Bottlehead Forum
General Category => Technical topics => Topic started by: bernieclub on February 16, 2010, 02:39:37 AM
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Background: I've been using DIY Beldon 89259 IC's from Seduction to FPlll to Paramours, 1 meter or so long. They sound just fine. The issue I have is, they are way longer than they need to be because of the stiff nature of the cable, and because the arcs are forced into my shelving, I'm having a very hard time isolating the components from vibration and micro-phonics passing through the cables. Research turned up co-ax, twisted pairs, shielded TP's, etc, with the usual claims and counter-claims. Enter the "Pin 1" problem. Yikes!
Goal: I'd like to whip up some short, flexible IC's. Given the design philosophy and grounding schemes of my BH gear, is there a theoretical best cable type or types from TT to seduction to FPlll to P'mours??
Thanks in advance!
Bernie
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I'm confused. Belden 89259 is pretty flexible. It has a braided copper shield (more flexible than foil) and 7 strands for the center conductor (more flexible than solid). It is also 17pF/Ft, good coaxial cable.
I would stay with shielded cable to reduce any induced hum so give twisted shielded pair a try.
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Hi Grainger
These cables are noticeably stiffer than sets of Bluejeans(coax) and DHLab(STP) cables I have (long sets, unfortunately), and I imagine a braided style would be even more flexible. The reason it's a problem is because of the cramped racks I have things jammed into....no option to spread out. I try to gently arc the cables from piece to piece to prevent strain on the connectors. Everywhere a cable sticks up and contacts the shelf above, the cable actually compresses the soft feet under the chassis and making it difficult to isolate each piece. I've ordered some 90 degree adapters to help routing, but I was looking for the short,simple and elegant solution.
Bernie
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I have used 89259 and understand your flexibility issues. Between the FP3 and the amps, for 1 meter, You could live very well (at least I do) with unshielded. Try a simple pair of TEFLON CAT5 (use the same color for both channels because each color is braided differently). I love it.
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I guess I have not seen many coax cables more flexible. That is why I thought the STP was a good thing to try.
But I don't have the isolation/vibration problems you are having, I haven't had to look.
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Thanks for replies. I think I'll try the cat5 twisted pair for FP to Paramours. Given the short length, I hope negative issues will be minimized. I'm leery of Seduction to FP, but it does'nt hurt to try!
Bernie
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What is your clearance?
For a 1m run you should be pretty safe unshielded unless you are in an extremely dirty RF environment. I would try a 1m run with some cheap cat5 to see if you pick up anything. That or a few companies make right angle RCAs (not adapters), if you like the cable you have, and just solder on the new RCAs to minimize signal path.
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What is your clearance?
For a 1m run you should be pretty safe unshielded unless you are in an extremely dirty RF environment. I would try a 1m run with some cheap cat5 to see if you pick up anything. That or a few companies make right angle RCAs (not adapters), if you like the cable you have, and just solder on the new RCAs to minimize signal path.
I'll second that - I'm quite happy with a few DIY I/Cs from single UTP of CAT5. Untwist a pair, and then wrap interlaced over food grade plastic tubing, heat shrink and the cheapie Radio Shack RCA plugs - mesh sleeving if you want to get purdy. Minimal material in signal path, and total cost of something like $5 a pair. (well, except the for the congratulatory adult beverage)
I have no noise issues with the shorter (less than 1.5 meter) signal cables from tuner / CD player or phono-pre, while the 4 meter cable to power amps does pick up a bit of hum, but no RF.
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Cut off a section of Teflon (FEP) solid core Cat 5 cable and strip the outside sleeving off. Take two identical lengths of twisted pairs and put connectors on the ends.
A good friend with platinum ears turned me on to these cheap, but good contacts. This is the pack with two yellow, two red, two blue and two white RCAs.
"http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2103424"
Clean all the flux off the RCA ends before you slide the covers on.
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Thanks everyone for all the helpful suggestions and assurances! Cable-anxiety can be catchy. VS, just to clarify....are the twisted pairs treated as one wire, or separated at the ends to create two distinct twisted pairs?
Thanks!
Duh! never mind!
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I've tried cat5 interconnects and speaker cables and I never liked them. Always found them to sound kinda thin. They just didn't get out of the way of the music as much as I would've liked.
My preference for home-made ICs is homegrownaudio. Their 22awg copper wire is relatively cheap and you could make a 3 or 4 wire braid or just go for a twisted pair. The teflon insulation is a breeze to strip with a simple fingernail clipper. The best part is the wire is very flexible and easy to shape for your needs.
Alternatively it might be a good time to reconsider your equipment rack. Sometimes we all need a change of arrangement.
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You might consider Nawas with 90 degree ends where appropriate. I feel your pain on cable stiffness, some of the cables I have liked the most in the past have been uber stiff.
-Paul
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Thanks everyone for suggestions! I'm going to try the cat5 first, then maybe the Homegrown upgrade. I haven't seen the Nawa cables for quite some time. Still available?
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We don't carry them anymore, but you can probably order the Nawas directly from Kevin at DIY Cable.
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I use DIY ICs made from 24awg solid silver from HomeGrownAudio (no affiliation, just a decent source of supply). I hand-braid three strands of silver, and use a copper drain wire casually wrapped around (soldered to ground at one end, open at the other). So far my longest run is 4ft. No issues with hum or interference. I'm working on a 8ft run from TT to Eros this weekend. Time will tell how that works out. I don't have the audiophile lingo, but I can say they sound great. They're all wrapped in nylon multifilament full coverage techflex (nice stuff - like a black shoelace). This makes for a durable and super flexible cable.
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Several folks here are talking about cables with no shields. I use cables both with and without shields in my system, probably about 20 pairs total. But we don't build them without shields anymore as the shielded ones don't give up anything to the unshielded ones sonically and they are always superior noise-wise for low level sources ahead of the preamp. We use Belden braided shield over a twisted pair of wires. We also us Neutrik Pro-Fi where we use RCAs.
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Again, I want to thank everyone for their insight. I have a lot of experimenting to do, and I'll report back after some soldering and listening!
Bernie
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Just to give you something else to think about. After spending quite some time with this myself, more hours reading articles and reviews than I would like to admit, and several experiments I ended up with the following as my favorite.
(6) 0.5mm solid silver core wires, individually wrapped in cotton tubing, and then braided in a flat 6 wire braid, with (2) of the wires for positive and (4) for negative. I then hand wrap them in teflon tape before feeding them through tube copper mesh shielding. Then sheerly for aesthetics I have polyester mesh tubing over that. I use Eichmann Bullet plugs and ground one side of the shielding to the tightening screw on the downstream end of the wire.
I also use this configuration for my speaker wires. I use (6) twisted pairs of cat5 instead of silver solid core though and I don't ground the sheilding.
The only wires that I have found that I thought sounded better in my system all cost about as much as my car, so I have stuck with these.
Individual results may vary:)