# DIY Cables -- Anyone Here Use Them?



## jude

I visit Audio Asylum periodically, and in their cable forum is frequent discussion of DIY cables (interconnects and speaker cables). Anyone here make their own stuff out of Belden or anything else? If so, have you compared your DIY cables to any commercial makes?


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## chych

I myself am considering upgrading my home theater to cat5 (Belden) cabling... though it does seem overkill considering that my home theater is only $800... I was hoping on finding some cat5 cabling instructions and maybe a way to make interconnects using them but I think they are for speaker wire only... but sheesh, dirt cheap speaker wire, pennies a foot (well somewhere close to that). And they are good, I've heard they sound better than like, expensive speaker wire (not that 30$ stuff but the 1000$ stuff) though it takes quite a bit of work to do.

 I suppose making interconnects would be more costly, I dunno...


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## jude

chych,

 Visit Audio Asylum's cable forum, and search it if you can't find what you're looking for. I know I've seen a bunch of posts about using cat5 for DIY cabling.


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## Daniel Pumphrey

I was planning a video switch box, but someone at Headwise told me I needed to use Cmos switching for such high frequency needs. I was planning to just use a 5 pos rotary switch, solid silver wire (Very short lengths) and gold jacks. I just need to be able to switch between video sources to my television. DVD, Laser Disc, Playstation, VCR etc. My home amp has provision for switching all the audio, but video is a problem.
 I am also going to make my own video cables. The core wire can sometimes be pulled out of this type wire and I was going to replace it with .999 pure silver wire. I will post if it is successful.
 Dan


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## dhwilkin

I traded some tubes for some Belden-based interconnects. Cables aren't here yet... I'll do a review in a week or so after I get them. Unfortuantely, I only have RS gold cables for comparison, but at least it's a start.


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## rickcr42

I use DIY cable for all my connections.Can better be had ?

 Probably,

 but I am satisfied with the performance

 most low level cables are magnet wire,speaker cables are CAT-5 as are my wires for the portable rig

 Headphone extension cords are microphone cable

 I hear the beldon sounds good but it is just way too ordinary for me , I lean towards less is more 

 Is it really ? 

 Dunno,works for me though

 ****************************************8

 Dan ,it was I that recommended cmos switching , soon as I dig out the shema from the zip disc library I can send it too ya

 You get winzip yet ? If not you'll get it straight (no compression)

 The reason I suggest electronic switching is the banwidth of the signal.Mechanical switches can run into all kinds of trouble at these freqs,but monolithic cmos switches work very well and are easy to implement

 Rick

 (gotta get those post up,startin' from zero again)


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## Apheared

Here's one of those instances where our former resource would be handy; I do use them, but I cannot find the bookmarks for the 3 best DIY cable construction links.


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## Videoshielded

I use 'em. I'm also the guy who made the pair DHWILKIN is going to review in a couple weeks -- so if they sound like ass, you'll all know who's fault it is.

 Before DIY I used Monster's consumer-grade stuff, like you can get at Circuit City for $50. DIY beats it with a stick. I've never shelled out for any of the good commercial stuff, so I can't compare it. I think Wing has done the Pepsi Challenge with some Belden DIY vs. commercial products, though.

 Summary of my experience: Belden 1505A, great for video and digital audio, so-so for analog audio. Terminate with Canare RCAP C4F.

 Belden 1506A, great for video, pretty darn good for analog audio. Terminate with Canare RCAP C4F.

 Canare Star Quad mic cable. Pretty darn good for analog audio. Terminate with Dayton Audio RCA's (available in locking or nonlocking) or Canare F-10. Or, get www.markertec.com to do it for you, pretty cheaply, too. Also good for replacing poor cabling in amps and CD players.

 Belden 89272, really great for analog audio, but I'm not sure Belden still makes the same formulation I've been using. Terminate with Dayton Audio RCA's (available in locking or nonlocking) or Canare F-10.

 Belden 89259, really great for analog audio, but hard to find anything less than a 100-foot roll, which costs over $100. Terminate with Dayton Audio RCA's (available in locking or nonlocking) or Canare F-10.

