[Orpheus]

yeah... you might want to try the thin canare star quad too. it is a little skinnier. but i think, with either cable you'd still have to strip everything before it fits, and then re-wrap (heatshrink) the bare wires... i'm pretty sure. (i've made hundreds of cables with star quad... and some with very tight tolerances)

but are you sure you want to buy that 3.5mm plug? ...unless if you have a corda ha-1 or some portable amp, you probably want the normal 1/4" plug. you can even use the same plug that Equinox uses... the Neutrik 1/4" plugs... they have one with gold contacts and a black barrel if you want. (the one in my picture is (nickel plate with a nickel barrel... i prefer this one cause the barrel is shielded) it's like $2.

welp, good luck man. let us know how it turns out.

(you know... if i were you, i'd call Stefan Audio Art up and pretend that you are interested in their connectors for whatever geek reason before you buy their product... and find out the brand of the 2.5mm plug they use so you can order it yourself)

dean

 

[Irons82]

Ahhh crap, I forgot my amp has 1/4" (6.3mm) jack. I was trying to match the connectors with stock cable. Well, Radioshack, here I come!

Do I need solder gun too?

 

[Orpheus]

!..... solder gun?...... heh he... i hope you know what this project involves....

you're gonna need for tools:

1. soldering station (get at least a modest Weller model--invest like $50... it will makes things much easier for you.)
2. blow dryer (heat gun preferable)
3. some sort of clamp/stand to hold the parts while you solder
4. good solder... I use WBT silver solder, but it's like $30/roll... i forgot the brand, but there's a 2% silver solder out there that costs $1/tube

...and really, forget the radio shack 1/4"-1/8" converter... if you're gonna go through all this trouble, don't jack up the connection further with a converter. just buy the Neutrik 1/4" plug. it's easier to solder anyway than the 1/8" plug.

now that oyu have all the tools... you can buy the Canare Star Quad in bulk and make all your own interconnects... nothing's better than star quad for electromagnetic radiation rejection (well, at least nothing reasonable.)

dean

 

[Irons82]

Courtesy of Partsexpress.com


Neutrik 1/4" plug $3.29

Weller WLC100 Soldering Station $49.50

WBT 0820 Silver Solder $28

Solder Helper $5.75

Total $86.54 + $9.17 shipping = $95.71

Damn you Orpheus, damn you, die die die

 

[Orpheus]

heh he... sorry man. didn't realize this was your first time. i suggest you to try making some interconnects first to get some practice down. doing the headphone cable will be a lot harder.

dean

 

[Dreamslacker]

Quote:

Originally posted by Orpheus (you know... if i were you, i'd call Stefan Audio Art up and pretend that you are interested in their connectors for whatever geek reason before you buy their product... and find out the brand of the 2.5mm plug they use so you can order it yourself) dean

I'm guessing that they splice the original cable like with the HD580/600 cables.

 

[fyrfytrhoges]

dreamslacker, after you get done buying all this stuff you could have just gone and ordered the stephan audioart equinox cable after all and gone through alot less trouble.... the price is a little high but the build quality and sound performance are well worth it in the long run.....

 

[Dreamslacker]

Quote:

Originally posted by fyrfytrhoges dreamslacker, after you get done buying all this stuff you could have just gone and ordered the stephan audioart equinox cable after all and gone through alot less trouble.... the price is a little high but the build quality and sound performance are well worth it in the long run.....

Well.... I take pride in building and modifying things. That's also the reason (besides cost) that I have built my equivalent of the META42 amp. on a perfboard than to buy the PCB from tangent. Doing so would take the fun out of building the amp.

 

[Irons82]

*UPDATE*

Cables and connectors from Markertek have arrived! Damn the Canare cable is fat. I don't know if I could shove both cables down the poor 2.5mm connector's throat. I'll see. Order from Partsexpress.com is taking its time. Until they arrive, I could only sit and stare at the Canare cables.... Hopefully they'll be here when I gets back from New Orleans on Sunday.

On the side note, I also got a Creek OBH-11

. I know I know, some of you would cough at it but it's my first ever headphone amp. I'm learning along the way people, bare with me

.

After plugging in some adaptors from RadioShack, the amp was ready to sing, and sing it did! My HD-495 is like a new headphone now. Thumping bass, awesome vocal, crispy high, I love it! All this with the crap stock cable

When I got the cable finished, I'll let you guys know the improvements (if any). Also, if anybody want to, I'm willing to send the finished cable for you to A/B with your Equinox cable. Remember, you have to have the HD590 and the Equinox cable for it to A/B. HD590 has different cable design comparing to 580/600 if you didn't know that already.

