Cable Building

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

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  1. Sonofsin

    Sonofsin Acquaintance

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    To brush up on my soldering skills, I soldered some RCA cables. I have soldered only a few times before, and that was about 30 years ago.

    My first attempt with lead-free solder looked like done by a 3-year-old, with epilepsy, in a hurry. For the second cable, I used leaded solder which worked out much better for me. Which means the optical result was only awful, not catastrophic. To my utter astonishment, both cables are working properly. I used Rean connectors for both.

    RCA 1 is done with Sommer SC-Tricone Mk2, that is a very flexible instrument cable. 0.22mm2 OFC copper (=24AWG) conductor, twin shielding, foam/skin-PE isolation. Overall length: 75 cm.

    RCA 2 is done with Draka 0.6/2.8 AF which is a rather stiff fixed installation cable for uncompressed HDTV applications in broadcast video environments. This is a true 75 Ohm cable for higher frequencies. Overall length: 60 cm.

    With my equipment (Eitr - Modi Multibit - Vali 2 Plus - HD600) I was not able to tell any meaningful difference between those cables. At least not without a switchbox. However, those are short cables and the plugs are the same.

    I used the opportunity to also compare:
    - Schiit Pyst RCA 6" = 15 cm
    - Cordial RCA 30 cm (Rean plugs, 0.22mm2 conductor) around 10.-€
    - Cheap shit cable around 1.5m

    I don't think they sound the same, but to me, the differences are really really small. Keep in mind that the cheap shit cable is almost 10 times as long as the Schiit cable.

    My take-away from this is:
    a) short cables are a win-win-win. They are cheaper, physically they are supposed to are less lossy, and visually they are less Spaghetti.
    b) as my soldering has worked out, I have qualified for the next round, which will be something like a Chu-Moy or a power supply.
     
  2. fraggler

    fraggler A Happy & Busy Life

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    Let's get some pictures!
     
  3. Sonofsin

    Sonofsin Acquaintance

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    Thanks for asking. I will share pictures of my next undertaking. The current ones are just embarassing.
     
  4. dBel84

    dBel84 Friend

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    i avoid lead free at all costs - always looks sloppy and like a bad cold joint . I know it is better for health and the environment but i would rather not solder than use leadfree
     
  5. yotacowboy

    yotacowboy McRibs Kind of Guy

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    Latest experiment for those silver-inclined: https://www.mableaudio.com/en/productview.asp?sid=9457

    Appears to be a pure silver in teflon shielded USB cable. Ordered a few meters to verify it is indeed pure silver, and, without sending samples off to a metallurgist, it is as far as I can tell dead soft annealed stranded pure silver, not silver plated copper. I have been scheming to source some uber-cheap pure silver wire to build speaker cables and was close to buying a spool of fine gauge dead soft annealed silver from Rio Grande and trying to cobble something together. The Mable link above nets ~16ga per pole if you combine the 2 twisted-pairs (white/clear and green/clear) of ~24ga with each black and red ~18ga conductor. Then, run another cable to bi-wire (for me, bi-wired only at the speaker end, i.e., shotgunned/external bi-wire). Please note, it's kind of a pain in the ass to strip back the outer teflon sheath. Another option for cable geometry could be to tie all the twisted pairs together for one pole, and use the shield for the other pole, then cross connect like the old school Jon Risch Belden 89259 DIY speaker cables.

    Anyhow, for ~$150 plus shipping, and another $40 for 2 sets of these connectors, that's a pretty good deal for a 3m pair of 13ga aggregate sans shield (per speaker) pure silver in teflon speaker cable. Currently burning them in listening to the radio; will give them some time and report back if they turn into screechy garbage, or coddle my senses with pure silver sunshine. At least the cables are hideously neon yellow!
     
  6. fraggler

    fraggler A Happy & Busy Life

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    So like a year ago I saw the Pangea headphone extension cable made from Cardas copper for a very reasonable $50 and offered @rhythmdevils to cut it up and reterminate to a couple different cables. Well the cables are finally in the mail (public shaming for how long it took is fine) so I am posting a picture of the end result:
    [​IMG]
    I believe one of them with the adapter will be offered up as a loaner, but I will defer to rhythmdevils on that since he is the owner of the cables. The cable itself is a basic star quad cable with no shielding.
    [​IMG]
    Pretty straight foward to work with so as long as you have a solder pot to deal with the enamel on the copper. As a head's up to anyone who tries to reuse the 1/4" termination like I did, they reverse what I consider the common way of connecting colors: white is + and red is - (I always do "red, ring, right"). I can make no claims about sound since I only tested for functionality before shipping out (plus I have poo for ears).
     
    Last edited: Nov 22, 2021
  7. yotacowboy

    yotacowboy McRibs Kind of Guy

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    That's really good info. Makes me wonder if that applies to any of their other cables, too. I've got some Pangea XLRs I'll take a peek at.
     
  8. Armaegis

    Armaegis Friend

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  9. yotacowboy

    yotacowboy McRibs Kind of Guy

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    Looks like invalid certs, though all transactions are through PayPal, so there's that, at least. Personally, I've never had an issue ordering from them, but tread lightly and at your own risk.
     
