The Two Channel Advice Thread

Discussion in 'Advice Threads' started by purr1n, Nov 10, 2016.

  1. ohshitgorillas

    ohshitgorillas Friend

    Pyrate
    Joined:
    Nov 27, 2015
    Likes Received:
    681
    Trophy Points:
    93
    Location:
    Sacramento, CA
    The issue is that I rarely see 30-40ft on the used market. I have looked. I need specific lengths, and I am specifically looking for unterminated wire. 90% of the used market ime is >2m and terminated with bananas, I want 2x5m and 2x1.5m ish of unterminated wire. I am not really worried about speaker cable not "doing what I want", more worried that it will fit in the stupid shitty clips that my cheap Dayton subs use. I could use basic wire, but I'd rather just get some half decent wire. my system is not so high end I expect wire rolling to make any difference, I really just want some mostly decent cable to bind it all together. I bought blue jeans twelve white and they don't actually fit in my subs stupid clips, so I tried using pin adapters and they just f**k the clip springs up. I tried looking around the used market and decided that it was going to be much easier to buy bulk raw wire than to find the one person selling the length I need without terminated ends for a price I could afford.
     
  2. elmoe

    elmoe Friend

    Pyrate Banned
    Joined:
    Apr 23, 2019
    Likes Received:
    956
    Trophy Points:
    93
    Location:
    Phoenix, AZ
    If it's the subs clips driving you crazy why not replace those with something different? Or is that not easily accessible? Should be fairly easy to unsolder / solder banana speaker ports of you have easy access.
     
  3. rlow

    rlow A happy woofer

    Pyrate Contributor
    Joined:
    Jul 18, 2017
    Likes Received:
    7,738
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Location:
    Canada
    Gotcha. There are longer lengths on the used market, but they are not as common for sure. Here’s the other thing - most terminated cables can become unterminated pretty easily.

    Of your choices however, personally I’m partial to the Kimber stuff. Regardless, For your longer wire, I would go with the lowest AWG possible. For the short length, you could go with lighter gauge like the 16awg.
     
  4. msommers

    msommers High on Epipens

    Pyrate
    Joined:
    Nov 6, 2016
    Likes Received:
    2,750
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Location:
    Calgary, Alberta
    Home Page:
    Call it paranoia but buying used cables from people makes me so nervous about countefeit stuff.
     
  5. ohshitgorillas

    ohshitgorillas Friend

    Pyrate
    Joined:
    Nov 27, 2015
    Likes Received:
    681
    Trophy Points:
    93
    Location:
    Sacramento, CA
    Unfortunately I don't think the clips can be replaced easily with bananas...not without significantly modding the plate amps attached to the subs. Maybe there are some "drop in" replacements for rows of four clips? I am competent with a soldering iron but I'm mostly concerned about the form factor and fitting in banana plugs. That would be an awesome mod but I'm not sure if it would actually work/fit.

    On the note of "terminated wire can become unterminated" that's.... that's actually a really good point and I'm not sure why I didn't think of that before. Hah! As an amateur DIYer, I'm a bit embarrassed to have not thought of that before.

    I am going to trawl the used markets again and see what I can come up with, but if nothing else, I'm sure the Kimber Kable listed above would do just fine for my purposes.

    PS I am not super concerned about wire gauge as I'm driving 98dB speakers with a 10W amp. I think 16awg will be just fine, but going with 14awg anyway.
     
  6. ohshitgorillas

    ohshitgorillas Friend

    Pyrate
    Joined:
    Nov 27, 2015
    Likes Received:
    681
    Trophy Points:
    93
    Location:
    Sacramento, CA
    Quick follow-up, @rlow thanks very much for the tip on the used market, I'm having a bit more luck searching and have some bids on used speaker cable (4TC) for less than half of what I'd have paid for the 4PR new. Even if I don't win this one, I'm a bit more confident on my ability to sort this out for less than $100 (edit: the auction just ended and the cables sold for $130, lmao I wasn't even close, but the point still stands)

    I now have another question, or rather an idea I've been kicking around since the release of Bifrost 2. Previously I've had to run two sources, one for my speakers and one for my headphones, the two are too far apart to share a source and I'm not into the idea of running 40 ft single ended interconnects. Balanced, though... balanced interconnects should do just fine with a long run like that. I'm considering selling my two DACs, one of the newer Bifrost Multibit 1 models and an Audio GD DAC19mk3 (I know this model isn't super well respected around here but I happen to really like their warm/thick house sound, and at $300 used the price was right, although im not a huge fan of the 48khz max sampling rate/downsampling some of my hi-res files), using those funds to buy a Bifrost 2 (I'd get the $100 discount), and using the balanced outputs to run a cable out to my headphone amp using some sort of balanced to single ended comverter (either passive or active, not sure which would be better). This would help me simplify my system, and free up desk space (DAC19 is huge). I am imagining, based on what I know about Schiit and their DAC engineering, that it would also be a big upgrade over both DACs. I can also make the XLR cables myself out of some Mogami or Canare four core shielded wire easily enough. Good idea? Dumb idea? I realize that there aren't a ton of impressions of Bifrost 2 but I am a big fan of Bifrost Multibit 1 and I think it's a safe bet to assume I would also like the 2.
     
