[_scotty_]

Kim S., PM if that happens also check the starting block. Good luck with your project. I would do the IC's first they are easy. Use the Neutrik part no. NYS352G RCA GOLD PLUG. Buy a couple extra to practice on and buy
part no.090-267 RCA JACK METAL These parts are available from PartsExpress . http://www.partsexpress.com/ Put the jack in a small vise to hold the rca plug while you solder it to the wire. Pre-tin 1/8in of the wire and pre-tin the center pin and ground lug. Put a small glob of solder on the end of your soldering iron and heat the 12ga wire while holding it in place on the ground lug. Soldering the center pin requires putting a small glob of solder on the end of your iron and heating the 12ga wire while pushing it down onto the recess in the center pin. Heat only long enough the get the solder to flow and the wire to move where you want it to the plug insulator on the center pin can be melted and destroyed by too much heat. the jack that you put the plug into to hold it while soldering acts as a heatsink and helps keep the centerpin in alignment if the insulator gets softened by the soldering process. don't remove the plug until it is cool to the touch or cool it with a wet paper towel. Have fun

[Kim S.]

Scotty, Thanks for the info.  I had planned to make some interconnects also.  I have done only a little soldering before.  Your instructions should be very helpful.  I'll probably order some extra RCA plugs if they are cheap enough to practice on.

[randytsuch]

Scotty, Thanks for the info.  I had planned to make some interconnects also.  I have done only a little soldering before.  Your instructions should be very helpful.  I'll probably order some extra RCA plugs if they are cheap enough to practice on.

If you are going to do much soldering, it really makes a difference to have a nice iron.  Hard to build stuff with an el cheapo RS iron.

Randy

[lkosova]

Question to Scotty et al:

What do you think about DHlabs diy wire,connectors ,ac cable etc???? www.silversonic.com

Larry

[_scotty_]

I have a good friend who uses the Ultimate RCA and likes it. I use a $0.12/100 RCA from mouser.com. this one is tricky to solder 12ga.wire to
I don't generally recommend it for first attempts and not all systems sound best with it.Here is a link to a solder station I use part no.21-147 http://mcm.newark.com/NewarkWebCommerce/mcm/en_US/support/search/searchResults.jsp?_dyncharset=ASCII&action=0&First=0&QText=Tenma+solder+station&x=10&y=4  
  order replacement tip Part no.21-926, 1/6 in. screw driver tip. This part is required for soldering 12ga wire.

[JoshK]

Scotty,

Do you know anyone who has compared Eichmann's to DH Labs Ultra RCA?  The DHLs are more expensive than the standard Eichmann's (much less than silver eichmanns) but they look far studier.  If copper purity is what makes eichmanns (not saying this is the sole reason) so good maybe I ought to try the DHLs.

[Wayne1]

Josh,

The sound of the Bullet plugs has very little to do with Copper Purity.

What it has to do with is removing all the metal from around the conductors that is not needed.

While they do not look "sturdy" they sound far better than anything with lots of metal screwing up the magnetic fields.

You can choose a connector that you can run a truck over or one that sounds good. Unfortunately you can not have both.

[JoshK]

Wayne,

Actually that is what I thought, I was just fishing for comparisons really.  Someday I will get around to inventing a Bullet replica that uses ceramic or wood on the outside so it doesn't melt when heated, crack when cryo'd (ceramic might actually, I don't know), or loosen grip with time.

josh

[JoshK]

follow up question....

Less metal equals less inductance or capacitance?  I forget which is which.  I.e., in terms of physics, how would we explain how this effects electricity transmission?  Assuming of course that the IC's are carrying lower voltage signals than speaker cables.

[bubba966]

Someday I will get around to inventing a Bullet replica that uses ceramic or wood on the outside so it doesn't melt when heated, crack when cryo'd (ceramic might actually, I don't know), or loosen grip with time.

Josh,

I've never experienced any of those problems with my silver bullet cryo'd cables.

Honestly they've been very durable for the year or so I've been using them.

[JoshK]

Brian,

I should clarify, those aren't problems I have experienced, but are potential problems one MAY experience.  Of course I have found the to be durable, with one exception, in my use of three pairs of interconnects made with eichmanns.  I am not slamming eichmanns, au contraire, I was merely stating a reason why a comparison with other tauted products would be interesting to me.

cheers,
Josh

[bubba966]

Josh,

I didn't recall you having problems with Eichmann's, but I wasn't sure. I just wanted to point out that I've had a bunch of cables made with Eichmann's and have had nothing but a great experience with them.