  10. Cspirou

    Cspirou They call me Sparky

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    Shorter cables are good and it's especially true the higher the current. If you need to make a choice with length it's better to have longer preamp cables and short speaker/headphone cables. This is often why it's better to have active monitors or monoblocs next to your speakers. The best would be to keep your SPDIF cables the longest, however I think you might run into problems with jitter.

    I would say soldering cables is harder than soldering circuits. Cables have a lot of extra copper which absorb all the heat from your iron and can result in cold solder joints. PCBs are easy to solder in comparison.
     
    Last edited: Nov 23, 2021
  11. yotacowboy

    yotacowboy McRibs Kind of Guy

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    The flipside is a lot of components are much more sensitive to heat than a big fat 12ga copper cable, so PCB soldering (more so) or point-to-point is less tolerant of heavy-handed over heating components. That, and things like soldering to drivers (specifically tweeters or HP drivers) where the leads/traces are short and the VC wire is especially thin, is where one should be extra careful.
     
  12. ogodei

    ogodei MOT: Austin AudioWorks

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    MableAudio is trustworthy vendor, I've both heard good things and completed several orders with good results.

    Their web site seems to to be neglected as far as upkeep, though. The cert issue (Firefox warning you saw) doesn't bother me but makes me wonder how often they patch their servers.

    "Copyright 2013" Yowsa !
     
  13. Cspirou

    Cspirou They call me Sparky

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    For drivers I've been preferring quick-connects and crimping whenever possible.

    While this makes things easier to connect/disconnect, it is admittedly easier to desolder something than to undo a crimp that you messed up. Usually you need to cut the end off and try again
     
  14. RestoredSparda

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    Just finished reterminating one of my HD 650 Arctic cables with a 4 pin xlr and black aluminum HD 800 connectors.

    The HD 800 Dream Connectors on Ebay are excellent quality, and super easy to work with.

    The cable that came with my used HD 800 was beat to hell, so....
     

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  15. yotacowboy

    yotacowboy McRibs Kind of Guy

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    I've now got many hundreds of hours on these pure silver speaker cables, and they're just superb. Remind me a lot of when I had Clear Day Shotguns; just so effortless, natural, and extended. For the price these are a no brainer for a DIY speaker cable if you double up everything to get enough AWG. I'm not going to suggest using this bulk cable with all leads tied together as each single pole in a braided PC because that would be reckless.;)
     
  16. gixxerwimp

    gixxerwimp Professional tricycle rider

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    Pics or it didn't happen :cool:
     
  17. yotacowboy

    yotacowboy McRibs Kind of Guy

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    Good thing they sound a lot better than they look.
    [​IMG]

    Edit: also, just so I'm on record with my dickish opinion on silver cables. Everything in a decent system usually commits more sins of omission than commission. when something like decent pure silver cables commit fewer sins of omission than something like copper, sometimes the sins of commission of other things in the chain are revealed. I'm not saying anyone who thinks silver sounds like hot bright garbage has a shit system, I'm just saying maybe if you want to play with silver cables, keep the system simple at first. Limit the variables.
     
    Last edited: Jan 30, 2022
  18. Grattle

    Grattle Friend

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    I think people think silver cables are brighter because of the color. Conductivity of copper is superb.

    I didnt believe in tubes either though before so maybe I need to try some and STFU.
     
  19. gixxerwimp

    gixxerwimp Professional tricycle rider

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    Now you've got my interest in Ag cables going again. Thought I was done after my Ag/Cu hybrid experiment, but at this price I can afford to play some more.

    So after stripping off the neon yellow sheath and shield, I should be left with 2x 18awg (red, black) and 4x 24awg (white/clear, green/clear), right? For a headphone cable, I could use red/black for +R/L and the 2 twisted pairs for return. That's ridiculously cheap for pure silver! I'm guessing it would make for a fairly stiff cable. The Duelund solid wire in my Ag/Cu hybrid cable makes it handle really wonky, but I put up with it for the sound, so I could probably live with a stiffy, especially at this price. I guess I could also just use the twisted pairs and double up to make a more flexible 8x 24awg cable. Would mean stripping double the shielding though ...

    How was your buying experience with Mable?
     
  20. yotacowboy

    yotacowboy McRibs Kind of Guy

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    Mable Audio has been fine shipping takes about a month, though. I did have one not awesome experience buying some tubes from them. They shipped the wrong tubes, gave me explicit shipping instructions to return them (at my shipping cost, like $85), but the shipment seemingly got lost going through customs in China. Mable wouldn't issue a refund, so I disputed the charge through PayPal.

    Anyhow, I'm not going to say the wire isn't worth trying for headphone cables, but my guess is that the mechanics/ergonomics/handling/microphonics of a bundle of these silver wires is going to be awful. But yeah, it is the cheapest (supposed) pure silver wire per aggregate gauge I've been able to track down. Good luck if you decide to try it out!
     

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