After the cable is done, then I'll buy a read headphones, HD-590

 

[Dreamslacker]

HI guys... I've just bought the stuff and completed building my cable just a few minutes ago. And at the moment... I'm already getting better sound than the stock.

The bass is better (I actually get bass when the person with the deep voice sings

) & tighter (not as boomy) and the soundstage is better too. The xylophone playing actually rings away like it should.

I basically fitted the 2.5mm plug on my dremel and rev'ed it up.. Until I realised I had no file at home. So.. Just took one of the dremel grinding bits and mounted it on the vice to use as a replacement for the file.

Of the 2m of Canare cable I used, I striped the outer rubber layer off 1.2m of it and used PTFE (teflon) threading tape to wrap the braiding instead.
This stretch, I used for leading to the headphones so it wouldn't be so inflexible. I'll be buying wire-mesh (I think you guys call it tech-flex) to line the cable soon.

The stuff I've bought for this:

Gold plated ¼" plug - S$2.00
2.5mm sub-mini plug (just normal tin) - S$0.50
2m of Red Canare 2 conductor (2T2S) cable - S$6.00
Some small coil of silver solder (2.5% silver); Used less than 5mm of it - S$2.00
PTFE threading tape (the stuff you use for plumbing) - S$0.40
Some glass cloth with imprenated PTFE adhesive tape (to wrap the ends) - Free. Had it at home.

Total cost: ~S$11.00 (About US$6.20)

I'll post pictures in the morning after the Sun has risen when I can be bothered to take my video camera out. (It's nearly 2am in the morning now)

 

[Budgie]

Cool. (I got rid of the barrel and used heat shrink, didn't think of using a file to turn it down. clever!) Please do post the picture!

 

[Dreamslacker]

Quote:

Originally posted by Budgie Cool. (I got rid of the barrel and used heat shrink, didn't think of using a file to turn it down. clever!) Please do post the picture!

The plug refused to fit after junking the barrel so I had to file down what was left as well.. LoL... I don't have much choice of 2.5mm plugs here. Just one and only one.. LOL..

 

[Dreamslacker]

Pictures galore!
Sorry for the blurry pictures. I'm using a very lousy video camera (not even Hi 8!) to take the pictures.
I'm waiting for Irons to post his..

The cable:

The ¼" plug against the stock 1/8" plug:

The 2.5mm sub-mini plugs. (the yellowish brown stuff on the bottom plug is the glass cloth teflon tape)

The 2 plugs of the DiY'ed cable:

 

[Orpheus]

that's pretty nice man. very good work. everything looks clean, and professional.

...not sure why you stripped half the cable though... the canare is plenty flexible. at least more than the Cardas cable.

but anyway, the cable looks very "clean," just as good looking as those cables costing 10x more.... which i guess was the goal.

how do you like its performance?

dean

 

[Dreamslacker]

Quote:

Originally posted by Orpheus that's pretty nice man. very good work. everything looks clean, and professional. ...not sure why you stripped half the cable though... the canare is plenty flexible. at least more than the Cardas cable. but anyway, the cable looks very "clean," just as good looking as those cables costing 10x more.... which i guess was the goal. how do you like its performance? dean

Well... My hands got really sore from striping the cable so I stopped at half. Also, it took well over ½ hour just to wrap that 1.2m of wire with the PTFE threading tape. I decided that 1.2m was enough of striped length as I'd leave the remaining portion lying on the table anyway. (It wouldn't matter if this portion was heavy & inflexible)

The striped portion is lighter and quite a fair bit more flexible so it won't feel like it's dangling from my headphones.

Till now, the cable has had less than 16 hours of run time. It's not fully burnt-in yet but as of now, the bass has gotten a little tighter than when I first finished building it.

Compared to the stock, the cable is less murky in the low range. The bass is much tighter and the soundstage is much more better.
I can hear the different voices in the choral singing in some songs much more distinctively.
The guitars being plucked actually have this nice "twang" and I literally feel the air being moved as the strings are plucked.
Prior to this, I could only pick out minute details at higher volumes once I had built my amp. Now, i can hear the same details clearly at lower volumes.

I feel that more differences can definitely be heard if I had a better source. I'm currently using only a PCDP (Panasonic SL-CT430). The laser diode is probably dying. Been getting skips occasionally although the unit was not touched and the CDs are totally clean.
My amp. is a multi-loop, buffered op-amp built off the schematic in Tangentsoft's META article (OPA134PA with EL2001 buffers).

Overall, I'm extremely happy with the cable. It's extremely cheap (cheaper than even the stock replacement Sennheiser cable), offers good sound and I absolutely love every step of building this cable. What pride and joy! Definitely worth losing my 6 hours of sleeptime last night to build.