 CAT5 braided speaker cables, great stuff, if you be sure to use the teflon-insulated Belden brands Chris and John recommend. Scrounge EBAY for a while and you'll be able to score some for cheap. Use the Rat Shack gold crimp-on spades to terminate it.

 Aside from the Cables forum at audioasylum.com, this is the other seminal DIY cable link: http://members.nbci.com/Jon_Risch/


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## morphsci

You can check out this page for some DIY cables and links:

Chris Venhaus' Page

 I am currently constructing a set of 40 foot ICs (don't ask) using Canare LV-77s double shielded coax and Canare crimp-on RCA connectors. I also like the Canare star-quad speker cable and star-quad mic cable.


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## flashbak

Try this link for building a DIY interconnect.

http://www.tnt-audio.com/clinica/diyce2.html


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## flashbak

And this link:

http://members.nbci.com/Jon_Risch/


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## flashbak

Another DIY 
 link:http://whoville.ucsd.edu/~stark/audio/DIYaudio.html


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## flashbak

Here's a DIY cable kit:

http://www.homegrownaudio.com/kits.htm


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## Budgie

In my system, my home built cables are as good as any commercial cables I have tried and better then alot of them.


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## aos

For DIY cables, are the plugs that need to be soldered better, worse or the same as ones where you don't need to solder cable to the plug?


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## Budgie

IMO, soldered plugs are more reliable, if you are decent at soldering. But some of the other styles might be good too.I have not tried them. I don't think soldering has a detrimental effect on sound, any more then any other kind of connection will.


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## mbriant

Could someone kindly post some links to quality raw connector/cable suppliers? Soldering some connectors could be a perfect beginner DIY project for me.


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## Budgie

Link


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## morphsci

Budgie got partsexpress above. You can also try markertek:

Markertek

 In my experience you can get a quality connection using either soldered or crimp connectors. You can also get a very bad connection using either one. Solder connections however do allow a little more flexibility in connecting single ended grounds etc. For a straightforward RCA or XLR connection on coax I really like the Canare crimp connectors, especially if you use their cable stripper and crimper. Very quick and solid connection. IMHO.


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## skippy

imho using solderless plugs is just asking for an intermittent connection. the soldered ones just seem more solid.


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## morphsci

Solder vs. solderless is a common debate topic on the car audio boards. The mechanical connection of a crimp is better than a soldered connection. The electrical connection however is debateable as to which is better. When I talk of crimp connections and connectors, the quality is paramount. The Canare crimp connectors are very good, and in fact cost more than many solder connectors. The crimp tool and die sets from Canare are also not cheap but are very high quality, have very strict tolerances and are also adjustable for fine tuning. But as I said, for flexibility in connection, you can't beat a high quality soldered plug. Just make sure you use a good strain relief with it or you will put undo mechanical stress on the connections.


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## Budgie

A precision crimp is a good connection, no doubt. But the only one's I have seen that were good, were done on an assembly line with a industrial motorized crimp tool that is checked for proper crimp force on a daily basis. It is much easyier for a diy builder to make a good solder joint then a good crimp. The other advantage to solder joints is the oportunity to re-do the joint if not satisfactory. Pretty hard to do with most crimp connectors.


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## aos

Where can I buy that Belden 89259 cable? Google brings back pages and pages of rave reviews and not ONE site that sells this.

 Just found that Newark has them... at puny price of US$162 plus s&h plus taxes plus exchange rates plus duties/tarrifs/levies/brokerages... It is for the 100 foot but who needs that much?

 Doesn't look like a good DIY choice at that price. Must find a local shop that sells by the foot.


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## morphsci

Quote:


 _Originally posted by aos _
*Where can I buy that Belden 89259 cable? Google brings back pages and pages of rave reviews and not ONE site that sells this.

 Just found that Newark has them... at puny price of US$162 plus s&h plus taxes plus exchange rates plus duties/tarrifs/levies/brokerages... It is for the 100 foot but who needs that much?

