[Paladin79]

Thanks for helping on that King, I have an hour drive to my office so I was not able to get back to the gentleman.

 

[Paladin79]

Hey so... I am a hefty noob I have built one cable. First off where can I buy high quality wire thats not super expensive? Or should I buy starquad mic cables from canrae, mogami or vandamme? I need to make a he 4xx also known as he400i cable. So my other issue is where to buy 2.5m connectors?
Also should I braid it? or no? Like litz and paracord?

Thx- Ian

2.5 mm connectors, if mono, are available from Switchcraft, look for the number 850X.
Litz is generally decent as is oxygen free copper that is in many star quad types. You can use the star quad as such and use mesh over the entire jacket or remove the wires and braid those. What you need to avoid in audio is two wires running parallel to each other with no braiding or twisting done. Read up on twisted pair some time and you will understand it is a form of shielding.

 

[Razorbud]

Hey guys, I just recabled one of my earbuds yesterday and while the results weren't too bad, they aren't as great as I expected them to be and I would like to ask some questions:

For a 4 cable braid, what braids do you guys use? Flat litz? Round/square (each core on a side of a square, and cross two cores across the "horizontal" axis and the other two cross along the "vertical" axis)? Or a drill method where you split the 4 wires into sets of two, braid each set in one direction, and braid both sets together in a different direction using a drill?

How long do you guys take to do it? I got to admit that it took me longer than it should to finish the project, probably about 3-4 hours just to recable an earbud. Partly cause I'm using a poor quality solder and my soldering iron is badly oxidized. Also I made the rookie mistake of forgetting to put the sleeving for the plug first before soldering the wires to the cable.

What sort of insulation should my cables have? I got ones with PTFE and they seem to be quite good. I accidentally ordered more with FET instead and they felt more like PC and speaker/electronics wires instead of IEM ones. I went ahead an used them anyway cause I didn't want to wait for a new set of wires to arrive. From what I read, they shouldn't really be much different? Though they feel really different.

How much do you guys typically spend per meter of wire? I found some SPC wire on ebay for about $1.50 to $2 per meter depending on gauge.

Is 30 awg flexible enough? The FET wires I mentioned above were 20awg with an OD of 1.5mm. The resulting cable was stiff and heavy.

EDIT: Also, what are your thoughts on getting pre-braided cables? I understand that a multimeter will come in handy to identify the individual cores, but what about the convenience of having them already braided for you?

 

[Ian Hickler]

Hey so put it this way flat braid will look the cleanest. Second litz and third twisted. Twosting is the quickest to.

 

[kingkikapu]

Allanmarcus has a great wire tracker on his DIY supplies page. Wire prices are anywhere from a fraction of a dollar/ft to 8-12$/ft for gold doped silver (I have some of that sitting in a drawer waiting to be assembled).

My suggestion: don't spend 500$ on wire if your cans are 800$. Spend that money on better transducers, amps, and dacs. Upgrade to pricey cables last. I've made cables out of Belden/Mogami/Canare star quads: some I keep the original sleeving on to the Y, others I strip and braid the whole thing. They sound great. If you want to go above that in quality you're heading into lower gauge OCC copper. I'm just gonna put my thoughts out there: I hate solid conductor cables because they're pretty stiff, so if going OCC I go for OCC stranded cables so that they coil better.

I usually buy 24AWG-28AWG for most headphone applications, and add more wires vs going lower gauge and fewer wires.

P.S. Allan/Paladin: that panavise workstation rocks. Thanks for the advice.

 

[Ian Hickler]

Allanmarcus has a great wire tracker on his DIY supplies page. Wire prices are anywhere from a fraction of a dollar/ft to 8-12$/ft for gold doped silver (I have some of that sitting in a drawer waiting to be assembled).

My suggestion: don't spend 500$ on wire if your cans are 800$. Spend that money on better transducers, amps, and dacs. Upgrade to pricey cables last. I've made cables out of Belden/Mogami/Canare star quads: some I keep the original sleeving on to the Y, others I strip and braid the whole thing. They sound great. If you want to go above that in quality you're heading into lower gauge OCC copper. I'm just gonna put my thoughts out there: I hate solid conductor cables because they're pretty stiff, so if going OCC I go for OCC stranded cables so that they coil better.

I usually buy 24AWG-28AWG for most headphone applications, and add more wires vs going lower gauge and fewer wires.

P.S. Allan/Paladin: that panavise workstation rocks. Thanks for the advice.

Where can I find this store?

 

[Allanmarcus]

Hey guys, I just recabled one of my earbuds yesterday and while the results weren't too bad, they aren't as great as I expected them to be and I would like to ask some questions:

For a 4 cable braid, what braids do you guys use? Flat litz? Round/square (each core on a side of a square, and cross two cores across the "horizontal" axis and the other two cross along the "vertical" axis)? Or a drill method where you split the 4 wires into sets of two, braid each set in one direction, and braid both sets together in a different direction using a drill?

How long do you guys take to do it? I got to admit that it took me longer than it should to finish the project, probably about 3-4 hours just to recable an earbud. Partly cause I'm using a poor quality solder and my soldering iron is badly oxidized. Also I made the rookie mistake of forgetting to put the sleeving for the plug first before soldering the wires to the cable.

