Cable Building

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

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  1. k4rstar

    k4rstar Britney fan club president

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    yes, lack of body and density is what I experienced with the gac/1 ultrapro and the GHC headphone cable. attenuated LF and suppressed harmonics in favor of air and macro-detail. it showed itself up immediately on piano, like you said. the DGS-1 is still far from thick but it takes at least one or two steps towards more correct density and harmonic fleshiness.

    the resonant character of instruments is best revealed with vintage copper wire, in my experience. unfortunately it is very cost prohibitive to make cables of long lengths, so I have been trying to find a reasonable sounding bulk wire. I think the DGS-1 is as good as the Belden 8402/8412, just more maybe a bit more 'european' than 'japanese'.
     
  2. gixxerwimp

    gixxerwimp Professional tricycle rider

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  3. wormcycle

    wormcycle Friend

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    The question is not about audio cables but you may know.
    I was assembling a DIY power plug and one of the screws inside the IEC connector was busted. I soldered a ground wire directly to the blade. Is that OK to do? Any potential issues other than bad soldering?
     
  4. fastfwd

    fastfwd Friend

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    Electrical codes require a mechanical connection because the wires can get hot if there's a fault -- potentially hot enough to melt solder. Also, a mechanical connection is harder to screw up, easy to inspect, easy to disconnect, etc.

    My advice would be to buy another plug and redo the assembly.
     
  5. gixxerwimp

    gixxerwimp Professional tricycle rider

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    So I finally received the right connector after initially being sent the wrong stuff.

    221406.jpg

    Not much room inside the barrel. I initially soldered double strands of Norne Cu 22 AWG wire to the outside of each tab, but couldn't thread the barrel all the way on. So I undid it all and shoved the wire between the tabs and the Teflon knob before soldering. Then a thin ring of heat shrink and hot glue trimmed to fit for strain relief.

    221526.jpg

    End product connecting my Ag/Cu hybrid cable to Liquid Carbon v1.

    221774.jpg


    Unfortunately, I then noticed I messed up the braid towards the end. Cbf'd to fix it. The heat shrink at the female 4.4mm end is to cover up the beginning of the 8-strand braid which doesn't look very symmetrical. Anyway, it works.

    221779.jpg
     
  6. tommytakis

    tommytakis MOT: E.T.A Headphones

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    Made monster sized cables with unknown length this morning. Braiding took more than 2 hours... never again

    03EE2FE6-DE07-45D0-94A9-A8906C328723.jpeg F9D0ED44-F084-45DE-8D5F-1F974E1E358B.jpeg
    151A9A25-6A21-4A4A-BE58-65D795C41278.jpeg
     
    Last edited: Nov 29, 2020
  7. e.schell

    e.schell Friend

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    @tommytakis what wire did you use on that behemoth?
     
  8. tommytakis

    tommytakis MOT: E.T.A Headphones

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    A friend sent me 100ft of amazon basic speaker wire so I thought why not haha
     

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  9. gixxerwimp

    gixxerwimp Professional tricycle rider

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    That's nothing. I usually spread an 8-wire braid over several evenings :D
     
  10. ohshitgorillas

    ohshitgorillas Friend

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    Oh, y'all wanna talk about ridiculous braiding? Allow me to show off the ridiculous power cable I've just finished...

    I have been working on a special RCA cable design which got put on hold due to a wrist injury. It used 26awg cryo silver plated copper from partsconnexion as the ground wires, but on a whim I decided to go with 24awg. Bad idea: this was slightly too large to sleeve... so I had a ton of nice SPC wire leftover with no specific purpose.

    A week or so ago, it hit me: turn it into a ridiculous power cable. I've seen a lot of praise about the noise rejection capabilities of braided cables, both as signal and power cables. I myself have made a couple of power cables before this one, both featuring a six-way braid (triple braid of twisted pairs), and have been pleased with their performance as being superior to my usual Pangea AC14SE. This power cable is intended for my incoming Jotunheim 2 (still waiting on shipping).

    I don't have anything that draws more current than a standard IEC cable can handle, and these are usually 18awg, so I figured I'd need at least five 24awg wires per hot/neutral/earth. I ended up going with a sixteen-core braid, basically four four-way square braids in a four-way square braid. I added a seventeenth wire wrapped around the braid itself:
    20201223_113424.jpg
    20201224_141115.jpg
    Note that keeping the braids tight on the ends was a pain in the ass, but helped by glue-lined heat shrink tubing. I ended up with 5x24awg=17awg for hot, and 6x24awg=16awg for neutral and earth (the wrap-around wire went to earth).