    Last edited: Aug 30, 2019
  7. sphinxvc

    sphinxvc Gear Master (retired)

    Staff Member Pyrate BWC
    Joined:
    Sep 28, 2015
    Likes Received:
    3,320
    Trophy Points:
    113
    LOL @ LInkwtiz's last line on the Lx-mini design article: "The whole point about the LXmini is its small size, easy placement, simplicity of construction and low budget, while delivering reference quality sound, albeit with some restrictions at the low end, mainly for organ or disco types of music."

    So...modern music, I guess.
     
  8. Boops

    Boops Friend

    Pyrate
    Joined:
    Nov 8, 2015
    Likes Received:
    3,179
    Trophy Points:
    93
    Location:
    New York
    Are you going to build a set of those? And if so, can I come drink beer and listen to them? ;-)

    (I'll provide the beer. Not the disco.)
     
  9. Partytime

    Partytime Facebook Friend

    Contributor
    Joined:
    Jul 28, 2019
    Likes Received:
    170
    Trophy Points:
    43
    Location:
    Los Angeles
    I dont know if anyone is into vintage 2 channel, but I recently built a semi-vintage setup I am in love with it. Not extremely expensive either (at least when compared to the larger "audiophile" world).

    Speakers:

    Devore Fidelity Gibbon Nines

    Sources:

    Rega Planar 6 w/ Ania cart
    Yamaha CD-S300
    Allo Digione

    DAC:

    PS Audio Direct Stream

    Amplification:

    Jolida JD9 MkII
    McIntosh C29 pre amp
    McIntosh MC225 amp

    The amplification chain with the Devores is really a magical experience. Particularly great with any rock n roll, but sounds good with everything. The bass is unreal. Big, powerful, with all the detail and nuance to hear the actual notes etc. The C29 made things a little edgy/shouty. I think this actually sounds good with the rest of the very warm, laid back chain. I did get a Schiit Loki to dial back the upper mids a bit. Now its perfect.

    I highly recommend the vintage Mc stuff. It sounds amazing and is built rock solid. Particularly recommend the MC225 (~$3k). This is a very special amp. It is legendary and rightly so. The C29 is also great and a great value (~$1k), however I may replace it with a C22 bc upgradeitis.

    Pics or it didn't happen

    [​IMG]
     
  10. sphinxvc

    sphinxvc Gear Master (retired)

    Staff Member Pyrate BWC
    Joined:
    Sep 28, 2015
    Likes Received:
    3,320
    Trophy Points:
    113
    It'll take me a bit, but yeah. Waiting for a few other things to clear out, and for the diyaudio store to have the analog x-over back in stock.
     
  11. lagadu

    lagadu Facebook Friend

    Contributor
    Joined:
    Jun 11, 2019
    Likes Received:
    238
    Trophy Points:
    33
    Location:
    PT/DK
    Hi, I'd like a sanity check on my plan. Some background:

    I have very little experience with speakers and the room that I'm planning this for has hard wooden floors, the wall opposite to the speakers is nude and to top it off the room layout is suspect at best (there's going to be a big empty space to the left and a wall about a meter away to the right) so I'm not expecting miracles.

    Recently I was going through some stuff that my father had stored away and we found a couple of power amplifiers that he had forgotten about: a Quad 405 and a Sony 55ES (both are SS amps, rated at about 100W). This gave me an itch: If I re-purpose some headphone gear I have around, with these amps all that I'll be missing from having a speaker setup is the speakers themselves so I decided to make a little side project out of this. It's more of a "nice to have" thing than what I'd describe as a full-blown project.

    My plan for the moment is to use my gungnir multibit into a mjolnir 2 I have laying around that I'll use as a pre into one of those amps. For speakers I'll be borrowing a pair of monitor audio gold bookshelf speakers. The idea being that if I like this setup then I'll go audition some speakers and get my own set. I hear that the mjolnir 2 is no bueno as a pre so I might grab some passive pre to also try out while at it.

