some details about the adapter:
    -16.4 dB attenuation (R1 = 12.4R, R2 = 2.21R)
    1.94R effective source impedance on low gain (impedance "seen" by the IEM)
    14.3R effective load impedance on low gain (impedance "seen" by the amp)

    Parts:
    Cable, Canare L-4E3-2P
    Plug, 1/4" Amphenol JS3PB-AU
    Jack, 1/4" Neutrik NJ3FC6-BAG
    Resistors, Vishay Dale RN55D
    Sleeving, Techflex 5/16" nylon monofilament
    Heat shrink, 3M 3/8" FP-301
    Splice, Molex 19205-0001

    Pics or it didn't happen:
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited: Dec 13, 2019
  19. wormcycle

    wormcycle Friend

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    never thought about star quad for RCA. I use start quad Mogami or Canare for balanced interconnects and headphone cables, but Belden or Canare crimped coax for RCA.
     
  20. Azimuth

    Azimuth FKA rtaylor76, Friend

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    About time to talk about my custom HD650 cable. It has been a work in progress. Standard Canre L-4E6S with a strait pair of wires going to each driver. Grounds tied at the Neutrik 1/4" connector. rubber jacket stripped and sheathed with some 550 paracord I found at the hardware store.

    The reason it was in progress for so long is I could not really figure out how to do the Y-split very well. Information and sizes are really hard to find. When searching for "y split headphone cable", you get a lot of headphone signal splitters - a much different product.

    I originally had some heat shrink, thinking that is all I need. I put 550 paracord on the other parts of the Y-split cable, but a) it was too loose with just a single pair of cables, and b) the paracord kept coming out of the Y-split.

    After ordering a few barrel splitters and realizing it is a) too big, or b) too small, I was finally able to get one barrel connector to work perfectly, but it meant there would be no paracord from the split to the headphones. Luckily the blue pattern paracord I chose kind of goes with the blue and white wires.

    I also tried the new connectors. And I will say there is not much and pretty much no strain relief. The rubber collar does not really do much. The pins are also really in there...hard go get out of the headphones once connected.

    [​IMG]
     

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