DIY Cable Questions and Comments Thread

[buke9]

  I have successfully soldered a new straight 3.5 connection on my IEM's. Thanks to eveyone in this thread for their help, especially Paladin79

Pics.

 

[Paladin79]

  I have successfully soldered a new straight 3.5 connection on my IEM's. Thanks to eveyone in this thread for their help, especially Paladin79

Glad to help, those are very good connectors and they should last a long time. The only problem I ever have with that style is plugging them directly into an Iphone with a case on it, I use an extended tip version for such applications. I have damaged the screens on a couple Iphone 6's so I rarely leave mine out of a case now. I got through all previous versions of said phone without damaging them.

 

[Paladin79]

This is part of my home shop. Some things that really help out are lighted magnifier light, solder holders, wire holders, a sharp pick, good side cutters and pliers, a multimeter, soldering iron, hemostats, solder sucker and solder wick, panavise vise or helping hands, various screwdrivers, wire strippers,heat gun,glue gun, and parts bins. I tend to use Acro bins but there are plenty of cheaper ones out there. Not shown are several containers of various sizes and types of heat shrink tubing. Wire strippers are handy but if careful you can get by with a decent pocket knife in a pinch.
 
I use magnetic tool holders for things I need to access quickly, and a soldering iron set up for my left hand with a large 800 degree tip, two other irons are set up with smaller tips that I access with my right hand for smaller work but that is not something I recommend for most diyers. This is just an old metal desk with slide out sections on the left and right side and drawers full of connectors, wire, specialty solder etc. 
 
I did stop and build an extension for my turntable today. One of these days I should replace the existing left and right channel output cable because I doubt it has the quality of many cables I could use to replace it. It is an Hitachi PS-58 from the late seventies. I can date it because the first album I ever bought and played on it was Warren Zevon's Excitable Boy album. Luckily you ground to the chassis on the turntable so I will not have to incorporate an extra ground wire in the cable.

 

[AudioNewbi3]

Wanted to give a big thanks to all the individuals who helped and assisted me along with my DIY cable journey. 
 
Applying what I have learned here, this is my best work yet! Thanks guys!
 
Specs:
Conron 3.5mm Jack
Hakugei Copper Wire
SeaHF Silver Foil Wire
SeaHF Silver Plated Wire
12 conductors total ( 3 conductors for both the L&R channel, while 6 conductors for G)
Each  channel consists of 1 x Hakugei Copper Wire, 1 x SeaHF Silver Foil Wire, 1 x SeaHF Silver Plated Wire (whilst G consists of 2 ea)
 
Note the best braiding work, but hell, it is quite hard to do it with such limited lengths to work with
 

 

 

 

[Paladin79]

That is certainly an interesting looking cable and three wires to each of the channels had to be difficult. Well done.

 

[AudioNewbi3]

  That is certainly an interesting looking cable and three wires to each of the channels had to be difficult. Well done.

Thanks for the complement mate!

 

[XenHeadFi]

 

 

 
Really outstanding braiding work! Wish I could do that. I couldn't even do a 4-strand Round after 3 days of trying.

 

[Paladin79]

   
Really outstanding braiding work! Wish I could do that. I couldn't even do a 4-strand Round after 3 days of trying.

is this considered round or helical?
 

 

[alpha421]

Looks round to me.

 

[AudioNewbi3]

   
Really outstanding braiding work! Wish I could do that. I couldn't even do a 4-strand Round after 3 days of trying.

Thanks a lot mate, most of my braiding, learned from paracord braiding tutorials.
 
The above picture braid was made possible by this tutorial:
http://www.paracordguild.com/make-rope/
 
From my limited experience, any form of "compound" braiding (i.e. separating 12 strands of conductors into 4 sets of 3, then using 3 strand braids on each of the sets, and finally combining 4 these 4 sets into a single mass with 4 strand braid) will significantly complicate things.
 