What sort of insulation should my cables have? I got ones with PTFE and they seem to be quite good. I accidentally ordered more with FET instead and they felt more like PC and speaker/electronics wires instead of IEM ones. I went ahead an used them anyway cause I didn't want to wait for a new set of wires to arrive. From what I read, they shouldn't really be much different? Though they feel really different.

How much do you guys typically spend per meter of wire? I found some SPC wire on ebay for about $1.50 to $2 per meter depending on gauge.

Is 30 awg flexible enough? The FET wires I mentioned above were 20awg with an OD of 1.5mm. The resulting cable was stiff and heavy.

EDIT: Also, what are your thoughts on getting pre-braided cables? I understand that a multimeter will come in handy to identify the individual cores, but what about the convenience of having them already braided for you?

For a simple 4 wire braid, I just braid all four wires. I just look up a four strand braid on the inter webs, and follow instructions.

 

[Paladin79]

Soon I will be making DIY cables to go with this DIY amp. (Coaster amp, a hybrid amp sent to me from Jason Stoddard at Schiit). This is such a small amplifier that I will be looking for some 4 mm mesh to fit over quality twisted pair. I should be building at least four of these amps in various housings and hope to do matching cables in all cases. These amps can be left un-populated and used as coasters, thus the name.

 

[FangJoker]

I ordered a cable for my sony xba z5 and the connectors on the cable is really tight. Tighter than the stock cable connector so I broke the tip of one side while changing it out while comparing cables. I can order replacement sony xba connectors from ebay, but I was thinking of changing it to mmcx which I can use for some other IEMs that I own. Who in the USA can do this? I can buy the connectors and send the cable with it if I know someone can do this. Should I make my own thread? If anyone knows anyone in the USA that can do this let me know. Thanks

 

[sashokv36]

Hello,

I am planning to build custom cable for Meze 99 Classics. It is known fact that they require slim 3.5 mm jacks for connection on headphone side. My measurements with existing cable show that actual diameter of said jacks is about 3.44 - 3.45 mm with stem length 14 mm. Now, I've been looking for such connectors, either TS or TSR (both work based on my own experience), however, I find it hard to find reasonable options. What I found so far:

- Meze themselves sell such connectors for ridiculous price of 20 USD per pair.
- Eidolic has fitting connector for even more ridiculous price of 14.50 USD per one.
- At the same time, eBay is full of various cables for Meze with perfectly fitting slim connectors and judging by cable prices, these connectors are really cheap. On top, they look completely differently from Meze or Eidolic options.

I tried to find suitable connectors on Digikey and Mouser, however, there are no 3.5 mm connectors that have actual diameter less than 3.5 mm. On the other hand, certainly such connectors exist beyond Meze and Eidolic offers. Could anyone point me in the right direction, where I could find headphone connectors fitting Meze headphones at the reasonable price?

Many thanks!

 

[bharris]

Hi,

Can someone point me to a good supplier for "mid-fi" copper wire for a DIY headphone cable? Link to a good place in the thread? Not looking to spend more than $2-3/ft.

In the past I've used PlusSound and Norne Audio but they don't seem to have anything non-litz available.
(Sorry, I know it's already in here but I was scanning for a while... this thread has gotten huge)

THANKS!!

 

[ThinkerMakerDIYer]

Hi,

Can someone point me to a good supplier for "mid-fi" copper wire for a DIY headphone cable? Link to a good place in the thread? Not looking to spend more than $2-3/ft.

In the past I've used PlusSound and Norne Audio but they don't seem to have anything non-litz available.
(Sorry, I know it's already in here but I was scanning for a while... this thread has gotten huge)

THANKS!!

PMing you. I DIYed quite a few earphones and headphones, cable is a critical choice–some look fancy from pics but really hard to use. I pick them by my own ears.
And there are just tooooooo many amazon ebay aliexpress sellers claiming they have 6/7/8/9...N ofc/occ... cables just for few $... very funny.

 

[tarhana]

guys can you recommend me a copper wire for iem use? my budget is 5 dollars/feet. aliexpress links would be perfect, paypal (and therefore ebay) blocked here.

 

[rundeploy]

Hello, everyone. I am a usb custom cable maker. I would like to try to make some hifi audio cables (may be with paracord, techflex or teleios sleeving, techflex or teleios might not be a good ideia because of the "microphonics", but i will experiment to see). From my light search i have found that Mogami W2893 cable would be good for that. Do you agree ? I am in Europe so i find it difficult to find where to buy for a decent price. Do you recommend any different cable ? I will make for my headphones like HD598, DT990 Pro, HD650 etc All the connectors i already have. I just don't know what cable to pick for this headphones and where. I would appreciate your help.

 

[Paladin79]

W2893 is good. There are also star quad cables made by Canare and Belden that contain quality conductors. The 2893 is 26 awg, I generally like to use 24 awg but the 26 can suffice.

As far as microphonics, I prefer using mesh that is partially or wholly cotton based, if you do enough searching on Ebay you can find it
. There is also some decent Litz wire out there so you might find it easier to obtain in your area. I am doing some extensive testing on most any wire type I can find and some of the ofc litz stands up very well to any kind of cable I can buy and quite often the price is reasonable. This is part of my test setup and I can switch between four types of wire at a time. I have also used a dozen people with backgrounds in music and audio to test some of my samples.