DIY Articles Thread

[santhosh]

Please post all links related to Audio DIY articles/links on this thread:

Nice article on how to DIY a pure silver cable:

Make Your Own Silver Audio Cables

In the first Banglore hi-fi meet at George's place, Kaushik taught us how to make pure silver cables. He mentioned an ebay link where the pure silver could be procured from. Anybody has that link or where it can be bought for at a good price?

 

[doors666]

Please post all Audio related DIY on this thread:

Nice article on how to DIY a pure silver cable:

Make Your Own Silver Audio Cables

In the first Banglore hi-fi meet at George's place, Kaushik taught us how to make pure silver cables. He mentioned an ebay link where the pure silver could be procured from. Anybody has that link or where it can be bought for at a good price?

you can goto any jewellery shop and can get naked silver wire. dont know about the purity levels though. The first shop that i went to had it (and it was a relatively small shop), so i guess it must be a pretty common thing.

While we are at the topic of diy cables, I want to make some decent speaker cables (neutral, no coloring please), my first attempt to try something apart from the cheap mx stuff. This is just as an experiment to try and see if there's any difference. Any recommendations? the amp is topping and the speakers are diy alpair 7. this is for a desktop system, source is m-audio revolution 7.1 card.

i already have some belden rg59 cables lying around, could these be used for this purpose.

 

[omishra]

you can goto any jewellery shop and can get naked silver wire. dont know about the purity levels though. The first shop that i went to had it (and it was a relatively small shop), so i guess it must be a pretty common thing.

While we are at the topic of diy cables, I want to make some decent speaker cables (neutral, no coloring please), my first attempt to try something apart from the cheap mx stuff. This is just as an experiment to try and see if there's any difference. Any recommendations? the amp is topping and the speakers are diy alpair 7. this is for a desktop system, source is m-audio revolution 7.1 card.

i already have some belden rg59 cables lying around, could these be used for this purpose.

Look into this The "Full Frequency Range Cable". I am happy using it. Just parallel all 8 wires of cat5 cable, make 2 sets for each speaker. Proper termination and connectors, you are done.

 

[cmsajith]

Please post all links related to Audio DIY articles/links on this thread:

Nice article on how to DIY a pure silver cable:

Make Your Own Silver Audio Cables

In the first Banglore hi-fi meet at George's place, Kaushik taught us how to make pure silver cables. He mentioned an ebay link where the pure silver could be procured from. Anybody has that link or where it can be bought for at a good price?

Any idea about where can i find a good cotton thread with good thickness?

 

[borg]

Look into this The "Full Frequency Range Cable". I am happy using it. Just parallel all 8 wires of cat5 cable, make 2 sets for each speaker. Proper termination and connectors, you are done.

omishra

this looks interesting, please post your experience , so you just shorted all conductors on both ends and used right? no separating and retwisting etc?

 

[santhosh]

Omishra, do post on how these compare to regular speaker cables that you have tried. Have you considered using CAT6? CAT6 is supposed to have better grade copper.

Thanks for sharing.

 

[t.antony]

Any idea about where can i find a good cotton thread with good thickness?

Try the hardware shops

 

[omishra]

Omishra, do post on how these compare to regular speaker cables that you have tried. Have you considered using CAT6? CAT6 is supposed to have better grade copper.

Thanks for sharing.

Sure! I will post some pics and share experience by today evening. Give me some time.

 

[jls001]

i already have some belden rg59 cables lying around, could these be used for this purpose.

RG 59 is a coax cable with 75 Ohm nominal impedance, normally used for IF applications (in communication devices, pro audio-video devices, etc) and also some RF frequency applications, using BNC terminations. If you use RCAs in place of the usual BNCs, it should work as an interconnect. I think even the nominal impedance of RG 59 matches that of audio interconnects. Can someone knowledgeable confirm this please???

How will it sound? I honestly don't know. But you can experiment and you just might get a nice sound. Especially if your cable has solid core (not twisted) and has double braided shield.

But for speaker cable, I am not sure the geometry of the RG 59 would be suitable since the inner conductor is completely surrounded by the shielding. A typical speaker cable is either two parallel conductors carrying the + and - signals, or two twisted conductors.

I have long been tempted to make an oversized interconnect using some RF cable with a thick solid core, just to see if the much-vaunted solid core does wonders.
Joshua

 

[gobble]

RG 59 is a coax cable with 75 Ohm nominal impedance, normally used for IF applications (in communication devices, pro audio-video devices, etc) and also some RF frequency applications, using BNC terminations. If you use RCAs in place of the usual BNCs, it should work as an interconnect. I think even the nominal impedance of RG 59 matches that of audio interconnects. Can someone knowledgeable confirm this please???