 Doesn't look like a good DIY choice at that price. Must find a local shop that sells by the foot. * 
 

Yeah, that sucks. I'm in the same boat. Maybe we can get a group of people together and split the cost of a 100' roll? What'chya all think?


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## aos

I'm for it. We just need to figure out how many people can benefit from 100 ft. Don't forget, 10ft makes only 5ft of cable.

 I think Newark has a big markup. Other people are quoting $100 price so there must be a cheaper place to buy.


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## Budgie

I just checked and my price on 100 ft is $133.00 (wholesale). The big problem is if I bought it and cut it into 10 ft pieces I would need 13 bucks to break even. Figure it is going to cost a few bucks to ship it and package it and your looking at around $20 bucks for 10 feet. Thats pretty espensive and pays nothing for the hassle. Let me make a few calls and see if I can get a better price anywhere.


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## aos

You could go for 20 feet per person. That gives 10 feet of stereo cable which is not too litle nor too much and custs down on hassle/expenses.


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## morphsci

I would take 20 - 30 feet myself. I have a few price quotes in right now so I will let you know what the prices quoted to me are.


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## Videoshielded

Welcome to the biggest problem with 89259!

 $1116 to $150 for 100 feet has been the market range for the last couple of years. A lot of people seem to have consistently scored the low end of the range at their local Anixter rep.

 Other 89259 syndicates have pared down the hassle factor by requiring each participant to send the syndicate leader their own self-addressed, USPS-postage-prepaid packaging. Then, the poor guy at least only has to cut up the cable and drop it off at the USPS office.

 I think there might be a more significant price break at the 1000 foot roll. If you guys put together a really big syndicate for a 1K roll, count me in for another 60 feet, 'cause I'm spooling towards the end of my last 100 foot roll. This stuff reputedly makes some giant-killer speaker cable, but you need double-runs of it.


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## Budgie

I can't get a better price on the belden, in my area.


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## morphsci

got a quote from Anixter. For 100 feet it is $1.02 per foot and for 1000 feet it is $0.92 per foot. I'm willing to coordinate it if people want to participate. Let me know.


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## morphsci

I've heard from videoshielded already. Anyone else interested? Please let me know by Wednesday so I can get this wrapped up. Thanks.


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## Possum

What kind of connectors do you plan on using with the wires, and how much would those cost (and from where)?

 I might be interested, but not sure.


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## Videoshielded

CONNECTORS: Many people over at AA use the Parts Express Dayton Audio RCA's, typically the locking, but sometimes the nonlocking. They're about $10 for 4 (locking), $8 for 4 (nonlocking). I've used both and like them. The nonlocking ones are easier to solder.

 Canare F-10s are another good choice, available from Markertek for about $11-12 for four. I like them, too. They work great and have a very unusual look.

 Moving up the price chain a little, Joh Risch's favorite is the Cardas RCA's, available from the audiophile parts suppliers. Never tried them myself.


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## Tomo

Hello,

 I made my interconnects out of 22 Gauge Teflon Insulated Cables. I braided so it looks a lot like KimberKable. There are some imperfection in the first sets of interconnects, but the capacitance is all time low and that makes them sound very transparent.

 I made the second one to accomodate 3 conductors for my pocket amp. This requires braiding 4 pieces of wire and that needs a little thinking. But this one sound a bit better than my previous interconnects which was 4 conductor twisted. Also, the cables are more solidly together and does not require tapes to hold together. This makes it have only teflon insulation and thus good low dielectric constant. 

 You can get Mil-Spec Teflon Cables for very very low price if you know where to look for. ( Pssst ... Mil surplus stores! ) I think this is most economical yet high performance solution to your long lasting cable problems. I got 2500 feet of this stuff for 40 somthing. Belden is simply too much for my pocket money.

 Also, Connectors must be gold plated and have teflon insulation (if you care that much 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




 ) These again can be obtained afforably. It is in my experience that Brand Name Connectors cost whole a lot more for very little more. I like generic brand. Hey, it ain't 20th Century anymore, shabby sweat shop can produce pretty good quality parts. Again surplus stores are best bet. 

