Questions about building an IPOD LOD + Some more General Questions

[Bop]

Well I'm considering building three IPOD line-out docks, two for friends, and one for my mother. I've read a few tutorials online, but the thing that tended to be missing was the materials used sections where the specific cables/thicknesses were not given. In terms of experience, I am a complete and utter nublet and have some questions that just irk me every minute of the day.

The General Questions that Bother Me:
Question #1: So after visiting the MOGAMI site to pick out a candidate for a LOD, I'm swarmed by this vast majority of cables that I have never known/seen/heard about. Thus, the first question would be Are all cables universal?
Question #2: Now the offered snake cable at MOGAMI brought up the question of why where were so many sub cables in the large cable, and so What benefits/possible uses would a person have in using such a thick, highly stranded cable?

The More LODcentric Questions:
Question A: I've been looking at the Silverbraid at HomeGrown Audio and the ALO Cryo SXC Wire, and I'm not sure what thickness I should get. If anyone has any other suggestions, or can talk about the nuances they found in each one, that would be very helpful.
Question B: I've read about 4 stranded cables, and in context with a headphone retermination that I did with a 3.5mm jack, I could only recall 3 connectors (left, right, ground). I wonder what advantages does having 4 wires give, why use 4 wires, and where would one connect the 4th wire?.
Question C: Similarly, I have also read about IPOD LODs that use a combination of certain wires, (2 silver, 1 copper, and the like), and it would make sense that there would be some sonical differences. Has anyone tried this? And if so, what combination did you think worked best?


-I'm rather a poor penniless student with limited experience. My current plans do not focus so much on cables as amplifiers or dacs, but I would like to achieve the best sound possible on a limited budget. So in this case, I'm quite sorry for not contributing "to science!" and the DIY Community (though I might try some combination of cables in the future), and I would greatly appreciate any feedback.

Thank you for reading!

 

[pistolsnipe]

cant help you with everything, but ill do what i can

i used 28 awg silver plated oxygen free copper (3 strands of wire twisted together), sheathed in 1/8 in nylon multifilament.

as for 4 conductors, in this context i am not sure it is necessary. for headphones, you actually have four wires (l+, l-, r+, r-) l- and r- are usually connected together at the plug, both go to the sleeve (or ground) of the 1/4 trs connector. if you have 3 wires in a headphone cable, it has to split into 4 somewhere because each of the 2 headphone drivers has a + and a -.

as for sound differences i cant help you, as i am not sure i am a cable beleiver

 

[pistolsnipe]

just as an added note, an lod is really not one of the easiest things to make (the solder connections are akward and tiny), so make sure your soldering skills are up t task. if you use stranded wire, make sure it is twisted tightly together, tinned, and snipped very short before you attempt a connection

 

[Bop]

Thanks for the quick feedback, it was quite enlightening. I think I'll wait till there are some more final posts before moving onwards. Thanks a lot!

 

[pistolsnipe]

in case you are interested, here is a link to the pic of my lod.

http://i.imgur.com/PoNff.jpg

you dont need the caps that i have shown here, this is for an imod.

when i said 3 wires, i was thinking if you were going to a 3.5 mm plug, but if you are going to 2 rca connectors as shown here, you need 4 wires.

if you want to do it this way, get your strands of wire, cover them in the nylon multiilament, and as shown here, i put a bit of heatshrink over the end. inside the connector (qables) i zip tied the very end of the heat shrink with the smallest ties i could find. after i soldered up all the wires, i hot glued everything and sealed it up.

 

[Bop]

True. For the people who I am building this, a simple 3.5 mil. would be sufficient. It's a nice picture...

and it looks good. As for aesthetics, I do think a braided wire hits my fancy

 

[momomo6789]

go with solid core for lod's stranded alo is a pain to do . i have made ones with copper / silver mix most of my wires are and they all sound the same

 

[Bop]

KK, thanks, I almost have all the information I need to get started. The only things that remain are:


-Is 28AWG the ideal thickness of a 3 stranded wire LOD?
-Would a 25Watt Hakko Dash suffice in this as well as future cable projects (like interconnects)
-About how many feet would be necessary to make 3 of the above LODs?
-So there is little to no difference between the silver braid, ALO Cyro, and copper vs. silver wires?

