Interconnects

[rockdrummer]

I am out of money, and i can't stop building things.  I am frozen in the first few pages of my stereomour manual, and not building very fast.  But I wanted to make some cables.  I ran across a video on youtube talking about two different kinds of interconnects and the uses of the two.

SE--single ended, made with a braided shield coax cable.
DI--differential input, made with identical wires braided together.  (the guy said this was more higher end amps. No mention of tube or ss.)

Is the single ended they refer to as an amp input type, the same as the SE stereomour I have?  Or is that term used for other types of technologies or other types of parts, etc.?

Because I have no idea if I have coaxial interconnects, and I don't know if it matters. 

I thought this was a general topic of amp and interconnect relationships, but if it belongs in the stereomour (legacy product) thread, I apologize.

Ben Young

[drewh1]

Stereomour uses single ended 1/4 jack interconnects.  I use plain copper wire with cotton insulation, no wrap or twist, just separate the wires. Very inexpensive and I have compared the results to many much more expensive interconnects and prefer these to most of them.  Just buy some decent male connectors and get the wire and cotton insulation separately, measure, solder and you are good to go. IMHO, all that shielding and twisting is ineffective and just complicates things.

wire is 22 gauge, I have tried finer guages (26, 28) but like the 22 best for sound, it is also nice and stiff and so can be arranged with plenty of separation between wires.

[Doc B.]

IMHO, all that shielding and twisting is ineffective and just complicates things.

My opinion is different on that. Shielding the cable from magnetic and electrostatic interference can make quite a difference in the sonics of a system. Power transformers tend to throw out a lot of 60Hz interference and a good shielded coax can do wonders to block it. It's demonstrable, you can see the effect of the shielding by looking at the noise floor on a scope with the cable in the vicinity of a power transformer.  I have found a good correlation between what I hear and what I see on the scope in terms of how quiet the background is.

[mcandmar]

The best i have found is Belden 1505F or Belden 89259, both are Coax cables with low capacitance and great shielding.

[Paul Birkeland]

SE--single ended, made with a braided shield coax cable.
DI--differential input, made with identical wires braided together.  (the guy said this was more higher end amps. No mention of tube or ss.)

Is the single ended they refer to as an amp input type, the same as the SE stereomour I have?  Or is that term used for other types of technologies or other types of parts, etc.?

This is a topic that comes up a lot on audio forums, with a lot of misinformation floating around that really confuses things. 

There are balanced (xlr) and unbalanced (RCA) cable interfaces.  The purpose of balanced cable interfaces is for noise reduction on long runs of cables.  This is accomplished by having the impedance from signal hot to ground equal to the impedance from signal cold to ground (hence balanced impedance).  There are tons of high end audio manufacturers who will make a lot of claims beyond all of this, which you have to evaluate cautiously. 

Within a given amplifier or preamplifier, you could have a differential input stage, push-pull input stage, single ended input stage, etc.  There isn't a strong correlation between any of these typologies and equipment prices.   

For the purposes of making cables to use with the Stereomour, you can certainly use braided wire, coax, shielded twisted pair, twisted pair, etc, provided you have RCA plugs on both ends.

[drewh1]

As you well know there are trade offs to every configuration. I have found that in my setup. Using the shortest possible interconnects with separate wire sounds better than any of the other solutions I have tried.  Of course. I listen near field at not very loud volumes and every system is different. As the OP will soon find out there are as many opinions on interconnects as there are, well you know 

The great thing about diy is you can try a lot of different wires and configurations without spending a fortune and see what works best with your ears and system

[butchbass]

I have used Bluejeans LC-1 with success. It is solid core and double shielded coax. It is very reasonable at $1.02/ft. You can get it from raw cable.com.  They also have some of the cable mentioned above. I use Neutrik profi RCA connectors but if you want to keep the cost down while you are experimenting the Neutrik Rean connectors are decent and the Switchcraft RCAs are also good. You want a low mass gold plated connector. I have found that the less brass the better. IMO the best connectors would be copper/Tellurium copper but they are pricey.
There are economical ways to get very good results while being able to try a few different recipes. Good luck!

[drewh1]

Agree with Butch on the copper connectors - more expensive but You only have to buy them once though and can use them over and over if you are careful soldering.  Lot's of options for RCA's out there.

[johnsonad]

Try the Nuetrix (spelling) connectors that BH is now using in their kits. I've switched over to these for all of my builds. Solid copper is a PITA IMO. You need to polish the connectors a couple of times per year due to oxidation which significantly improves the ground connection. I find zero improvement with the fancy connectors and both my wallet and quality of life are better for it.

[rockdrummer]

I just realized I never posted a thanks for all the great feedback, so thanks everyone. From my days working at audio king, I have expensive monster cable interconnects that I will obviously try, but I plan to replace. Thanks again.
Ben