 Surplus stores are on internet and can be easily searched. Or you can try bidding at Ebay.

 Tomo


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## Tomo

Hello,

 This is what I think when I building cables.
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 1. If we were to use this for analog audio. I would use Braided Wires like I just told you. They have low capacitance. You can get this type of capacitance with Coax cables but they tend to get much more expensive.

 2. Speaker wires handle analog audio, but this thing has to handle higher current. Do consider using fatter wires. Note doubling up smaller wires are fine too. Just need a little thinking ...
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 Personally I do not believe we need heavy shielding for the above applications. I have operated audio devices in Tokyo ... Radio Busy City ... and had no problem with shielding. Radio signals cannot cause enough current in the wire to be significant. All the RF problems comes from the amplifiers picking up RFs. Thus, you should concentrate shielding on your amplifer modules.

 You must have heard some crazies using a ceramic pylons to hold up the speaker wires above ground. They probably does very little. Electrons will jump to "earth" if they are in high potential state. However, I assume speakers don't run at 15000V. Effectively, the result of pylons are very minimum. 
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 3. Coax cables are not really cables. They are what we call waveguides. They are designed to handle very specific frequencies. You will get efficient propegation at harmonic frequencies of the cable. (Note there are multiple harmonics.) So I believe they are less suited for differential signals/audio analog signals. 

 4. Coax cables can handle wonderfully for certain specific frequencies. So this is good for DAC digital signals which have somewhat singular signals. Since it attenuates non-harmonic freqs, it will lower RF pickup more effecitively. On top of that they are shielded. RF on digital signal can be significant. Note digital signal has already lost some integrities during the recording stage. Any audio crazies know that no analog audio can be completely converted to digital "exactly". Getting RF there can degrade the signal on top of that. 
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 Please note the loss of integrities in analog -> digital conversion is NOT major problem. If you are worrying about this, you are not audio enthusiast; you are audio-crazy / audiophiles. (Believe be this is not supposed to mean pleasantment.
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 5. Nothing is better insulator than a vacuum. ... We cannot have portable vacuums like in StarTrek. So go for Teflon.

 6. Signal travel at the surface of conductors. Electrons likes to repell each other, so they try to stay far away as possible according to the Laws of Physics. Only place to go is not to spead out in the conductor but to go to the surface of the conductor. So I choose cables with bigger surface area. In other words, I choose stranded conductor wires. Solid conductors will have smaller surface area. 
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 Personally, I did not hear much difference. But I did it anyways for good measure. Only the actual good thing from doing this was the bendability 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




 But then bendability is very important for cables. Hopefully someone hear the difference. ...
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 7. Lastly, Connector contacts must be gold or tin plated. Gold does not tarnish and stay very conductive. Tin plating can go very little on oxydation. You can get gold plated parts for almost the same price as non-gold plated parts, maybe thanks to Russian Gold. 
 __________________________________________________

 Cheers,

 Tomo


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## aos

That was a very nice post Tomo. I agree with all technical statements.


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## lini

daniel: It did such a switchbox myself a few years ago, too, but I built it right into a small tv-set. I used the kind of components you mentioned, and it worked fine - to no surprise. Maybe you know the cheap switch boxes for switching mouse, keyboard and monitor between to computers? They use rather cheap rotary switches, but the quality doesn't really degrade earlier than between 800x600/75Hz to 1024x768/75Hz. That's already way above 35 MHz pixel clock - composite video needs ~ 5 MHz. So just try to break up the individual shieldings as late as possible, and you'll be quite happy with your diy-switchbox, I'm sure.

 Greetings from Munich!

 Manfred / lini

 P.S.: And, yes, I use diy-cables, too. You can search it all in the archives - as soon as Cmoy has reopened Headwize.


