Thanks for the kinds words! I am still an absolute beginner and the soldering works being clean or not depends largely on the wire, lol. So there is definitely no masterwork here. I DIY, mod and design a lot because I think that's the best way to learn.
Thanks for the reply. I don't get my cable parts on AliExpress that's why I am able to get more interesting stuffs. I also read somewhere that it's best to have the to contact points made of the same coating/material but I am a bit skeptical about that TBH as even with the same material if can be coated differently and the coating layers are usally alloys not pure elements you can never be sure if they are the same alloy. I think the best way to find the answer is to solder the wire directly to the amp and to the IEM coz I find solder to have a much smaller effect in sound than these connectors.
I now use the Tomy Audiophile system and I may move to Effect Audio's ConX system as I do have a few of their cables all with ConX connectors but they are all only gold plated.
You can save your money on this one I bet. This is the exact same plug I bought and I just talked about it, that Red copper plug. It's terible to work with as the coating didn't like my mundorf solder and it sounded good but not good enough. It's the so called Hufi sound meaning warm and not packed with sparkles and details.
This is the same Acrolink I tested too, lol. Again it's good for the price, but nothing magical about it.
Xangsane they make good cheap splitter barreals.
This one I believe is the QYFANG I talked about earlier, too, lol. Again, it's ok for the price but it's only for cheap wires.
So how is this one?
Don't worry, all the links work.
Do share it if you have your favourite wire /IEM soldered to an amp. Gotta be very interesting.The wires inside an IEM are super thin so it should make a huge difference it some thick wires are soldered to it instead.
All solders have bad conductivity?I am also using Mundorf Supreme.
I think wires never really have a direct contact to the plug as that will actually decrease the contact surface. The solder is there (especially after tinning) to fill all thr gaps between the wires and also between the wires and the plug surface, as well as acting as a glue for the wire to keep it in place. If the wire has direct contact with the plug surface it will have to be held in place by having the solder on top and around. Maybe it's most beneficial with a single hard core wire. (Not sure if I have misunderstood what you said). Anyway these Chinese factories usually just add too little solder so I don't buy finished cables from them anymore.
Oppos sorry, it's a link I pasted by mistake, you can't get Tomy and ConX on AE.
That is too bad. I bet AE will find a way to fix that problem.
I prefer to see everything analogue as "micro analogue computers" and these computers work together to form a more complex computer. Basically if you feed a signal into an object and it outputs a signal not identical to the input, it is a computer. Analogue computers are not perfect so all these equations are just approximations describing a small part of our observations, or at least those we can easily write on a piece of paper. I think the sound of a cable is in theory "predictable" but it is just too complex and becomes not worth our efforts to solve and instead it is much easier to do it in a trial and error way.Hello ,
To make it clear , I do hear a Impact of a IEM Cable and i believe in all formally discussed aspects . The Problem with all the Theory is that it s mathematecally not profable, nor messureable with our given Labor instruments.
To make the technical discussion about a cable in a ac enviroment a bit more funny i will take the position of the Naysayer and Cablesound Critics for a Second.
Don t get angry, i am just joking.
simplyfyed Equivalent circuit diagram
Equivalent circuit diagram for a line element of a two-wire line of length d
The Arrangement Amp , Cable ; IEM is also a Bandpassfilter
What do i want to say with all this ?
If you calculate you will see that the Cornerfrequencies are multiple Times below and multipletimes bigger than our lovly Music (15 Hz- 22 kHz )
At a short example of calculation of a Lowpassfilter
Lowpassfilter: 1.st order simplyfied
fG= CutFrequency fallen -3 dB
R-= Outputimpedance of Headphoneamp plus Resistance of Cable in Ohm, for the example i take the unlikely case of 10 Ohm.
C = Cablecapitance in Farrad. For the example i take the unusual high case of 200 pF.
1/ 3,141592.......... *2 *10*0,000000002 = 1587301.5873015873015873 Hz= 1,587301 MHz !!!
We are no Bats no, so no Problem ?
