[Aragorn]

Hello all

Just a quick note to let you know I finally found a source of Bullett RCA plugs here in Sydney- Tony at Audiophile Utopia (a really tiny shop in Chatswood) told me that he is now a supplier and I am making up some cables now (with 4-strand Nordost Cu/teflon (from HiFi Junction in Bondi Jn)- will let you know how they compare to my Nirvana SL and JPS Superconductor (my faves).

Hope all AKSAphiles are well

[kyrill]

hi

I f you want to make yr own pure silver and purple cotton sleeves digital cables with silver Bullet plugs (it is better sounding to solder silver to silver than silver to copper), how do you create a true 75 ohms cable that digital S/PDIF inpute like to "see"?

[Malcolm Fear]

What price did you pay for your Bullets. I bought some last week for $65 a set of 4.
Does Audiophile Utopia have Bullets in stock?

[Aragorn]

Hi Malcolm


I got a set on Thursday last week but I think it was the last one.
I don't know what Tony's price will be on a regular basis but he usually is keen to give the best price he can (he is a very nice chap). His phone number is in the phone book. If he tells me a firm price next time I talk to him I will post it here.

[Malcolm Fear]

Hi
When we get together for GK-1 listen, lets compare cables. I've been a fan of teflon coated CAT 5 (4 strand) for interconnects. I aquired some silver plated multi strand copper wire recently. I have made a set of interconnects from them. We prefer them to the CAT 5.

[Jens]

I've been testing .5 mm solid core silver in PTFE tubing interconnects lately.

Testing included two identical cables with copper Bullet Plugs and silver Bullet Plugs, respectively.

The silver interconnect with the copper Bullet Plugs is definitely one step up from the cable I have used for some years (and which we tested with good results in Mal's system when I visited him last year).

However, the silver interconnect with the silver Bullet Plugs is even better than the one with the copper plugs.   And the improvement is worth the additional price, especially since the silver wire and the PTFE hose that goes into making the cable are fairly cheap - only around US $ 15 for a complete 1 metre set of interconnects.

I would say that for pure silver interconnects, go for the silver plugs, even though they are more expensive. For silver-plated interconnects my experience is that the it makes only very small differences whether you use the silver og copper plugs.

IMHO, obviously ...  

[kyrill]

Hi Jens

To extend the logicality from silver wire to silver bullet plugs, you could change your copper rca input plugs in silver ones too.


http://www.hificollective.co.uk/components/audionote_connectors.html
But somewhere down the line silver has to meet copper

Any ideas on on how to make a 75 ohm wire?

[Jens]

Hi Jens

To extend the logicality from silver wire to silver bullet plugs, you could change your copper rca input plugs in silver ones too.

But somewhere down the line silver has to meet copper

Any ideas on on how to make a 75 ohm wire?

Hi Kyrill,

I'm ahead of you - I've already got hold of a pair WBT Nextgen silver phono sockets that I mean to try out in my GK-1R  

I agree with you that there will be copper somewhere down the line, but it seems that silver is beneficial on "externals".

Haven't got a clue about making 75 ohm wire  

Cheers

[Aragorn]

Good idea Malcolm-we will compare a few cables when we meet up.

On the subject of RCA plugs and composition (Cu vs. Ag) I am reminded of a few threads that I have read elsewhere that mentioned the theoretical advantages of BNC connectors over RCA plugs and sockets. I have not tried them but in DIY of course you could use BNC on all your components as your own standard. Has anyone tried this idea??

[Matthew Wilson]

Kyrill a simple way is to get some coaxial cable such as CT100 with solid copper shield or something similar one of the stiff microwave types would work but I have used CT 100 mostly. Its basically high Quality satellite cable. 75ohm obviously! not 50ohm

Cut a length, keep it as short as you require, no longer, strip out the centre solid core, strip outer pvc crap and nasty braid.

