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Are these appropriate materials for DIY headphone cable?

post #1 of 18
10/26/09 at 6:43pm
Thread Starter 
I'm trying to understand the construction of a headphone cable before I start collecting materials to build my own. Is it more common to buy individual wires and run 4 of them from the jack to the y-split and then 2 on each side, or are most people using something like the canare star quad? If I go the route of running individual wires for signals and 2 grounds, would this be a suitable wire to use? It seems like it would be, but it's so much cheaper than most of the stuff I'm seeing on homegrown that I figured I aught to ask.

25 feet 20 AWG Silver Teflon Wire White 19 strands - eBay (item 230391857610 end time Nov-23-09 11:26:10 PST)

The other thing I'm trying to understand is how people get such a uniformly round shape underneath the sleeve when using individual wires? Do most people run the wires through a tube of some sort? What goes between the wires and the sleeve? And as far as the sleeve goes, are most people using the 3/8" expandable to 5/8"?
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post #2 of 18
10/26/09 at 7:03pm
I've used that wire for a couple recablings and a few interconnects now and I like it a lot. It's really cheap but still good quality. I feel like I noticed a little bit of improvement after recabling my k240 sextetts and k701s but that could be in my head. I would definitely recommend thinner wire for a headphone cable though. I used 26awg both times which should have about half the diameter of that 20awg wire. A lot of people use 24awg too I think. Another thing to look out for is the kapton wire which people have said is much less flexible than the plain teflon coated wire.

For the sleeving, the first time I used the expandable teflex which is like woven fishing line. It looked great but I didn't like the feel of it. It's a little bit rough. Also you get bad microphonics with teflex where if the cable rubs against something, the vibrations carry through the sleeving and you can hear rubbing sound in your headphones.

The next time I tried the not expandable nylon sleeving and I love it. It basically feels like a shoe lace -- soft and very flexible. It also does away with the microphonics. You can get both types of sleeving from the user furryletters on ebay for pretty cheap.
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post #3 of 18
10/26/09 at 7:16pm
19-strand 20awg is gonna be a little stiff.
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post #4 of 18
10/26/09 at 7:17pm
20awg is too thick, go with 24awg
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post #5 of 18
10/26/09 at 7:29pm
Thread Starter 
If I go with 24awg wire what size of non-expandable nylon sleeving should I go with. I want to sleeve all sections of the cable, so from the plug to the y-split there will be 4 wires, and then 2 wires to the headphones.
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post #6 of 18
10/26/09 at 8:42pm
^ If you were going to round-braid that stuff I believe people are using 1/8 nylon multifilament.
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post #7 of 18
10/26/09 at 8:49pm
Thread Starter 
^^^ 1/8th for the 4-strand part or 2 strand?
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post #8 of 18
10/26/09 at 8:55pm
Ehm I am not exactly sure what you mean. I believe people that are using 4x 24awg wires and round-braid it are using 1/8.
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post #9 of 18
10/26/09 at 8:58pm
Thread Starter 
what I meant to ask was if they were using 1/8th to cover the part between the jack and the y-split (4 strands) or between the headphones and the y-split (2 strands) 1/8th just seemed very small to me.
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post #10 of 18
10/26/09 at 9:08pm
Ah. No, it is for the part from the plug to the y.
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post #11 of 18
10/27/09 at 3:05am
Thread Starter 
Can anyone else confirm that 1/8th inch nylon sleeving is the correct size to house 4 strands of the 24awg wire?
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post #12 of 18
10/27/09 at 3:33am
That would also depend on how thick the jacket on those wires is. Why don't you just check the size of your wire, and either measure or estimate?
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post #13 of 18
10/27/09 at 4:09am
Thread Starter 
Oh yea; I forgot to mention that my wire is still in a box in ohio. The advertisement listed the wire's outer diameter but it was much to small of a diameter to include the teflon shielding.
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post #14 of 18
4/11/11 at 8:36pm

I know this is an old post...

furryletters appears to no longer be around on EBay.

Anyone have another source on the soft sleeve material?

 

Thanks
 

Quote:
Originally Posted by mugdecoffee View Post

I've used that wire for a couple recablings and a few interconnects now and I like it a lot. It's really cheap but still good quality. I feel like I noticed a little bit of improvement after recabling my k240 sextetts and k701s but that could be in my head. I would definitely recommend thinner wire for a headphone cable though. I used 26awg both times which should have about half the diameter of that 20awg wire. A lot of people use 24awg too I think. Another thing to look out for is the kapton wire which people have said is much less flexible than the plain teflon coated wire.

For the sleeving, the first time I used the expandable teflex which is like woven fishing line. It looked great but I didn't like the feel of it. It's a little bit rough. Also you get bad microphonics with teflex where if the cable rubs against something, the vibrations carry through the sleeving and you can hear rubbing sound in your headphones.

The next time I tried the not expandable nylon sleeving and I love it. It basically feels like a shoe lace -- soft and very flexible. It also does away with the microphonics. You can get both types of sleeving from the user furryletters on ebay for pretty cheap.


 

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post #15 of 18
4/11/11 at 9:11pm

Look at

 

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/1-8-BRAIDED-EXPANDABLE-SLEEVING-BLK-WH-TECHFLEX-25ft-/360158286510?pt=Car_Audio_Video&hash=item53db1b52ae

 

cheers

FRED

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