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post #10651 of 11970
12/5/12 at 12:17am

which model of mogami do you recommend for denon recable? How is it compared to standard headphone cables?

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post #10652 of 11970
12/5/12 at 1:05am
I have a few questions, hopefully someone has the knowledge to answer them.

Some very newbie questions.
rolleyes.gif


1. Is it good or bad to go for a Silver/Rhodium Plated Tellurium Copper RCA Plugs?

2. Why are there no copper 1/4 and 1/8 stereo plugs and why?

3. Is 16AWG 3 Conductor Silver Plated Pure Copper Wire enough for a DIY Power Cable? (or should i use 6 conductors? for Oyaide P-004 & C-004)

4. Which is better, Spades or Banana Plugs? (The two are obviously more efficient than nude wires)

5. Is 22AWG 3 Conductor Silver Plated Pure Copper Wire enough for DIY Headphone Cable?

6. Do you recommend Six Conductor or Eight Conductor Speaker Wires? (For Loud Speakers)

7. Would Silver Plated Wires/Plugs improve subwoofers at all or would copper be better for the warmth that the subwoofer is meant to do?

- Tim
Edited by cssarrow - 12/5/12 at 1:08am
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post #10653 of 11970
12/5/12 at 2:25am
Quote:
Originally Posted by cssarrow View Post

I have a few questions, hopefully someone has the knowledge to answer them.
Some very newbie questions.
rolleyes.gif
1. Is it good or bad to go for a Silver/Rhodium Plated Tellurium Copper RCA Plugs?
2. Why are there no copper 1/4 and 1/8 stereo plugs and why?
3. Is 16AWG 3 Conductor Silver Plated Pure Copper Wire enough for a DIY Power Cable? (or should i use 6 conductors? for Oyaide P-004 & C-004)
4. Which is better, Spades or Banana Plugs? (The two are obviously more efficient than nude wires)
5. Is 22AWG 3 Conductor Silver Plated Pure Copper Wire enough for DIY Headphone Cable?
6. Do you recommend Six Conductor or Eight Conductor Speaker Wires? (For Loud Speakers)
7. Would Silver Plated Wires/Plugs improve subwoofers at all or would copper be better for the warmth that the subwoofer is meant to do?
- Tim

 

Hi cssarrow, I'm just gonna answer them to the best of my knowledge n experience, I may be wrong. Please feel free to correct me. We're all here to learn!


1. Haven't tried them but I usually stick to Neutrik/Switchcraft/Oyaide/Viablue

2. Copper is a very soft metal, wears out too fast if it's always plugged in and out.

3. 16AWG is good enough. You should be watching out if the material can take the voltage/amps. That's more important.

4. All down to preference

5. Nope, you need 4. Left channel, Left ground, Right channel, Right ground.

6. Down to preference again

7. I think the interconnect wires play a bigger part.


Edited by yuujin - 12/5/12 at 2:27am
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post #10654 of 11970
12/5/12 at 2:39am
Quote:
Originally Posted by cssarrow View Post

I have a few questions, hopefully someone has the knowledge to answer them.
Some very newbie questions.
rolleyes.gif
1. Is it good or bad to go for a Silver/Rhodium Plated Tellurium Copper RCA Plugs? 
2. Why are there no copper 1/4 and 1/8 stereo plugs and why?
3. Is 16AWG 3 Conductor Silver Plated Pure Copper Wire enough for a DIY Power Cable? (or should i use 6 conductors? for Oyaide P-004 & C-004)
4. Which is better, Spades or Banana Plugs? (The two are obviously more efficient than nude wires)
5. Is 22AWG 3 Conductor Silver Plated Pure Copper Wire enough for DIY Headphone Cable?
6. Do you recommend Six Conductor or Eight Conductor Speaker Wires? (For Loud Speakers)
7. Would Silver Plated Wires/Plugs improve subwoofers at all or would copper be better for the warmth that the subwoofer is meant to do?
- Tim

1. There's nothing bad about going for any of those, they all provide the same contact considering you have properly soldered and terminated ends to the solder plates. There is no which one offer's sound better with plugs, they all the same, just some have better looks and build quality, what's important is your solder contacts.