To maintain 75ohm accurately you should replace with 1.0mm solid core silver but you can use 0.5 or 0.25 and if you go down the smaller gauge route wrap ptfe tape evenly around the conductor in a long shallow spiral; 50% overlap and one pass no more. Burnish well to remove as much air as possible for a consistent dialetric.

Thin layer of ptfe tape around the outside of the copper foil, burnish carefully. Now you could terminate it like this with the Vampire rca designed for coax or add a better tightly woven braid and insulate again then add rca's but the best way i found is to make another as above and run them shotgun side by side, one signal one return.

Place flying leads at one end soldered to the braid and foil (be careful not to melt the cellular ethylene core!!!) one for each run. These are your drain wire's. Use a good heatshrink to lock the two coaxial tubes you have created together. A ptfe one is best of-course but kynar is excellent, both expensive though. Just use two layers of plumbers type ptfe which is thicker and cover with a sheath or be rebellious like me and just leave as it is.

Canare 75ohm rca's from michael percy are good, shielded eichmanns work, best would be the new wbt nextgen as it's 75ohm but really as usual like spoiled kids under an eichmann thunder cloud for the last year or so they have to make their connector $$$$$$$ so the foolish feel it's worth it. So for this diy foray maybe not.

Make solid mechanical connection's first if you can and high quality solder joints please.

i forgot to mention you need to trim the inner cell's to get them into your rca with flying leads protruding out back through the outer shell, this is tricky to explain but this design I was amused to see is been used by the Chord Company (Signature range) the cable company in the UK not Chord Electronics.

No one ever believes you when you say you did it first but really I did. 6 years ago I got the idea from I chap martin who own Classique Sounds (UK) they sell used audio and refurb Quad ESL's amongst other things.
He let me have one of his silver i/c's cheap as a thankyou for driving down to see him for an audition. When i got home I was so suprised at how good his cab sounded I had to destroy it to find out how it was made. It used CT 125 (as above but slightly larger) with two silver 0.5mm running side by side in a cell each of the open 5 cell tube, the shield (braid and copper foil were terminated on the underside of return conductor strain relief armature AT one end only [this arrangement is psuedo-ballanced) and this should drain to source i.e. cd or pre-amp etc.

The cab designs I've described can have lots of your own tweaks and tests without too much expense and if you have the skill, you get a good low noise cab for loose change in audio terms. One last mod which worked well for the digi i/c described above is a blanket of Stillpoints ERS below the braided section if you decide to use a copper braid shield. Made this Iteration for a friend in leeds UK for his meridian two box. He was shocked at the difference. Have fun. Look up the Chord i/c it will help you visualise how to finish you cable.

http://www.audiophilecandy.com/prodet.asp?pcode=CB-CHO-SIG-D1

[kyrill]

Thank you Matthew, your response forces me to go beyond my English skills, so if you will not mind, I have to ask some questions.
   Message
Matthew Wilson    

Kyrill a simple way is to get some coaxial cable such as CT100 with solid copper sheild or something similar one of the stiff microwave types would work but I have used CT 100 mostly. Its basically high Quality satalite cable. 75ohm obviously! not 50ohm
I have a good, expensive looking coaxial cable in the house, used between wall TV signal outlet and  tv input. Is that 70 ohms?

Cut a length, keep it as short as you require, no longer, strip out the centre solid core,
"..strip out the centre solid core." How do I do that without destroying its multilayered mantle? And whàt is the solid core? the copper wire or do you mean the semi transparent solid tube with the copper wire within?
 strip outer pvc crap and nasty braid.
  The PVC crap, is that the outer mantle. The braid is that the woven copper shield, the layer just above the copper thin foil? So what is left then?
To maintain 75ohm acurately you should replace with 1.0mm solid core silver but you can use 0.5 or 0.25 and if you go down the smaller gauge route wrap ptfe tape evenly around the conductor in a long shallow spiral; 50% overlap and one pass no more.  
  Replace in what?
Burnish well to remove as much air as possible for a consistant dialetric.

