A place to discuss member's DIY audio projects & post pictures/schematics. NOTE: There is a limit of 2MB per attachment, and a maximum of 3 attachments per message. If you need to post more than 3 attachments, just add another message.
July 23rd, 2024, 11:18 am
Yes, I swore I'd stop making DIY cables. BUT.....I Came across this video by Paul McGowan of PS Audio. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_jkLCyJFPo
Figured I'd give it a whirl.
I used 2" wide Gorilla tape I had on hand. Spaced the conductors about an 1.0"-1.25" apart and folded the sticky sides together encasing the conductors. Did a horrible job of it, but still kept the conductors over 1/2" apart at all points. I had some cheap-ass plastic shell Moborest RCA plugs (yes they are gold plated, woohoo), so I used them. For wiring, instead of two solid or stranded ~18 gauge conductors, I used a CAT-3 cable. After removing the outer sheath, I split the cable into two sets of four twisted conductors. Mine are Teflon insulated copper. No silver plating.
Installed the cables between my crossover and speakers: mids and tweeters. Cables are about 6' long. Initially I thought they sounded great, way better highs and detail than the Belden "Brilliance" cables they replaced. No hum. No shielding.
After awhile, I began to notice a "shoutiness" to the mids. Female voices and horns in the range were very unpleasant at high volumes. Was it the room?
I asked David M. who suggested using gaffer's tape (cloth) in lieu of the Gorilla tape which is doubtless constructed of some unpleasant sounding plastic. But could this possibly make a difference?
Question is answered as I made up a second set (four cables total) using gaffer's tape and better RCA plugs: brass shells and gold plating. Mind you, even my horrible looking attempts at this wiring take a stupid amount of time, three hours or so this time. I did do a better job of keeping the conductors parallel. It is much easier to keep solid core single conductors, or even stranded single conductors straight, as opposed to four twisted strands of 24 gauge.
Bottom line is sound stage/detail is even better, shoutiness is gone. I love what I am hearing.
So, if you are looking to waste some time, or just give a different interconnect a listen, you might enjoy these.
Stuart
July 23rd, 2024, 2:33 pm
Many years ago (at least 20) there was a fad going on on AudioAsylum in making IC and speaker cables this way. I called them "Audio Lasagna". I found if they did not hum (when used as an interconnect) they sounded great. Sometimes you had to move them around abit to get them away from power transformers but if you use good copper and RCA's you had a good sounding IC. Sprey of Mapleshade did similar things with small gauge wire and cellophane.
I still use my Mogami TwinAxil microphone wire for my IC's I made years ago.
July 23rd, 2024, 3:13 pm
My favorite for line level interconnect cables either analog or digital is Belden 1800F which is categorized as microphone cable. Two nice features are foamed polyethylene insulation for low capacitance and a french braid shield which makes it very easy to work with. In addition it is very flexible.
https://www.belden.com/products/cable/a ... able/1800f