Calculate the Highpass for yourself , but it s Magnitudes less than 1 Hz
So far from any Phaseshift or Frequencyresponse.
So here no impact to Soundquality.
The classical solution of this example with the help of differential equations would have come to the same result, but would have required several times more complicated computational effort. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Skineffect
Cause of skin effect. A current I flowing through a conductor induces a magnetic field H. If the current increases, as in this figure, the resulting increase in H induces circulating eddy currents IW which partially cancel the current flow in the center and reinforce it near the skin.
Skin depth vs. frequency for some materials at room temperature, red vertical line denotes 50 Hz frequency:
Skin depth in copper
- Mn-Zn – magnetically soft ferrite
- Al – metallic aluminum
- Cu – metallic copper
- steel 410 – magnetic stainless steel
- Fe-Si – grain-oriented electrical steel
- Fe-Ni – high-permeability permalloy (80%Ni-20%Fe)
Frequency Skin depth (μm) 50 Hz 9220 60 Hz 8420 10 kHz 652 100 kHz 206 1 MHz 65.2 10 MHz 20.6 100 MHz 6.52 1 GHz 2.06 
Four stages of skin effect in a coax showing the effect on inductance. Diagrams show a cross-section of the coaxial cable. Color code: black=overall insulating sheath, tan=conductor, white=dielectric, green=current into the diagram, blue=current coming out of the diagram, dashed black lines with arrowheads=magnetic flux (B). The width of the dashed black lines is intended to show relative strength of the magnetic field integrated over the circumference at that radius. The four stages, A, B, C, and D are: non-energized, low frequency, middle frequency and high frequency respectively. There are three regions that may contain induced magnetic fields: the center conductor, the dielectric and the outer conductor. In stage B, current covers the conductors uniformly and there is a significant magnetic field in all three regions. As the frequency is increased and the skin effect takes hold (C and D) the magnetic field in the dielectric region is unchanged as it is proportional to the total current flowing in the center conductor. In C, however, there is a reduced magnetic field in the deeper sections of the inner conductor and the outer sections of the shield (outer conductor). Thus there is less energy stored in the magnetic field given the same total current, corresponding to a reduced inductance. At an even higher frequency, D, the skin depth is tiny: all current is confined to the surface of the conductors. The only magnetic field is in the regions between the conductors; only the "external inductance" remains.
So at 100kHz the skindeep is 226 u m = 0,226mm , --no Skineffekt in a solid 0,226mm Wire , we are no Bats , are we ?
So at 10 kHz the skindeep is 652 u m = 0,652 mm
Diode effect between 2 close wires of exactly the same electrical potential ? Na, not really.
Sorry, I am only Joking . You can t calculate , nor messure a Cablesound. Only your Ears and your Heart can tell !!!!!!!!!!!!
Greetings from the funny Lothar
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It depends on the wire. You probably can't have a plug that works perfect with every wire like the Bispa totally kills the sound of the Grey Dragon. So far I like plugs made by Eidolic, Bispa and Furutech. (I only have the cheap version of the Furutech plug now and it's on the smoother side and can get slightly unexciting, so I bought the Alpha Copper to find out how much better it is)
Thanks!
Unfortunately I don't purchase these on AE but here are the parameters:
| D | Pre-shrunk inner D | Wall Thickness | Post-shrunk inner D | Wall Thickness |
| 4.5mm | 5.0+/- 0.3 mm | 0.15 +/-0.05 mm | <2.25 mm | 0.30 +/- 0.10 |
You can get those wooden earhook mold to form the earhooks but I don't think it is necessary. You can try to bend the hook at the same lenght from the IEM side plug and then slowly adjust the shape with the aid of a lighter. I have very small ears so my hooks are smaller than standard and everyone have different ear sizes so just do it by hand should be fine.
I am not sure TBH but I think the benefit of a sheilded cable is that you can achieve better results such as better separations and a dark background with less/thinner wires.
Correct me if I am wrong.