Thin layer of ptfe tape around the outside of the copper foil,
 I am lost now.
1) I have a solid silver core with one layer of ptfe tape, carefully  
 burnished around it
2) broken outside pvc mantle, broken copper braided shield
3) thin copper foil?
4) semi transparent inner solid tube with 1mm solid copper wire inside

carefully. now you could terminate it like this or add a better tightly woven braid and insulate again then add rca's but the best way i found is to make another as above and run them shotgunn side by side, one signal one return.
  I think I understand this. It means somehow that from the original cable the only one thing that is needed is the solid inner semi transparent tube? If so, how do you get the copper wire out of it?
shotgun is side by side. So I replicate the first self made cable  

 Place flying leads at one end soldered to the braid this is a new braid?    and foil (be careful not to melt the cellular ethylene core!!!) is that the inner semi transparent solid tube?  And flying leads, loose ends soldered to the shields of both cables? one for each run. These are your drain wire's.drain wires? Are these ground wires, connected to earth and chassis? But only to one end? Or do you connect with those flying leads both eclosures from DAC and transport? Use a good heatshrink to lock the two coaxial tubes you have created together. A ptfe one is best of-course but kynar is excellent, both expensive though. Just use two layers of plummers type ptfe which is thicker and cover with a sheath or be rebelious like me and just leave as it is.

Canare 75ohm rca's from michael percy are good, shielded eichmanns work, Can you buy shielded Eichmann? As Eichmann indeed have plastic plugs. And does the plug also differs from analogue rca plugs in ohms, so I have to buy special digital 75 ohms plugs? I cannot remember that Eichmann plugs mentioned a 75 ohm or digital plug. best would be the new wbt nextgen as it's 75ohm but really as usual like spoiled kids under an eichmann thunder cloud for the last year or so they have to make their connector $$$$$$$ so the foolish feel it's worth it. So for this diy foray maybe not. yes I fully agree, and they "stole"the idea from Eichmann plugs

Make solid mechanical connection's first if you can and high quality solder joints please.

i forgot to metion you need to trim the inner cell's to get them into your rca with flying leads protruding out back thru the outer shell, this is tricky to explain but this design I was amused to see is been used by the Chord Company (Signature range) the cable company in the UK not Chord Electronics. Ah.. now a picture would be worth more than a 1000 words. And yes I have some idea of what you mean. you would like to "lengthen" the foil and the braided shield all the way to the solder connections within the outside mantle of the RCA shield, and then fold them back to escape the mantle where the cable gets in?

. .. . One last mod which worked well for the digi i/c descibed above is a blanket of Stillpoints ERS below the braided section if you decide to use a copper braid sheild. What is a Stillpoint ERS? Made this Iteration for a friend in leeds UK for his meridian two box. He was shocked at the differance. have fun
Look up the Chord i/c it will help you visualise how to finish you cable.
Google + "Chord i/c" does not work . I got numerous references to musical chords and theorie
Playing with those 2 diferent color fonts is a true hassle

[Matthew Wilson]

fuck

[Matthew Wilson]

Oh dear, I'm sorry. I was dog tired yesterday and looking back at what I'd written was a little painful. You know you have made a mistake when your writing a piece and the end seems a long way off. I ended up rushing to finish so that I could get to bed.

The coax in your house may be OK. It should be 5 cell polyethylene with a copper foil (not metalised). Yes, it should be 75ohms. Look up coaxial cables at:- Farnell Electronics, RS Spares, Maplin Electronics. All based in the UK but I'm sure you will have similar outlets and products in the Netherlands.

To get the central copper conductor out use mole grips to hold the conductor, I lock the mole grips in a vice then use sand paper around the PVC cover and gently twist and pull the inner conductor out

You remove the outer black PVC cover, carefully remove the braid.

You now have a polyethylene tube with a copper foil covering it's outer surface. I wear cotton gloves when I'm doing this to prevent contamination from the oils and acids on your fingers.

