wire attachment methods

dayneger · « **on:** 22 Jan 2003, 04:33 pm »

I'm in the last phases of my 100W AKSA kit and am curious how others hook up their wires.

Currently all of my AC, DC and speaker wires are done with standard commercial crimp connectors. It's very handy for debugging and tweaking but I'm not sure of the sound quality for the long run. How do you run your system?

Also, how do you prefer attaching the signal wire and ground to those little pins on the amp PCB?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts!

Dayne

mamsterla · « **Reply #1 on:** 23 Jan 2003, 12:39 am »

Quote from: dayneger

I'm in the last phases of my 100W AKSA kit and am curious how others hook up their wires.

Currently all of my AC, DC and speaker wires are done with standard commercial crimp connectors. It's very handy for debugging and tweaking but I'm not sure of the sound quality for the long run. How do you run your system?

Also, how do you prefer attaching the signal wire and ground to those little pins on the amp PCB?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts!

Dayne

Dayne:

I think people can go a little whacky here and I found my preference is for solid core copper hookup wire. I buy the cheap stuff at radio shack for all the power connections. For signal wire, I use some litz wire that I bought in bulk.

The connectors that I found to be great matches for the pins are serial port female pins. You can buy these DIY female serial connectors and the pins are perfect to connect to the inputs. They also work well as tonearm cartridge clips.

-MA

EchiDna · « **Reply #2 on:** 23 Jan 2003, 01:24 am »

mine are all soldered onto the amp boards and crimped at the PS end. I used teflon coated multicore copper hookup for the PS, teflon cat 5 strands for the signals in and belden 89259 for the signals out.

wireburn · « **Reply #3 on:** 24 Jan 2003, 01:39 pm »

Here's what I did when I built my two AKSA 55's:

I used a few of the same crimp connectors you get with male DB-9 computer plugs for my input terminals. These are cheap and with a little heatshrink tubing they can be made to have a strong connection that can still be easily removed. I used twisted teflon CAT-5 for the wire. On the ouput side, I stripped the jacket off some 12ga Liberty speaker cable I had laying around and soldered that to the binding posts with the aid of some wirewrap. On the amp end I used gold-plated crimp-on spades.

-Mike

PSP · « **Reply #4 on:** 24 Jan 2003, 05:00 pm »

In my amps, I've used 24awg teflon insulated CAT 5 twisted pairs for the signal wires and 16awg cheap stranded Radio Shack wire between the the power supply and the amps (and 14awg Volex power cords, soldered to the power switches).

While prototyping, doing the biasing, etc. I use quick disconnects or tack-soldering. When all is well and the music sweet, I solder everything down. Two years ago, while tweaking my old NAD 7020 reciever (this was my first "tweaking victim"... it turned out pretty good, actually, but definitely not in the same league as my AKSA), while I was learning, I made a few bad solder joints that I could actually hear... I would replace a cruddy old cap with a nice film cap and hear sibilance and maybe even a little distortion, all fixed when I looked at the new solder joint under magnification, found it "clearly sick" and reheated the conection with a little fresh solder... then the music was sweet again. Given that expereince, I'm not inclined to trust temporary connectors with my music.

Peter

Grumpy_Git · « **Reply #5 on:** 24 Jan 2003, 08:33 pm »

I've just got back from a little raiding session and I'd like some help.

As is usual for me I've just aquired a small 200m Drum of an old Wire.

The drum says Belden and is well run down but prob just under half left and the partial label says the customer is BT (British Telecom) so I'm assuming it is a bog standard Phone cable.

The sheath is brown plastic and about 5mm across, then theres an inner dielectric and some nylon? strands and four solid core conductors with their own sheath. These appear to be 0.5mm diameter but no way to tell. These would appear to NOT be braided but no way to tell.

What I'd like to ask is can anyone identify the cable or tell me if I could use it for braiding my own interconnects? Any advice on how as I don't really have clues about how many strands. ( I've already tried and succeeded in removing the cores with individual insulation intact.)

Sorry if this offends/annoys anyone.

Nick.

PS: Grr my parcel at the post office wasn't my AKSA, it's all I want... And my girlfriend keeps laughing at me.

Lost81 · « **Reply #6 on:** 14 Jul 2004, 07:24 am »

Quote from: mamsterla

The connectors that I found to be great matches for the pins are serial port female pins. You can buy these DIY female serial connectors and the pins are perfect to connect to the inputs.

Quote from: wireburn

I used a few of the same crimp connectors you get with male DB-9 computer plugs for my input terminals. These are cheap and with a little heatshrink tubing they can be made to have a strong connection that can still be easily removed.

Gosh, I love the wealth of information found on this AKSA forum!
It is incredibly valuable!

I went to Fry's Electronics (John R will probably recognize this place: the Walmart of electronics) and located a pack of 25 gold-plated DB female pins for US$1.19. There's a crimp tab to grasp on to the insulation of the signal wire, as well as a generous solder tag too. It looks like it will oh, so nicely slide over the input and earth pins snug and tight too!

I forgot how much fun this is!

Cheers,
-Lost81

MattCassidy · « **Reply #7 on:** 16 Jul 2004, 04:19 am »

I just wired up my input pins last night, I was having the same conundrum solering cat5E wire to the input pins.

What I did in the end was stripped about 6mm of the cat5E and then wound it around a standard sewing type pint, then you can put the coil over the input pin and it wil stay there while you solder it!

Matt

Malcolm Fear · « **Reply #8 on:** 16 Jul 2004, 07:48 am »

I did away with the pins altogether. I soldered the CAT 5 straight to the board. Don't know if it sounds better, but I sleep better, thinking it might.