Thus over the past few attempts, I have decided that it would be best to just separate the 12 strands of conductors (what I considered to be the physical limit of what a normal 3.5mm jack can accommodate) into 4 sets, with each set consisting of 3 strands of conductors, braiding them with the rope making technique, then combining the 4 braided sets into a single cable by once again utilizing the rope braiding method.
 
I find that with this method, it significantly simplifies as well as speed up the process.
 
12 Strand Interconnect separated into 4 sets of 3 conducters

 

(Note: they do not allow for additional braiding to combine these 4 sets into one cable)
 
 
8 strand interconnect. 8 strand of conductors were once again separated into 4 sets of 2. Each individual sets was then braided with rope making technique, the 4 sets were then combined together using 4 strand braid method. (Still somewhat complex).

 
In conclusion rope main braiding technique will be the one to use if you want a simple and efficient way to create cables IMHO.
 
Hope this helps

 

[XenHeadFi]

  is this considered round or helical?
 

I was following directions from Paracord Guild, but those instructions are now missing. Maybe that method didn't work because I only see the identical technique that I use labeled as "round"
 
My interconnects use some 7 stranded UPOCC. After braiding 4 wires using the same technique, they came out square... Push the edges inward and they become round.

 

[Paladin79]

  I was following directions from Paracord Guild, but those instructions are now missing. Maybe that method didn't work because I only see the identical technique that I use labeled as "round"
 
My interconnects use some 7 stranded UPCOCC. After braiding 4 wires using the same technique, they came out square... Push the edges inward and they become round.

One of these days I will work more on braiding. It seems pretty hard to recall the methods when you only braid occasionally. I did buy some OCC copper and silver wire that was pre-braided and the work was exceptional. My problem is I have read so much about twisted pair and how each twist needs to be identical that I probably over-worry about how the end result will be affected if it is not truly uniform.

 

[wormcycle]

I am sure this question has been asked before but cannot find the answer. I am planning to buy Violectric balanced amp and have a spare HD600 cable.
In the Violectric manual there is a detailed instruction how to connect the left and right side headphone wires to the 4 pin XLR.
Can I just chop the 1/4 plug from my spare wire and solder the wires to 4 pin XLR according to the instruction? That looks to me like a no brainer but I do not have much DIY experience.
Appreciate any comments.

 

[XenHeadFi]

  I am sure this question has been asked before but cannot find the answer. I am planning to buy Violectric balanced amp and have a spare HD600 cable.
In the Violectric manual there is a detailed instruction how to connect the left and right side headphone wires to the 4 pin XLR.
Can I just chop the 1/4 plug from my spare wire and solder the wires to 4 pin XLR according to the instruction? That looks to me like a no brainer but I do not have much DIY experience.
Appreciate any comments.

As long as the spare HD600 has "balanced" wiring, which means 2 wires to each cup for L+/L- and R+/R-. Usually if your cable has 4 wires inside and no mic/remote control, then it is balanced. The cable is just terminated as single-ended (1/4" plug).
 
If all of the above are true, then you can reterminate with an XLR4. Just as you thought.

 

[XenHeadFi]

  One of these days I will work more on braiding. It seems pretty hard to recall the methods when you only braid occasionally. I did buy some OCC copper and silver wire that was pre-braided and the work was exceptional. My problem is I have read so much about twisted pair and how each twist needs to be identical that I probably over-worry about how the end result will be affected if it is not truly uniform.

I think having proper braiding for interconnects is more important as common-mode noise/EMI generated in the interconnected will be amplified. Since most cabled headphones do not have amplifiers built into the cups, braiding and shielding are less important since that noise will not be amplified compared to the amplified music signal. We are talking about 60-80+ dB differences which is 1 million to 100 million times lower energies. 60-db noise can be heard on its own when there is no amplified signal to mask it AND if you are in a very quiet place with the volume turned up.
 
Most wireless and Bluetooth headphone have built in amplifiers. With the small space within the cup, you can get EMI from the circuit being amplified by the circuit. Probably not so bad these days, but those early models...