The Impedance of the coax is determined by the distance from core to screen, so if a smaller diameter conductor is used than the one you've taken out, you will slightly alter the ratio of distance and consequentially the Impedance. Of course re-threading a silver 1mm conductor isn't that easy so maybe use something slightly smaller, the difference sonically is negligable.

The braid I mentioned is a new high quality one,as the original braid is useless, thats if you choose to use it. There are lots of options here for providing a better shield and the ERS is probably the best and simplest to Implement. This is a shielding material with military origins. Paul Wakeen @  Paul@stillpoints.us will give you a contact in Germany who distributes in europe. They do a 12mm or so tape and this will do the trick. Please note: It's conductive at the cut edges and when used in any application care is required.

If you use ERS the earth leads are not really essential, but if you don't; yes earth to a component or earth terminal at the source end. This is a rule of thumb, as you could if you wished provide flying leads at both ends and try combinations of earth arrangements.

To optimise the performance of a cable such as this a 75ohm connector should be used. The Eichmann, 75ohm, I don't know. Once again there are many professional termination's available at the above mentioned electrical outlets. You will note that almost all manufacturers of digital i/c's use standard RCA's. A change to BNC would be beneficial if you can modify your player and dac without making a hash of it, though I have never tried to terminate this shotgun arangement to a BNC. It's bound to be awkward.
I also forgot to mention that you will need to cut the body of the rca shell down to  (a) provide more room and (b) so you can squeeze the two tubes through far enough to be able to connect and solder without destroying the shield. If you can visualise it, you will realise that it makes for an unstable interface and hence a glue gun and adhesive lined heat shrink are mandatory!

I'm wishing now I had not mentioned this type of configuration as now I'm trying to explain it to you I am realising and remembering how tricky and fiddly it was when I was experimenting years ago. If you have never tried this your going to find it difficult as good quality annealed silver is a bitch at times and I had many failures of solder joints due to poor strain relief. It's to hard to convey to you how to build something like this in just words. You may be as well trying just a single conductor with the copper as return with the vampire connectors. Or a kit. I saw quite a good one at 'The Missing Link' in the UK again. Here you will find the shielded Eichmanns also a good quality silver in his DIY section, adhesive lined semi-ridgid Polyolefin, amongst other bits and pieces. I think that short of getting on the ferry to Holland that's about as much as I can help you, but feel free to ask more questions.

For Google type 'Chord cables'    they don't have the digital cable on the site yet but the analogue i/c is there. The digi you can find through the link I provided for you at the bottom of my last post at Audiophile Candy which is full of dubious crud to tempt you to part with your dosh/money.
'Michael Percy'   a great resource for the bonkers DIY freak. All the best and good luck.

[AKSA]

Matthew,

Really......   Your spelling is appalling;  you really should know it is spelt 'pharque'.......  This is an ancient term of abuse, drawn from the original French, and pulled by four fine horses;  also the root of the word denoting the imperial measure of 100 miles per hour.

It is instructive to watch the cable recipes....  I know cables are important, but I suspect more is made of this topic than is perhaps necessary.    I use very ordinary multistrand for my speakers, and while it may be possible to get better results with Goetz et al, for commercial reasons I try to concentrate on getting good sonics without fancy cables.  Of course, my present system is something I know well, although Kyrill has chided me with the 'ordinariness' of my setup.

My response:  'Behold, Sir, the mechanic's car'.    

I'll dutifully go back to my workshop now...  I'm building a couple of upgraded 100W Nirvanas in the hope I can jag the N+ I'm aiming for at the moment to send to the US.

Cheers,

Hugh

[stvnharr]

In case anyone is interested, Parts Connexion has bullet plugs on sale this month for $29.95.

[kyrill]

thanx Matthew for yr extensive guide

I just bought 12 Eichmanns (normal) and 2 silver ones for 8.4 US $ a piece exclusive local tax. That would make 32 $ for 4.
SO Parts Connexion is less expensive