How will it sound? I honestly don't know. But you can experiment and you just might get a nice sound. Especially if your cable has solid core (not twisted) and has double braided shield.

But for speaker cable, I am not sure the geometry of the RG 59 would be suitable since the inner conductor is completely surrounded by the shielding. A typical speaker cable is either two parallel conductors carrying the + and - signals, or two twisted conductors.

I have long been tempted to make an oversized interconnect using some RF cable with a thick solid core, just to see if the much-vaunted solid core does wonders.
Joshua

With one such experiment for a preamp internal cable, a 300/- INR cable failed miserably , was nosiy while a 40/- INR sounded wonderfully silent with a pitch black background and no hardness to the SQ.

The teflon coated co-ax I tried had hard bristly wires with a wiremesh on the outside. The pvc jacket good preamp cable had wiring as soft and smooth as human hair.

Now going by villager level logic, Are there any RG-59s that are soft and silky in the wiring?

Would love to try a DIY IC someday.

--G0bble

 

[keith_correa]

i already have some belden rg59 cables lying around, could these be used for this purpose.

Try them cross connected. Like so:

Full article here.

 

[doors666]

Try them cross connected. Like so:

Full article here.

thanx keith, looks really interesting. did a lot of research since posting the message and looks like the universal opinion is that the coax cables make for poor speaker cables. I did think of using two, but then the cost factor goes high, and so far it looks like cat 5/6 does a better job. I can use the coax for interconnects.

I also have some belden rg6 cable, which is a lot thicker (7mm instead of 6mm for rg59), does anyone know of any good cheap rca connectors that can house these, i have neutriks/rean but they dont work.

 

[kaushik]

Some suggestions/comments:
Thread should have a page of shortened URLs (use URL shortner ) as a list
Eg.
1. DIY-CAT6-speaker cable ---- http://www.bit.Ly/A2aW1 .
2. DIY Interconnect -A ----------
> cat5 has capability to be a part of good speaker cable , but difficult to weave etc , we need a tried recipe
>The ebay store i gave refrences in hifi meet got renamed , most of the time the cotton/silver
available in ebay
> Van-Damme cable is a hassle free material to get good speaker cable , you need to import
>blue-jeans cables also provide good materials for I.Connects

I made a pair of interconnects with litz braiding , used silver coated copper .The result was average
although the braiding was uneven, but performed better than the Mx .Cost was in 500 range .
More info on litz braid is in Head-fi.com

 

[kaushik]

Adding to the list ..
1.DIY Interconnect [A] -- Make Your Own Silver Audio Cables
2. DIY spiral horn fullrange -- seb:diy:audio: Cornu Spiral Copy Horn
3.The speaker stand TNT Stubby -- TNT-Stubby - A DIY Speaker Stand Project on TNT-Audio [English]

 

[omishra]

FFRC speaker cable using CAT5 data cable

Here is my experience -

Requirement -
1. Frequency response
Every wire is represented as L-R-C. Inductance, Resistance and capacitance. So these properties offer coloration of audio because it acts as passive filter.
Also high frequency conducts better at surface, called skin effect. So wire required to be multiple strands of individually shielded conductors. Here CAT5 cable's individual wire of 24SWG fits the bill.

Here are more details - The Naked Truth about Speaker-Cables

In CAT5 or CAT5e cable all 4 pairs are meant to support up to 350 MHz. So Audio range 20Hz-20KHz is miniscule.

2. Current capacity
Cat 5 has 24SWG 8 individually insulated wires. each can carry 500mA of current safely. All 4 pairs are meant to support up to 5A which is more than enough. Being made from good OFC it is minimum resistance and capacitance is very less due to individual insulation and thick outer jacket.

More details are here. The "Full Frequency Range Cable"

My DIY experiment

Take cable for required length.




Strip the ends.


Joint with twisted copper strands.


Solder the joints.


Put sleeves of same cable over the joint


Heat shrink covered over the joint


Joints are ready.



Cable is ready for termination.


After this I twisted the pairs 1 twist/ft and applied 'Steelgrip' tape over complete length. Terminal of choice are fixed in the end.

Impression -
I don't have measurement. I can listen HF are crystal clear and more detailed compared to previous 1.5 sq mm cable of transparent outer jacket. Bass is controlled.