Jens · « **Reply #9 on:** 16 Jul 2004, 10:41 am »

I've done as Malcolm.

Since the main board in my GK-1R is in a upright position, this has given med the added advantage of routing wires from either the top or the bottom of the PCB to get the shortest possible wire routing.

There is no real point in the pins unless you want to use connectors on your wires that fit the pins (or if you intend to take things apart on a regular basis).

Cheers,

Jens

kyrill · « **Reply #10 on:** 16 Jul 2004, 12:25 pm »

yep
Like Malcolm, like Jens I believe in hard soldering connections
I am thinking of hard soldering one end of the input cables directly to the board. So the (input) cables are "part"of the amplifier and "stick out" the back.

A next step is, but only valid in my configuration: preamp --> GK-1--> AKSA, to solder the interlink to the GK-1 and to the AKSA and bolting the two separate enclosures as one. WHat you would do if you put the TLP and the AKSA in one enclosure, as some did.

Little harder in the practical sense to do with the speakercables.

PSP · « **Reply #11 on:** 19 Jul 2004, 05:27 pm »

Hi kyrill,
I put the TLP (and its transformer and power supply) into a 2U 19x17 inch steel case with a 55w AKSA (along with two 160VA torroids and the rest of the AKSA power supply) and fought hum for a very long time. I tried a great many approaches to grounding and many shielding potions to no avail. Finally, I put the TLP in its own enclosure and things have been very quiet (and the music sweet) ever since.

I wouldn't say "impossible", but if you can put the TLP in the same reasonably sized enclosure as the amp (and power supply) and achieve a quiet background I will be very impressed, eager to hear how you solved the problem, and publically proclaim you the better "Amp Chassis Dude".

There are various posts on my Amp + TLP Hum Quest here (I think) and for sure on the old Aspen board at Harmonic Discord. I do not recall those days fondly...

good luck,
Peter

kyrill · « **Reply #12 on:** 19 Jul 2004, 07:16 pm »

Hi Peter

I agree with your experience on humming
I reckon that stray fields from the AKSA's trafo's (transformers) for the TLP would be an issue. It is better, much better to somehow shield trafo's field from reaching, interfering and influencing the the delicate pre amp or power amps processes.

I am to lazy somehow to publish my configuration. But it is possible to use your AKSA's heatsink as a (linked to earth) shield to the the trafo's.
But why bother?
It so much easier to keep all the trafo's in (a) separate enclosure(s) who are linked to earth.

PSP · « **Reply #13 on:** 19 Jul 2004, 08:21 pm »

Hi kyrill,
Agreed... why bother?

For the record, and to assist people who read this thread a year from now, my heatsinks were mounted outside the chassis (so kyrill's idea may have merit, especially for the '55 where heat has never been an issue, at least in my experience). However, in my configuration I had hum with multiple layers of shielding between the AKSA PS torroids and the TLP (two layers of magnetic steel--hardware store stuff, but it was definitely magnetic as judged by a magnet

, two layers of TI-Shield--Michael Percy, and a couple of layers of mu-metal, all grounded to chassis earth. I tried various orientations of the TLP board... sometimes I thought I could hear improvements, but nothing that was significant or lasting.

The torroids were very close to the front plate of the amp and the TLP was mounted as far towards the rear of the 17 inch deep enclosure as possible. In this build, I cut the AKSA heatsink in half and mounted the two pieces on the left and right sides of the enclosure towards the rear... this way the amp boards were very close to the rear panel of the amp and extended towards the TLP, mounted in the rear center of the enclosure. So, signal path lengths to and from the TLP and to the amp boards were very, very short. I had hum until I gave up on the "integrated amp" idea and put the amp and TLP each in their own enclosure.... and then things got very quiet and the music very lovely.

To put this TLP hum thing in perspective, even at its worst the hum was always very low level. It was audible from maybe 12-18 inches from the speakers with no music playing and always totally inaudible when listening to music from ten feet away. But when you build an amp or preamp, you want it to be quiet as a matter of pride... reason has no bearing on the subject!
Peter

MattCassidy · « **Reply #14 on:** 20 Jul 2004, 12:04 am »

On a related topic..Should the input wires to each of the channels be the same length? I guess this also applies to the speaker wires..

AKSA · « **Reply #15 on:** 20 Jul 2004, 12:17 am »

Matt,

It really doesn't matter a bit.

If you look inside a speaker crossover, there's a lot more length on the active side compared to the passive side - the inductors!!

Input is uncritical, but if using twisted pair, they must be pretty close anyway.

Cheers,

Hugh

SamL · « **Reply #16 on:** 20 Jul 2004, 12:18 am »

Peter,

Have you tried isolating the transformer's centre screw and bolt from the chassis? I was told the transformer screw do generate a lot of noise. Not sure if this is the cause of problem.

Sam

MattCassidy · « **Reply #17 on:** 20 Jul 2004, 02:25 am »

Hmmm interesting, Thanks for the reply Hugh, I was probably more meaning the length of Left Vs Right.. Guess when it comes down to centimetres it probably does not matter.

Cheers
Matt

PS the amp is sounding great! Can't wait to try it out with a proper source rather than my laptop. I am tempted to get a potentiometre in the meantime..

gonefishin · « **Reply #18 on:** 21 Jul 2004, 12:32 am »

(for anyone thinking of hardwiring) I just ordered some strain relief connectors from Allied Electronics. I got the olflex brand (metallic and non-metallic)