    Is something egregiously wrong with this plan? Am I overlooking something perhaps?
     
    Last edited: Oct 18, 2019
  12. Riotvan

    Riotvan Snoofer in the Woofer

    Pyrate
    Joined:
    Sep 27, 2015
    Likes Received:
    4,171
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Location:
    The Netherlands
    Don't see any problems tbh, i used a Lyr3 as a preamp for a while and it did fine. Though you might want to give Schitt sys a try, supposedly very transparent and cheap.

    As for your room you can never tell until you try it, so not having to invest anything to do just that is a great starting point. Left and right symmetry is very important ime but there are things you can try like an angled setup(put the corner between the two speakers). And make sure to have different distances from the front of the speaker to side and rear wall and floor. Play around with it, it's a lot of fun, so much you can tweak.
     
  13. Ringingears

    Ringingears Honorary BFF

    Pyrate
    Joined:
    Sep 26, 2015
    Likes Received:
    3,659
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Location:
    Northern Californium Valley
    @lagadu You are probably going to have find the primary reflection points in your room and treat them. But I would wait until you have a listen first. Don’t go crazy on treatments money wise. I use a quilt over my TV (off of course) when I’m using the system in the family room. Works great.
     
  14. elmoe

    elmoe Friend

    Pyrate Banned
    Joined:
    Apr 23, 2019
    Likes Received:
    956
    Trophy Points:
    93
    Location:
    Phoenix, AZ
    I'm having a bit of trouble and was wondering if anyone would have an idea about the issue I'm having.

    I'm trying to connect my chain with balanced XLRs from the DAC to the power amp, with a balanced Singlepower Supra in between. The Supra does not have standard XLR preamp outputs (male) but instead has dual female XLR 3 pin headphone outputs.

    Using XLR --> RCA cables from the Supra's XLR headphone outs to the unbalanced RCA inputs of the power amp works fine. Using standard XLR female --> XLR male from the DAC to the balanced XLR inputs of the power amp also works fine.

    I bought XLR microphone patch cables (XLR male to XLR male) to try to connect the Supra's XLR headphone outputs to the power amp's XLR balanced inputs, but that results in very loud buzzing even with volume all the way down.

    Is this not something achievable the way I'm trying to do it? Could the microphone XLR cables (El cheapo) I purchased be defective? I have no other way to test them as a XLR male to male connection is kind of unconventional.

    Am I an idiot and missing something obvious?
     
  15. Armaegis

    Armaegis Friend

    Pyrate BWC
    Joined:
    Sep 27, 2015
    Likes Received:
    7,467
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Location:
    Winnipeg
    My two guesses is that the Supra isn't actually properly balanced and who knows what exactly is happening with the output, or the el cheapo XLR(m)-->XLR(m) cable is miswired.

    As an aside, I really hate XLR->RCA cables, because the rca end typically shorts the negative and ground together. Especially in this case because you're using it on headphone outputs, meaning you're shorting the amplifier. But hey, if there's no magic smoke yet then you're lucky.
     
  16. elmoe

    elmoe Friend

    Pyrate Banned
    Joined:
    Apr 23, 2019
    Likes Received:
    956
    Trophy Points:
    93
    Location:
    Phoenix, AZ
    Looking at the internals of the Supra, it seems balanced to me, there's double everything and the XLR outputs are wired properly. Noteworthy is that the outputs work just fine with balanced headphones also.

    The XLR m XLR m cables I bought were super cheap for testing purposes, I think I'll buy a more quality custom made pair and see how they do. No magic smoke with the XLR to RCA but as mentioned I'd rather get away from those sooner than later. Thanks for chiming in!
     
  17. Armaegis

    Armaegis Friend

    Pyrate BWC
    Joined:
    Sep 27, 2015
    Likes Received:
    7,467
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Location:
    Winnipeg
    @elmoe
    Maybe just get an XLR male-to-male adapter?
     
  18. elmoe

    elmoe Friend

    Pyrate Banned
    Joined:
    Apr 23, 2019
    Likes Received:
    956
    Trophy Points:
    93
    Location:
    Phoenix, AZ
    Male to female you mean? Yeah I thought about trying that first before spending $$$ on a custom cable. I'll probably go that route.
     
  19. Armaegis

    Armaegis Friend

    Pyrate BWC
    Joined:
    Sep 27, 2015
    Likes Received:
    7,467
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Location:
    Winnipeg
  20. elmoe

    elmoe Friend

    Pyrate Banned
    Joined:
    Apr 23, 2019
    Likes Received:
    956
    Trophy Points:
    93
    Location:
    Phoenix, AZ

Share This Page