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## KurtW

I bought a 100' roll of the Beldon 89259 and have made a few pairs of cables from it using a variety of good quality teflon insulated connectors and silver solder. I'm not sure how much I have left, probably quite a bit, so I could probably sell some if people want to try it out. My impression is that they are pretty decent, much better than the stuff that comes with equipment and better than some commercial cables but not quite as refined as some others. They are pretty detailed without being harsh. I've also tried Chris VH silver cables using 28 gauge high purity teflon coated silver wire. These were made with the wires wrapped around a 1/4" teflon tubing which makes them not very flexible. They sound very transparent but bright, even after considerable break-in with a 10v squarewave. They don't really match my systems but might be right for someone.


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## kenk

I made my own speaker cables, and IC's out of silver. The design was "lifted" from XLO cables, i made some variations on the core, and then changed the spacing. Very similar to a cable at tnt-audio. I use 4N silver. Sounds excellent. Recently i got some alpha core at half price, $75 for pure silver foil cables (1m pair) was hard to beat. They sound exccellent also. They are sharper, but dont go as deep in the bass as my homebuilt ones. I would say the differnce between the two is like the differnce between the telfunken 12ax7 and the tungsram 12ax7.


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## briantf27

These cables kick ass: http://www.geocities.com/venhaus1/di...rconnects.html

 I've made many of them and just can't live without the detail of silver ICs anymore. Compared to commercial mass marketted products, I think you have to spend around $300/0.5m to match them. To make these, I estimate that I was spending around $50 per cable (usually 1m cables or longer), but that cost is highly dependent on your choice of connectors.

 I also have purchased Cat Cables off their site, which are almost identical to the venhaus cables, but have teflon around each internal silver wire and have three wires as opposed to two in the venhaus recipe. I'm still trying to decide if I can hear a difference, though. I suspect my equipment isn't good enough to reveal any differences if some do in fact exist.

 FWIW

 Brian.


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## jude

....old threads like this are brought back from the depths of the archives. I'm going to scan some of the old, interesting threads and maybe pull some up from the cellar.


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## templeboy

I use 30 gauge 99.9999% (yah, six 9s) solid silver for signal-carrying wire and 99.99% 30 gauge coated copper wire for return wire. Air-dielecticed w/ about 1 inch in distance in wide clear Scoth packing tapes. Ends threaded w/ ferrite and solder is 4% silver. Jacks are Cardas. This way, you don't have to thread uncoated silver into Teflon tube, a process that is pain! I got the idea from reading Soundstage and brochure for Kimber Kable. Very easy and inexpensive to make.

 The result? I'm yet to find better cables from my local dealer for my all tube system. Caution: this cable is high resolving towards bright end. If you have edgy SS gears, be careful! I used to use it on Creek OBH-11SE and became fatigue in just about half hour (I'm a very intensive listener).


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## ppl

Tomo: Great report However A Coax cable is more related to a transmissionline than to a wave Guide. High frequencies tend to travle on the surface, while low frequencies tend to be in the Center. On the Other hand high Voltage tends to also like the serface regardless of frequency. Regarding the Kimber Like Braid. i use DIY interconects made from Kimber AG and no cover or Shield. For the Interconect between the Portable CD player and amp i usse the Kimber 3TC teflon Copper as maby the Portable will not Benifit from silver but i havent tried it yet so it could very well benifit from silver. Gold is nice But if the Conector is removed and replaced alot like a Headphone Plug the Gold tends to wear off.


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## mc whak

If by coax you mean the type used for cable TV, your local AT&T cable company sells it for $.05 a foot.


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## Beagle

May I ask a question regarding DIY interconnects?

 I built a pair using the Radio Shack magnet wire. There are three spools, 3 different thicknesses. I used the thinnest guage wire. These made me a pair of sweet clean sounding cables. However, the bass is a little uh, thin. Clean, but thin. Would using the thicker wire help?

 Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.


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## templeboy

Strange but true, thinner wire in IC gives better bass due to skin effect. Therefore, the way to get boogie bass is not by using fatter wires. Paralleling thin wires is the way to go. That's why those expensive snaky ICs on the market have hundreds of very thing strands in the center instead of a solid core which will also make ICs too stiff.


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## Beagle

Thanks templeboy. I'll cut 100 strands for each channel. Or turn my basement into a sweatshop and spped up the process. Anything for the betterment of sound


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