DIY Cable Questions and Comments Thread

[Raddiqal11]

Hey guys, I've been reading in the DIY cable thread and this one, but I haven't really found any tutorials on how to make one from scratch. I have a MEE audio Pinnacle P1 and I really do not like the cables it came with.

Can I just buy a 3.5mm jack, some wire, a Y-splitter, and the MMCX connectors? Is it that easy? Or is it that easy on paper? Or is it not that easy?

Thanks.

Yeap basically that's the materials. Make sure you have 1 wire for each connection. So at least 4.

Tools
Soldering iron around 350 degrees Celsius is what I use.
Solder, just about any one will do unless you're willing to cash out more for wbt or mundorf solders.
Heat shrink
Hot glue
A third hand tool. The one with 2 hands and a magnifying glass. If possible get the one with a sponge grip.
Wire strippers, there are 2 kinds, the automatic one where you don't have to actually pull the insulation out. Only thing is your braiding will have to be unravelled. Or the standard clipper kind but when you pull on the wire it may be pulled tighter on the braid and will extend.
Clippers and needle nose pliers
Multimeter

Check out my Instagram page @radynamics the first few pics are how my soldering is and how I insulate. I'm working on a tutorial soon.

So from bottom up.
It's get wires. I cut them to 1.5m before braiding.
I braid before doing any soldering. However some guys solder the wires to the jack first. 4 wires so 2 to ground and 1 to each live.
Then they will press that onto a large piece of blu tack to anchor and then braid.

Make sure you insulate and slide on the jack barrel and any heat shrink you need for the y split and cable cinch.

Then before splitting use the multimeter to test which cables are ground and which are live. You want to split them such that each side will have 1 live and 1 ground

Twist the 2 wires as a braid first, doesn't have to be so tight. Slide on the MMCX barrel and any heat shrink for ear guide before soldering. Solder and then I use a some hot glue around the connection and slide a heat shrink over. Then slide or screw on the barrel. After that I recommend using a small pick to stuff hot glue into the barrel opening. Make sure the opening is filled. This is to reduce the pull on the solder points.

I strongly suggest using eidolic MMCX connectors. They are the most well made and have slightly larger soldering points. Their barrel is also wide enough such that small imperfections is okay. It's well worth the money considering how I burned through 3 **** connectors making just 1 cable.

Hope this helps and all the best! It's a challenge but a very rewarding one

 

[Johnnystuff]

In case of cans with a dual cable (one per earpad), how do you split the main one? I never saw y-splitters in the DIY shops so I'm guessing you just solder an extra wire at a certain point and use some heatshrink sleeves around the cut/solder. Not exactly elegant though so..... y-splitters where art thou?

 

[PinkyPowers]

In case of cans with a dual cable (one per earpad), how do you split the main one? I never saw y-splitters in the DIY shops so I'm guessing you just solder an extra wire at a certain point and use some heatshrink sleeves around the cut/solder. Not exactly elegant though so..... y-splitters where art thou?

It's best to simply use four conductors all the way through the cable. That's how the nicest cables are made.

 

[Johnnystuff]

How about the ground? Do you use 2 separate wires with dual conductors plus shielding for the ground or alternatively 6 wires from the bottom up?

 

[liquidzoo]

How about the ground? Do you use 2 separate wires with dual conductors plus shielding for the ground or alternatively 6 wires from the bottom up?

If you make it with 4 wires up to the Y, then 2 to each cup/earphone from there.

2 ground, 1 Right, 1 Left.

 

[comzee]

This shows how ignorant I am, but I'm having a tough time self researching this concept.
 
I have a speaker amp I want to drive my headphones.
 
It has the standard 2wire taps for left/right (4 wires total)
Example:

Spoiler: Image

 
I want to wire those into a 6.3mm TRS female headphone jack.
 
I thought I could just bridge the black pairs, to the TRS sleeve, but I'm confused.
 
With TRS it's right/left/ground. But on speaker outputs, it's two wires for left and right, that control polarity, so the black pairs are not ground?
 
This image illustrates how i want to wire my adapter, just consider the RCA ends raw wire I would plug into the speaker taps of the amp, and the 6.3mm TRS would be a female input, not male. Would this work?
 
