[cute]

@FraGGleR, I have noticed you are a DHC cable fan, me too!  Have you built any cable with Peter's Peptide?  I have only used the Neucleotide, and was looking for comparisons, sound wise, brom someone that has used both.  I have Senn HD600/HD580's, and I have built eight cables using different wire, DHC being one.
 
Feedback would be helpful!
 
Thanks

 

[cssarrow]

Quote:

Shielding for what type/use of cable?
Shielding for what type of interference?

Many cables are affected by EMI Waves (phone/radio/wifi/etc), so it's nice to just shield all that you can really.
 
What we are talking about, is a mylar aluminum foil to shield headphone, usb, and rca cables (power cords too).
Copper Braids can also be used to go over the foil.
 
For a a dual sided connection such as Hifiman or Audeze, 4 overall wires would be used.
2 ground and 2 signal wires.
 
Add a shielding up until the braiding splits into a Y for each side of the headphone.
You then wrap the shielding with a thin wire and solder it to the shield near the area that you would solder the 4 wires to the 1/4 or 1/8 plug.
Take the "floating shield" wire and solder it with the two grounds.
 
This then helps everything up to the Y block against EMI.

 

[2NE1]

Thank you 

 

[FraGGleR]

Quote:

A good foil shield requires a machine to do the French fold seam.
Analog RCA interconnects need a heavy braided shield.
Balanced XRL interconnects need close tolerance machine made wire symmetry.
 
Use a high quality bulk cable from:
 
Belden
Canare
Gepco
Mogami
 
Braid for lower frequency interference,  foil for radio & TV frequency interference.
 
Note that Star-Quad does NOT reject interference as well in tests as expected!

 
I have found that in many scenarios that focus primarily on headphone listening, much of what you have posted is not necessarily true or necessary.  Perhaps to adhere to some testing standard, you are completely correct, but I have used naked wires braided together and machine made cables in the same system with no appreciable difference between the two.  

 

[Speedskater]

"FraGGleR" my post did not mention headphone cables.

 

[jeremyzone]

Quote:

"FraGGleR" my post did not mention headphone cables.

Huh? What are you talking about? Fraggler didn't mention headphone cables specifically either... If you start looking through this thread, you'll see numerous examples of USB cables and RCA interconnects and about every other type of cable made without any shielding. 

 

[cssarrow]

Braiding/Twist is pretty good enough.
 
I still recommend shielding for distances over 2'.

 

[limpidglitch]

Quote:

Braiding/Twist is pretty good enough.
 
I still recommend shielding for distances over 2'.

 
You have to factor in the signal to noise ratio.
Bothering to shield a headphone cable is simply idiotic in a domestic situation. Shielding interconnects have a similarly limited advantage, the tiny amount of noise the cable might pick up is simply drowned out by the high signal level in the cable. If a noticeable amount of noise is picked up the real problem is likely elsewhere than with the cable.

In other situations, with a turntable or microphone f.ex., proper shielding is usually advantageous.

 

[cssarrow]

Quote:

 
You have to factor in the signal to noise ratio.
Bothering to shield a headphone cable is simply idiotic in a domestic situation. Shielding interconnects have a similarly limited advantage, the tiny amount of noise the cable might pick up is simply drowned out by the high signal level in the cable. If a noticeable amount of noise is picked up the real problem is likely elsewhere than with the cable.

In other situations, with a turntable or microphone f.ex., proper shielding is usually advantageous.

 
Many brands even shield their low impedance lines (speaker wires) regardless of how low the improvements might be, while some like Kimber may think it might ultimately affect the sound itself so they disregard it.
 
Headphone cables are pretty much like speaker wire,  it's not necessary to shield them as signal gain is mostly below 1.
It becomes uncritical as the signal is no longer amplified.
Has anyone really ever heard radio noise when using a headphone cable? 

 
High impedance lines such as interconnects are more susceptible to interference so it's always good to have that shielded.
All in all, it's not really a bad thing to help put something there to help captur/drain away electro-static & radio frequency interference before it reaches the signal wires.
 
It's all up to personal choice.
 

 

[Speedskater]

"jeremy" my post was about shielding and the whys & hows of shielding.
 
So;
All unbalanced interconnects need to be shielded. (this is 2013 not 1993)
Not all balanced interconnects need to be shielded, but those that are shielded need a machine manufactured cable with a very high degree of symmetry!
In unshielded but balanced interconnects, lots of circuit details need to be correct.  Bill Whitlock covers this at Jensen Transformer and THAT Corp.
Headphone cables do not need to be shielded.
I'll skip USP cables.

 

[PXSS]

How do you guys keep your 2-wire braids even?
Mine always seem to be loose at the beginning and much tighter towards the end.
Is there some kind of secret on how to make the twists evenly throughout the length?

 

[FraGGleR]

Been a while since I have made a cable, but my new Sennheiser Momentums demanded that I dust off the iron.
 

 


 
The stock cable was a 2.5mm TRRS plug with a locking mechanism (maybe the same as the HD598 we were talking about earlier).  Since I couldn't find anything like that commercially, I harvested a gold plated 2.5mm TRS from a Monoprice cable.  I used some hotglue and heatshrink to stiffen up the connector, but still keep it thin enough to fit.  Well, it doesn't look pretty, but the worst part is hidden inside the jack, it is secure, and it works perfectly.  Very pleased with the result.  The 2.5mm TRS harvesting trick should work for the HD598 too.

 

[liquidzoo]

That's not 550 paracord, is it? Looks nice, whatever you used. Single wire per sleeve I assume?

 

[cute]

Nice pictures.....what do you use for the gray background!  I need to post some pics.

 

[FraGGleR]

Quote:

That's not 550 paracord, is it? Looks nice, whatever you used. Single wire per sleeve I assume?

It is Type I micro paracord.  Thank you.  Yes