2. What do you mean? Elaborate further.

3. It is enough, but you can double up on the wires in litz for each signal.

4. None is better, just which one you choose, I've built speaker cables for clients using one side spades and one side banana's to make it more convenient for whatever end's their amp/speaker takes. 

5. You need 4 physical wire stands minimum if your doing a normal dual entry cable, for single ended/single side, 3 is enough.

6. A single 16awg for each channel will be even enough, if your talking about individual stands in the wire itself, then that is up to you and the type of cable you use, solid core vs smaller stands, just more options on the table to choose from.

7. Again it's up to your preference as to which you want to use to perceive that sound you want, more highs, more neutrality, more bass whatever.


Edited by DefQon - 12/5/12 at 2:41am
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post #10655 of 11970
12/5/12 at 3:56am
Quote:
Originally Posted by cssarrow View Post

1. Is it good or bad to go for a Silver/Rhodium Plated Tellurium Copper RCA Plugs?
2. Why are there no copper 1/4 and 1/8 stereo plugs and why?
3. Is 16AWG 3 Conductor Silver Plated Pure Copper Wire enough for a DIY Power Cable? (or should i use 6 conductors? for Oyaide P-004 & C-004)
4. Which is better, Spades or Banana Plugs? (The two are obviously more efficient than nude wires)
5. Is 22AWG 3 Conductor Silver Plated Pure Copper Wire enough for DIY Headphone Cable?
6. Do you recommend Six Conductor or Eight Conductor Speaker Wires? (For Loud Speakers)
7. Would Silver Plated Wires/Plugs improve subwoofers at all or would copper be better for the warmth that the subwoofer is meant to do?
- Tim

1. If you can afford it and you like it, go nuts!
2. Plugs are usually brass plated with steel (and, for audiophiles, gold or silver or rhodium) is normal because brass is hard and relatively cheap to manufacture for this purpose -- it will bear up under thousands of plug/unplug actions. Copper plate will scratch and tarnish fairly easily. Also, humans are more attracted to shiny things, and gold (and rhodium) are shinier than copper. Which sounds silly but, yes, appearances do count.
3. Don't know much about building power cables, but if 16ga is good enough for arc welders, it's probably sufficient for your home stereo.
4. I've read more arguments that spade lugs are better than banana plugs. I've also had to deal with five-way binding posts in spaces that are too cramped to use anything other than banana plugs. So use what works. Main advantage of lugs is that the binding post can clamp very firmly on a lug, while a banana plug is held in by spring action, which I guess might wear out over time.
5. Depends on the headphone. For a single-side entry (eg, AKG 702), three lines might be okay. The real issue is why you'd need 22ga wire -- that's going to be pretty stiff.
6. Whatever you feel like, assuming you can attach all those wires to the connector. Personally I just have one pair of wires per side. No point in cluttering up the room any more than I already have...
7. Discussions of the sound of different wires are going to be better handled in the Cable, Power, Tweaks, etc. forum.
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post #10656 of 11970
12/5/12 at 5:04am
Quote:
Originally Posted by FraGGleR View Post

 

The cable noise you are getting is from the teflon and the silver plating.  Both make the wire harder and transmits the sounds up the cable to your headphones.

Sorry, exactly how does silver plating make the wire harder. All silver plated wires i know of, are plated with fine silver and fine silver is considerably softer then copper. How would plating copper wire with a very thin layer of silver, make it harder.

 

The cause of the noise, would mostly be down to the teflon.


Edited by Toxic Cables - 12/5/12 at 8:54am
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post #10657 of 11970
12/5/12 at 6:11am

Eeek! Just discovered this thread!

My Hifiman HE-400's arrived this morning with a very inconvenient 3.0m cable length. Too long to be portable and too short to reach from my PC to my balcony :-/

I need at least an 8m long cable to reach from my PC to my balcony which rules out using anything too high-end due to cost.

 

Would someone mind recommending a decent cable under $200usd for a 10meter length?

Either 4x single strands, 2x duel strand, or a quad cable that I can splice into braided single strands at the y-splitter.

Also, would I be better off running a thicker gauge cable up to the y-splitter due to the length of the cable?


