Bottlehead Kits > Crackheadphone

Soldering The Shield Wire

(1/3) > >>

rlyach:
I have been going over the instruction for building the headphone cable and was curious about the fact that the shield (ground return) is not soldered. Will this mechanical connection degrade over time?

Also I was curious about the damping used in the driver cups. Was this an attempt to change the resonant frequency of the enclosure? I found this very interesting. I will have to listen to the headphones out of the box first, then with the cable, and finally with the damping modifications. I may dampen one only to hear the difference of a damped and undamped enclosure. I am very excited to get my Crack and the phones working.

jboehle:
I would solder it. I was not very happy with the final connection made with the shield the way the instructions said to do it. I screwed up the 3.5mm end of my cable with the glue heat shrink (just aesthetics, it functions fine), so when I redo that end of the cable I am going to both solder and crimp. Solder for a reliable connection and crimp to provide strain relief. If you do that and choose not to use the tech flex, you really don't need to use the glue heat shrink at all.

jboehle:
Also see this: http://bottlehead.com/smf/index.php/topic,6225.0.html

rlyach:
Thanks jboehle, I have some things to think about before I actually build this. I have built a lot of cables for audio recording equipment including microphone cables, patch cables, and instrument cables, and I have always soldered the shield. I had not considered leaving off the tech flex. I like the look and it adds to the durability of the cable. I have used it for some of my instrument cables. Even Tube Depot instruction videos for building guitar cables use tech flex. I understand that there have been a few comments stating that the noise of the cable moving can be heard through the headphones.  I will have to weigh my options. Thanks for your post.

Paul Birkeland:
Crimped cables are actually quite a bit more common than soldered cables.

Nearly all coax that you would buy or use for your cable TV and high speed internet, for instance, would have crimped connections on each end.

When you combine the crimp with the very sturdy heatshrink we provide, the connection will last quite some time.  If you want to solder, just be sure you don't solder so much that you can't get the plug back together.

-PB

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page