Anyway, I'd bet that if something other than the polymer (Delrin?) they use worked better that they'd have used it. Ceramic wouldn't adjust to fit different diameter jacks. And I'd imagine that ceramic that thin would be fragile.

And wood moves so much that it'd also be a problem. Cracking/shrinking/warping/etc. would all be huge problems if you made Eichmann style RCA's out of wood.

As far as I'm concerned, all of my future cable purchases will have Eichmann's. I've had no problems (other than they're not cheap), and they perform amazingly.

[_scotty_]

Here is the Mouser part no. of the RCA plug that I use. 17PP050 It has a hollow center pin and minimal metal in the ground. It is also considerably more robust than the Eichmann.It  makes a more reliable ground contact in some situations. 12ga wire can be soldered to it if you're skilled at soldering. Mouser part no.17PP050. Search on this part no. at http://www.mouser.com/index.cfm?handler=search.processsearchb
Download the PDF doc to see what the plug looks like. These plugs will burn but they won't melt when you solder them. Josh K, the closer two conductors are together with a nonconductor between them the higher the capacitance will be. Also the more metal surface area there is separated by an insulator the higher the capacitance will be. The Eichmann has low surface area and a large distance between conductors this means low capacitance and low dielectric signature. The plugs I use have less surface area between conductors and as much space between conductors which is a good thing because the dielectric constant may not be as good as the
Eichmann.  For $0.12/100 I feel they may offer a cost effective alternative to more expensive RCA plugs. If anyone wants to try them I will post the procedure for soldering 12ga wire into the center pin on these plugs
it is a little tricky.

[JoshK]

Indeed Eichmanns do perform admirably!  It just looks like a simple enough idea that someone else ought to have thought of it or it could be done cheaper somehow.  Oh well...wishful thinking.


Should we start discussion about geometry for IC's?  That might be an interesting topic.  Certainly I can hear differences between shielded and non shielded designs.   Capicitance will be lower in the non shielded which explains some of it.   Have you guys compared designs like star quad to others?

[_scotty_]

The Stan Warren recipe DIY speaker cables do require a specific geometry
to add enough capacitance to balance out the inductance the cable has.
Interestingly enough the IC's which are made out of the exact same wire as the speaker cable do not require anything other than a tight twist to function. The tightly twisted pair has enough capacitance to balance out the inductance in the IC. It isn't a fancy geometry but it works.  The neat thing is that for roughly $3.00 in materials and about  45mins of time you can build a pair of IC's that will leave a lot of cables in the dust by the side of the road with their doors blown off.

[Kim S.]

I have finished a set of jumper cables for my VMPS RM2's using the Colonial wire I bought from aime-electric which I mentioned in a previous post.  They sound very good.   The bass sounds tighter, but the biggest improvement is in the mids/upper.  In short they just sound clearer.  This surprised me I thought the biggest improvement would be in the bass.  The jumpers basically bypass the internal wiring from the mid/upper terminal to the woofer.  I also have made two 8ft lengths for bi-wiring but have not cryo'd them yet. Given the improvement from the jumpers, I don't know if bi-wiring is necessary.  I may save the cables for a future secondary system.

My next project is interconnects.  I have some RCA connectors that were recommended here back ordered from action-electric.

[JoshK]

Scotty,

This might sound like a stupid question but why does it have (a lot of)inductance?

[_scotty_]

The cable doesn't have a lot of inductance, but it has some, and it has to be dealt with effectively.  The effect of self-inductance is what is present when current flows in a conductor.  The primary reason we are concerned with the effect is because we are dealing with AC current in our cables and audio circuits.  Self-induction opposes changes in current flow.It opposes the buildup and delays the breakdown, of current.  As the frequency we are trying to conduct in the wire increases the self-inductance is part of what acts to limit the frequency response and phase accuracy of the cable.  When we talk about AC and self-inductance,the term that applies is called inductive reactance.  As the frequency increases inductive reactance dominates the behavior of the cable.  Capacitive reactance is added to the cable to balance the inductive reactance and flatten and extend the cables frequency response. I hope this explanation was a little clearer than mud.  There is a lot of math and
and sound electrical theory to base a cable design on, the irony is that
theory does not effectively predict what we will hear with we listen to a cable.  YET!  This cable defies conventional audiophile wisdom in regards to its construction materials and yields good results. Go figure.