Edited by Occy - 12/5/12 at 7:00am
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post #10658 of 11970
12/5/12 at 8:43am
Quote:
Originally Posted by ardgedee View Post

1. If you can afford it and you like it, go nuts!
2. Plugs are usually brass plated with steel (and, for audiophiles, gold or silver or rhodium) is normal because brass is hard and relatively cheap to manufacture for this purpose -- it will bear up under thousands of plug/unplug actions. Copper plate will scratch and tarnish fairly easily. Also, humans are more attracted to shiny things, and gold (and rhodium) are shinier than copper. Which sounds silly but, yes, appearances do count.
3. Don't know much about building power cables, but if 16ga is good enough for arc welders, it's probably sufficient for your home stereo.
4. I've read more arguments that spade lugs are better than banana plugs. I've also had to deal with five-way binding posts in spaces that are too cramped to use anything other than banana plugs. So use what works. Main advantage of lugs is that the binding post can clamp very firmly on a lug, while a banana plug is held in by spring action, which I guess might wear out over time.
5. Depends on the headphone. For a single-side entry (eg, AKG 702), three lines might be okay. The real issue is why you'd need 22ga wire -- that's going to be pretty stiff.
6. Whatever you feel like, assuming you can attach all those wires to the connector. Personally I just have one pair of wires per side. No point in cluttering up the room any more than I already have...
7. Discussions of the sound of different wires are going to be better handled in the Cable, Power, Tweaks, etc. forum.

Thanks ardgedee!

So there's no negatives to using plugs such as rhodium plated tellurium copper right? This way it's hard and can sustain damage. I'm just worried when it comes to sound quality, cardas says brass is better off due to keeping the conductor and connector more alike.
Q.) Why not use copper RCA plugs, as opposed to low conductivity brass with silver plating and rhodium flash?

A.) The reason for brass is simple, you must keep the connector as much like the conductor that feeds it as possible. In the case of our RCA connectors, low current high impedance transfers are best served by small conductors.
22ga is thick, but im not sitting that far (desktop setup) so it shouldn't be too bad.

As for the speaker wire, the reason why i was planning on doing something so thick for the speaker wire was due to this.
http://diyaudioprojects.com/Power/Low-Inductance-DIY-Speaker-Cables/
Do you recommend? I'm not sure if it will improve my setup by much. Maybe im better off doing 4 overall wires, rather than 8.
Edited by cssarrow - 12/5/12 at 8:50am
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post #10659 of 11970
12/5/12 at 11:07am
Quote:
Originally Posted by cssarrow View Post

So there's no negatives to using plugs such as rhodium plated tellurium copper right? This way it's hard and can sustain damage. I'm just worried when it comes to sound quality, cardas says brass is better off due to keeping the conductor and connector more alike.

As for the speaker wire, the reason why i was planning on doing something so thick for the speaker wire was due to this.
http://diyaudioprojects.com/Power/Low-Inductance-DIY-Speaker-Cables/
Do you recommend? I'm not sure if it will improve my setup by much. Maybe im better off doing 4 overall wires, rather than 8.

I honestly know very little about using exotic plugs. Some are easier to build with than others, but I couldn't tell you which ones are best for your purposes. If you like them and can afford them and they conduct electricity, your effort will probably be paid off with music. smily_headphones1.gif

Those low-induction speaker cables on diyAudioProjects are basically a Type 2 or Type 3 Litz. They look handsome. You can easily make a Type 1 Litz with a simple braid. I don't know offhand what the advantages of different Litz cable types are.
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post #10660 of 11970
12/5/12 at 11:36am
Quote:
Originally Posted by ardgedee View Post


I honestly know very little about using exotic plugs. Some are easier to build with than others, but I couldn't tell you which ones are best for your purposes. If you like them and can afford them and they conduct electricity, your effort will probably be paid off with music. smily_headphones1.gif
Those low-induction speaker cables on diyAudioProjects are basically a Type 2 or Type 3 Litz. They look handsome. You can easily make a Type 1 Litz with a simple braid. I don't know offhand what the advantages of different Litz cable types are.

Rhodium is harder to solder than other metals.  Takes more flux and heat to do a good job.  But it is the shiniest!  For 3.5mm and 1/4" plugs, you won't find anything that isn't brass under some layer of shinier metal because purer copper is too soft to hold up to the rigors of the plug.  RCA's which are usually not plugged and unplugged nearly as much allow for more pure metals, and are the lines between source in amp (arguably more important to the signal than from amp to headphone), so there is much more variety (and possibly BS). 