Sorry to add these questions later, but had a small brainfart in my original post and couldn't think of these T_T

 

[momomo6789]

26 fit perfect 30 would work also
why not

if you use neutrik plugs there 3cm long then another 1 cm inside the lod side do the math your self

alo is nono for lod imo i know i wont make one, solid core all the way for lod
alo 24 awg is as thick as 18 ga wire and stiffer

 

[Bop]

Ah, I'm going crazy >.<

Just decided to get 1 ft. of each cable of various lengths in order to experiment on the sound quality. I'll try to post pictures once I'm done...I'm guessing that I'll end up with 6 LODs+plenty of wire to spare that is.

 

[qusp]

4 wires really should be used, 3 is only used to save money. ground and signal wires should really have equal potential, so one ground for each signal is preferred.
30AWG is ridiculously small for an LOD, hell thats small for pretty much anything IMO, maybe good for digital cables where skin effect is of some consequence. I have found 0.5mm 24.5AWG) to be the sweet spot, with 26AWG silver another favorite. I also wouldnt recommend an LOD for the first project, and if you do, make sure to buy a few extra LOD connectors. remove any pins you arent using so its impossible to bridge them

 

[FallenAngel]

Considering the amount of current @ 1V going through that wire, you can even use 46awg, though it's simply not practical as it's a pain to work with. 30awg is more than enough, but it's also thin and may be brittle. For most applications, 28-24 awg is good.

 

[Bop]

Quote:

Originally Posted by qusp /img/forum/go_quote.gif 4 wires really should be used, 3 is only used to save money. ground and signal wires should really have equal potential, so one ground for each signal is preferred. 30AWG is ridiculously small for an LOD, hell thats small for pretty much anything IMO, maybe good for digital cables where skin effect is of some consequence. I have found 0.5mm 24.5AWG) to be the sweet spot, with 26AWG silver another favorite. I also wouldnt recommend an LOD for the first project, and if you do, make sure to buy a few extra LOD connectors. remove any pins you arent using so its impossible to bridge them

Haha...again I'm more of a noob than anything, so would having two wires connected to the ground pin-perhaps some quad cable be suggested then? If so, would the sound quality difference be big or slight?

 

[qusp]

Quote:

Originally Posted by FallenAngel /img/forum/go_quote.gif Considering the amount of current @ 1V going through that wire, you can even use 46awg, though it's simply not practical as it's a pain to work with. 30awg is more than enough, but it's also thin and may be brittle. For most applications, 28-24 awg is good.

thus the reason for my comment, notice I specified for an LOD? portable cables take a bit of a beating and I wouldnt use anything lower than 26AWG myself unless it was sheathed very well with some padding so it couldnt be bent at too sharp an angle. and the OP has mentioned liking the look of an exposed braid, so no way 30AWG. that being said i'm listening to my JH13 through a 2 x 3 wire braid(1 each channel) 32AWG stranded silver tonearm wire cable right now and its great, no problems, but I wouldnt if it was solid

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bop /img/forum/go_quote.gif Haha...again I'm more of a noob than anything, so would having two wires connected to the ground pin-perhaps some quad cable be suggested then? If so, would the sound quality difference be big or slight?

whatever, as long as its got 4 conductors, I dont use premade cable, only ones I have used for LODs are mogami quad and mini quad, I tend to use single strand and do all the construction myself, those braids at HGA charge you quite a premium for something that is really simple to do yourself. there is many more than 1 ground pin in the ipod dock, look at the pinout at pinouts.ru easier to use 2 different pins and arguably more effective. I havent done any ABing of 3 vs 4 wires, but its a pretty straight forward engineering concept because each signal has a return path, so you should have the same potential for ground as signal

nothing remotely snake-oil about it.

 

[Bop]

Ah, thanks for the feedback. I'll let you all know how this turned out once my parts get here...

. It's nice to get aide when you're lost and clueless.