    Aesthetically, in hindsight I regret not sleeving each individual quad-braid, and braiding the sleeved wires together... I think that would have looked very cool, and I probably didn't need that seventeenth wire anyway. Alas, I sleeved the whole thing in the usual blue/black techflex I use for my other power cables, and terminated it with Wattgate EVO-series plugs.
    20201228_143541.jpg
    20201228_143551_HDR.jpg

    To be honest, I had no idea how well this would work as a power cable...but right off the bat, it's an improvement on my six-way Neotech UP-OCC solid copper (PVC, 20awg) w/ Furutech copper plugs. I was not expecting it to beat the Neo/Furu cable (pictured below), but right off the bat, it's giving me more air, separation, and sharper focus with slightly better resolve.

    My other two DIY power cables, both six-way braids. The shielded version is for my Bottlehead Crack, and the Neotech is for my power amp:
    20201212_211345.jpg
    Neo/Furu power cable finished:
    20201213_213547.jpg
    Bottlehead-style cable finished:
    20201213_212735.jpg
     
    Last edited: Dec 29, 2020
  11. bobboxbody

    bobboxbody Friend

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    I made a balanced cable and XLR to 1/4" adapter for my Auteurs with the pre-braided silver wire from GD-Parts. My luna shops order arrived today with their pre-braided wire, it's much more soft and pliable than the GD version, hopefully it sounds OK.
    [​IMG]
    Bonus: kiridashi style knife I made for my wife a couple of years ago has never been resharpened and still slices through packaging like butter, single bevel knives are great tools.
     
  12. Greg121986

    Greg121986 Almost "Made"

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    @bobboxbody Could you elaborate a bit more on the hardware and experience with those vendors? Did you get the GD-Parts from aliexpress? Any concerns there? This vendor is new to me. I have to desire to build a 5-6ft cable for my Focal Clear but I am coming up short on sources for components. The usual suspects I've worked with in the past seem to be void of any useful items.
     
  13. bobboxbody

    bobboxbody Friend

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  14. yotacowboy

    yotacowboy McRibs Kind of Guy

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    I think the GD-Parts braided cable uses teflon insulation and the Luna Shops uses PVC. On paper, the teflon should be "better" (higher dielectric constant/permittivity), but of the 2 PVC insulated silver headphone cables I have, I don't hear them doing anything wrong, and they're much easier to handle/manage.
     
  15. Major Dolphin

    Major Dolphin New

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    How to DIY High Quality Speaker Cables, 2021 Version

     
  16. bobboxbody

    bobboxbody Friend

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    I'm getting ready to make yet another markertek order to add an additional jack terminal to my bottlehead amp and was thinking of what I could add to flesh out the order. Does anyone have a recommendation for cost effective speaker cables(with all components available from markertek)? I only need 6ft runs, and I'd like to add banana plugs for ease of switching and durability. Anything will easily beat my current home depot 16ga stranded unshielded wires, so I don't need magical properties.
     
  17. fraggler

    fraggler A Happy & Busy Life

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    Bluejeanscables uses a thicker version of this: https://www.markertek.com/product/b...wg-high-flex-high-strand-audio-cable-per-foot
    I have used this before: https://www.markertek.com/product/4...14awg-4-conductor-speaker-cable-grey-per-foot

    Caveat, my speaker experience is far behind my headphone one.
     
  18. androxylo

    androxylo Acquaintance

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    This was the most idiotic upgrade I ever had. My left speaker was wired with Duelund power cable cable 12 gauge, and right speaker with noname Amazon cable. I had good quality, but all instruments were located either at left or right. I replaced noname with similar Duelund, only not power but speaker 12 cable. Now, some of the instruments moved to the center, as I suppose they should. I don't think noname cable was very bad, I think the problem was it was not identical.
     
  19. tommytakis

    tommytakis MOT: E.T.A Headphones

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    @k4rstar recommended that I try belden 9497 wires for my speakers and I thought why not make some 6x0 cables out of them... so I did
    2E86A5A6-6B1F-434A-AD0B-4C0CCE79264C.jpeg
    this thicc boi sounds so good it got me floored. I think I may like it more than my silver/copper hybrid cable I made before
     
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  20. gixxerwimp

    gixxerwimp Professional tricycle rider

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