 

Spoiler: Adapater Diagram

 

[Vidal]

Speaker amp? Won't that  be far too powerful for headphones?

 

[comzee]

  Speaker amp? Won't that  be far too powerful for headphones?

Powering HiFiMAN HE6 headphones, very common to power it off a speaker amp.

 

[Vidal]

  Powering HiFiMAN HE6 headphones, very common to power it off a speaker amp.

 
Ah I see, looks like the HE6 has cables to each cup. Would not creating a cable that goes from the amp direct to the headphone cup be a better idea?
 
I believe that would be balanced, or at least what I understand to be balanced.

 

[Gerner]

Okay.. This might not be the correct place to ask this.. But hopefully I'm not the only one, who've had this horrible problem..
I've replaced my old stock cable from my DT990, and made a beautiful cable. I then opened up my DT990, and soldered onto the connectors.. But there's a sound difference in the right channel. I'm not quiet sure what the problem is, because I'm sure I don't have any cold solderings points.. But I've placed some solder under one of the connectors, but could this have an effect on the output? Perhaps some resistance of some sort?

 

[Vidal]

Can you take some photos of the wire connections?
 
I know when I did my first DT990 mod I fried the voice coil wire and had to buy a new driver.

 

[buke9]

  This shows how ignorant I am, but I'm having a tough time self researching this concept.
 
I have a speaker amp I want to drive my headphones.
 
It has the standard 2wire taps for left/right (4 wires total)
Example:

Spoiler: Image

 
I want to wire those into a 6.3mm TRS female headphone jack.
 
I thought I could just bridge the black pairs, to the TRS sleeve, but I'm confused.
 
With TRS it's right/left/ground. But on speaker outputs, it's two wires for left and right, that control polarity, so the black pairs are not ground?
 
This image illustrates how i want to wire my adapter, just consider the RCA ends raw wire I would plug into the speaker taps of the amp, and the 6.3mm TRS would be a female input, not male. Would this work?
 
 

Spoiler: Adapater Diagram

I understand what you want to do but I'm unsure if that is good to do. Like others said I think it would be safer to make a new cable. I don't think it would hurt the headphones but might fry your amp. Still you need someone smarter than I on amp design to let you know for sure. I can't find a decent schematic to see if the grounds are together on the speaker outputs because most are split with an amp for each side with a transformer on the output. I have not seen a setup like you want before not to say it wont work but if it did I think others would do it but mostly what I have seen is 4 pin xlr to speaker taps adapter. If It were me and I wanted a 1/4" plug for whatever amp your using now and also speaker taps I would put a 4 pin xlr and make two adapters one 1/4' and one for speaker taps. I hope I'm wrong because that would be so much easier. 

 

[buke9]

  Okay.. This might not be the correct place to ask this.. But hopefully I'm not the only one, who've had this horrible problem..
I've replaced my old stock cable from my DT990, and made a beautiful cable. I then opened up my DT990, and soldered onto the connectors.. But there's a sound difference in the right channel. I'm not quiet sure what the problem is, because I'm sure I don't have any cold solderings points.. But I've placed some solder under one of the connectors, but could this have an effect on the output? Perhaps some resistance of some sort?

Were the connectors your talking about those on the drivers themselves? If they are and you did not heatsink them you could have overheated it and damaged the driver.

 

[comzee]

  I can't find a decent schematic to see if the grounds are together on the speaker outputs because most are split with an amp for each side with a transformer on the output.

Pretty much this, and I don't want to blow the amp/phones if the grounds can't be common. I can buy a balanced cable, but minimum it would cost $160 I found. 
 
I bought a Marantz PM500 for $200 just for fun. I'm debating if I want to spend the money on a balanced headphone cable just to test this thing out...... 

 

[buke9]

  Pretty much this, and I don't want to blow the amp/phones if the grounds can't be common. I can buy a balanced cable, but minimum it would cost $160 I found. 
 
I bought a Marantz PM500 for $200 just for fun. I'm debating if I want to spend the money on a balanced headphone cable just to test this thing out...... 

You can make it much cheaper than that. If you have a soldering iron and meter you could desolder the connector and plug the ends into the amp and try it out. If you don't like it resolder and be done with it.