 

When it comes down to connectors, particularly 3.5mm and 1/4", I have never noticed a sound difference.  I wouldn't get caught up in manufacturer claims too much.  Of course they believe in what they are selling (or at least that is what they are telling you).  I make most decisions on aesthetics and ergonomics and have been happy (as have many others who have listened to the cables).

 

Spend your money on better headphones or a better source before you worry too much on the most likely imperceptible differences in connectors.  

 

Oops, quoted wrong person, but you guys get it.

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post #10661 of 11970
12/5/12 at 1:02pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by FraGGleR View Post

Rhodium is harder to solder than other metals.  Takes more flux and heat to do a good job.  But it is the shiniest!  For 3.5mm and 1/4" plugs, you won't find anything that isn't brass under some layer of shinier metal because purer copper is too soft to hold up to the rigors of the plug.  RCA's which are usually not plugged and unplugged nearly as much allow for more pure metals, and are the lines between source in amp (arguably more important to the signal than from amp to headphone), so there is much more variety (and possibly BS). 

When it comes down to connectors, particularly 3.5mm and 1/4", I have never noticed a sound difference.  I wouldn't get caught up in manufacturer claims too much.  Of course they believe in what they are selling (or at least that is what they are telling you).  I make most decisions on aesthetics and ergonomics and have been happy (as have many others who have listened to the cables).

Spend your money on better headphones or a better source before you worry too much on the most likely imperceptible differences in connectors.  

Oops, quoted wrong person, but you guys get it.

Very very helpful! No wonder they coat the brass with Gold, because it's 3rd in conductivity, doesn't corrode, and holds up when it's plugged/unplugged heaps of times. Copper and Silver wouldn't do as good. I understand now. Very insightful.

I agree with you in terms of upgrading, however i just like to doodle down the cable/connector chain to make sure whether or not i want to sell and upgrade my current gear. If the cables/connectors have an impact on the sound (for my trained ears), then hopefully it would subside my urge for an upgrade. The good thing about it is, the cables are more future proof than upgrading audio gear.

I will continue to use the Neutrik Brand for 6.3mm and 3.5mm stereo plug purposes.

This isn't related to the topic, but Do you like your NuForce Icon HDP? How well does it power your Audeze LCD-2. I'm getting a HE-400 and i wonder if it would sound good. How do you compare it to the Sennheiser HD 650 when using the HDP? I'm trying to find a way to use the HDP's DAC with an outside amplifier rather than the one inside the HDP. It's a little weak in current. Do you know a way?

- Tim
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post #10662 of 11970
12/5/12 at 3:21pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by kepler28nm View Post

which model of mogami do you recommend for denon recable? How is it compared to standard headphone cables?

 

2893 or 2534.

The Denon stock cable probably consists of scrawny, enamel-coated conductors like most other headphones' stock cable.  Mogami cable is thicker and probably more microphonic, so you should use paracord to minimize the noise.

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post #10663 of 11970
12/6/12 at 2:43am
I'm doing a DIY USB Cable project.

Silver Plated OFC Copper for the wire, coated with Teflon diaelectric.
What kind of shielding should i use beneath the techflex?

Copper EMI Tape? or Braided shieldings? where can i buy those for cheap, im going to be using 22GA wires.
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post #10664 of 11970
12/6/12 at 6:12am

Any Headphone re cablers out there.  Please send me a PM biggrin.gif

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post #10665 of 11970
12/6/12 at 9:04am
Quote:
Originally Posted by cssarrow View Post

I'm doing a DIY USB Cable project.
Silver Plated OFC Copper for the wire, coated with Teflon diaelectric.
What kind of shielding should i use beneath the techflex?
Copper EMI Tape? or Braided shieldings? where can i buy those for cheap, im going to be using 22GA wires.

keep in mind that very high quality wire will give you little or no benefit with a USB cable. since the signal is digital, it either works or it doesnt. this doesnt hold true for extreme lengths,but even then all nice wire will do is increase transmission speed slightly. fancy wire will do nothing for quality, so save your cash and just get some mic cable and make sure the cabe is properly shielded and grouded.

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