DIY "Pro-Audio" Interconnects

rane is so thorough that it makes my head swim sometimes. i looked at that section once before, i think, and i'll take another peek.
 
i made an XLR cable today following this thread, and i have a question. should there or should there not be continuity between pins 1 and 2?
 
thanks, didn't think so. it's strange, since the continuity disappears when i remove the male shroud. i wonder if the somehow the solder from pin 2 is just barely making contact with the shield, since the shield is tied to ground, correct? or it could be that the ground shield is slipping from its slot and making the contact...:scratch2: i'm using the newer Neutrik EMC connectors, and these are the ass'y instructions i followed. i'm going to keep poking around. any other ideas?

chris
 

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I'd guess the shield cups/shells are shifting during assembly. I'd only suspect the solder if you have a big glob on the pin.

But, I've never used that style. The "normal" ones seem to work fine for me.
 
Finally figured out the problem. The shield cup narrows pretty quickly after the PCB, and you basically don't want your wire to be exposed any longer than the solder cups. Some copper from the Pin 2 lead was just brushing the inside lip of the cup once everything was tightened down. Looks like I'm going to have to unsolder and redo the connection.
 
....(made 10 interconnects during "Howl's Moving Castle", so not too bad).

Cool Anime masterpiece. Miyazaki.


howls_moving_castle_gal.jpg


--thread bump with a pic--
 
I've been inactive on this forum for a while now (other interests taking over, lack of time to spend, starting a business, moving with family, etc.). Just thought I'd drop in and say I'm glad people are still making the cables! I still have tons, and occasionally make a few more for friends or when I lose mine in a move, but the original sets I made for this article are still cranking away. Keep your ears shiny, audiophiles!

-Sam
 
Sam: Thank you for the tutorial. last weekend I made some balanced cables using Canare L-4E6S Star Quad on Neutrik connectors, so far I'm very happy with the results. I added some pictures of the process.Thanks!
 

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I spent $75 in materials and spent a beautiful Sunday building cables. I have three pairs of 4' cables I needed immediately and materials to build more for future projects.
 

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I'm considering a DIY interconnect. Does anyone have any opinion with Mogami? I believe it's 2534?!? or does Canare win out? Also I wish to bi-amp using two cables coming out of one rca connector on the pre-amp and then running to each amp. There is not much room between the outputs of the pre-amp (7 of them). Would I run into a space problem if I use cables that thick?
 
Its good practice to insulate the shield with shrink tube prior to soldering pin one on a xlr connector.

BTX is a great source for connectors.

Watchout for screw term connectors, junk imho.
I recently field termed some trs 1/8 inch mini with screw terms. 60% failure rate.
lessoned learned. The latest and greatest isnt nessisarily the way to go.
 
Good to know, but I don't have xlr outputs, just rca.

I've been learning so much thanks for everyone's input!
 
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Great thread.

I recently joined the forums and have been learning a lot. This is one of my favorite threads so far and has inspired me to make some interconnects. I have a ton of Monster Cable from when I worked in the A/V sales world years ago but I'm looking forward to seeing how much better I can do by making my own.
 
I had monster also. Made the Canare DIY as in here. Seems to have improved clarity in the highs. Could be my expectation, but I'll keep believing they're better.
 
I recently took out a subwoofer by accidentally plugging in my turntable with the volume up a bit, I had quite a powerful amp on the speakers and I blew the cone completely out of the magnet......
Turn the volume down you say? Of course, but there is always an instance where a distraction or simply a brain fade will allow these things to happen..

Then I remembered I had seen years ago the Neutrik RCA connectors which have the spring loaded earth contact on them....
What happens is earth protrudes out as far as the signal pin, so that when you plug them in the earth contacts first and as the signal pin pushes in, then the earth retracts to allow signal contact.....
I think they they are an ingenious design, and a major and much needed improvement on such an old and otherwise silly design....."signal first, then earth":scratch2: who thought of that?
But its a standard, and good on Neutrik for coming up with a solution.....
They use their famous clutch strain relief, and you get two sizes, on the rest of my interconnects I use "Proco, dynamike" cable (what we use at our sound company) which is fairly large and it fits in there just fine.....
The casing are metal and heavy, extremely well built.....

Heres the connectors on my SME tone arm cables, the smaller clutch grabs those just fine......
Sorry about pic quality, straight off the iPhone....
img0392v.jpg


You can see how far the earth connector sits out.......and in the next pic you can see my lovely girlfriends hand holding the spring loaded earth back....
img0393ww.jpg


The connectors are gold plated, and not with just a hairs breath, its a healthy dousing of gold on there......

Next, my goodness there is a very noticeable difference in sound quality, the turntable has a more even sound and a noticeable extended top end range, the "air" for the want of a better expression....
I biamp my system with a DBX 480 processor/crossover and its balanced in and out of course, so I made up all the interconnects with these Neutrik RCA's and Neutrik XLR's with the ProCo cable, and the system is now completely quiet in terms of noise floor, and it brings a noticeable and most welcomed clarity to the music....

Well I highly recommend these connectors, they arent very cheap.....but as the old saying goes, you get what you pay for......
 
Made those cables from the firs post. Did not like them at all, so bright and dirty on HF :-(.
 
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