Yea, and I am not even sure if it is correct to call balanced headphone/IEM cables "balanced" or more correctly "isolated".
Yea, but it's very common to call the extra outer insulator a shielding, of which the effect is unknown, lol.
Yes, that's exactly what I wanted to say but somehow I find coaxial cables maybe better sounding or mayber they actually are more noise resistant than twisted pairs. But nothing is proven here.
What the cable does is providing an extra ground loop, it may provide a clean signal or it may do nothing, depending on the design of the source I guess. I am too lazy to try that out myself because I bought too many stuffs already but it maybe a cheap easy way for a cleaner sound.
Oh wait I just checked the page again and I think that 3.5mm plug is for connecting the outer shielding to the ground, (edit: I asked it's only for Sony devices) and I think that is a TRRRS 2.5 plug. Again, how that really works is unknown and maybe it has no effect at all.A trrs 2,5 mm Plug
so you want to connect L- to Ground ?
normaly you want to avoid ground loops .
In an electrical system, a ground loop or earth loop occurs when two points of a circuit are intended to have the same ground reference potential but instead have a different potential between them.[1] This is typically caused when enough current is flowing in the connection between the two ground points to produce a voltage drop and cause two points to be at different potentials. Current may be produced in a circular ground connection (ground loop) by electromagnetic induction.
Ground loops are a major cause of noise, hum, and interference in audio, video, and computer systems. Wiring practices that protect against ground loops include ensuring that all vulnerable signal circuits are referenced to one point as ground. The use of differential signaling can provide rejection of ground-induced interference. Removal of safety ground connections to equipment in an effort to eliminate ground loops also eliminates the protection the safety ground connection is intended to provide.
Greetings,
have a nice Day , Night
Lothar
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It is probably a custom made plug by the factory.
Yes this is the one.
I thought it is significantly cheaper to get Mundorf solder in Germany, lol.
Thanks, I am also thinking using heat shrink tubes to protect the wires before dipping into the paint remover (which is just as dangerous to use as a tin pot, lol, and I will wear all the protections). I will share the result if this actually works.
I am sure you are doing a much better job here than all cable factories as they only test the connectivity so you have my salute.
The problem with the Gaea wire is there are like 500+ litz wires inside so I ended up melting the PVC skin instead but I will try with some proper flux this time.
Got the wire, it looks nice but has a cheap feel, oops.Oh wait I just checked the page again and I think that 3.5mm plug is for connecting the outer shielding to the ground, (edit: I asked it's only for Sony devices) and I think that is a TRRRS 2.5 plug. Again, how that really works is unknown and maybe it has no effect at all.
Also I just bought this btw:
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So it's about the same price everywhere on earth.
It's made from concentrated sulphuric acid (lol) as far as I know. I am happy I actually don't think I have to use it. The flux (it's called soldering paste actually) works very well.
I think it is more likely due to cold solder joint and one big reason I started DIYing cables is that I just cannot be sure all these litz wires are properly tinned. (Cough cough... Hakugei...)
Yea, I wrapped the wires with 2.5mm tubes, but as to protect the skin of the wires. Heat transfer is way too efficient with the paste and I ended up melting the skin while testing.
These are Bispa plugs, I bought them all from their factory store but the whole site is in Japanese. I also bought some other plugs from the Oyaide online store (again in Japanese) and Amazon JP.
The new smelly flux works surprisingly very well and here is my half finished Gaea cable with a silver plated plug:
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Since I am using a similar plug as the Phoenix I hear some similarities between them but it's even more resolving, has a similar stage width and height. I think the most distinctive differences are that it has better bass response and being more elastic and that there is a very smooth transition from basically bottom end to the treble end likely due to the single kind of litz 7N OCC used. It's so smooth and dense that I cannot hear any grain at all yet the treble is very extended (probably due to the silver plug). But since the sound is denser and more resolving, the sense of space is smaller and vocal is a bit closer depending of the genre of music but the reverb is clearer so you get some sense of space back. But then the Phoenix has more realistic 3D imaging.
