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I will soon be finished with all of the braiding for the Cat5s, and I want get the heatshrink and Techflex on order now. What sizes will I need? I know I will want to heatshrink: 1)the separate + and - leadouts, 2)where the leadouts meet the spades, and 3) where the Techflex meets the leadouts. I guess that would be 3 differnet sizes of heatshrink and then the Techflex. Thanks for the input.
Follow Ups:
Well I finished braiding one channel of the CVH 27-pair design, and my fingers HURT. I braided much tighter than any I read about.. as I took 14 foot long strips and ended up with a cable slightly over 6 feet (no joke). Thus my cable may be a bit fatter than others. But I ordered the black heat-resistant (has white diamond design) Techflex and A4 black heatshrink from heatshrink.com. The Techflex I ordered was 3/4" and fits pretty well.. for a tighter fit get the 1/2", although in my case the 3/4" works just fine and contains the thorny braided CAT5 pretty well. I am only using a 1" black strip of heatshrink at each end at the "Y" to fasten the Techflex on and for aesthetics.. this heatshrink is 1" and I would not recommend getting anything smaller (it's a 2:1 shrink ratio, and I don't think a 3/4" would fit on). The + and - of each end I mummy wrapped in white plumber's tape (teflon), since after I put the Kimber Postmasters on there will be slight gap from the Y junction to the edge of the Kimber heatshrink (which are included with the Postmaster spade lugs).This cable is a LOT of work (I'm shuddering at the thought of starting the other channel already!) but I tell ya, the sonic improvement over my Kimber 4PR was instantly obvious. I tested with light crimp-on bananas and replaced my right channel, and there was more detail up and down the spectrum, with more bass and definition in the bass. The sound felt unbalanced because of the added detail in the right channel.. also it's possible the right side was slightly louder due to the thicker gauge. BE CAREFUL though, after cranking the volume a bit my Denon immediately shut off.. apparently the high capacitance of the CAT5 made it work much harder. Ah well.. guess I'll have to wait until the monoblocks arrive :)
--Alan
After I hit about +10 on the volume scale, off goes it goes!Brett
NT
I wore a pair of tight fitting kitchen gloves. Reduces slip makes the braids more tighter and relieves aches.I used a furutech connector, It looks like a thin copper sheet rolled tubelike, (imagine a 1.5inch piece of heatshrink with the diameter a little bit bigger than the banana hole.) It had a lenghwise slit 3/4 way, so when slipped into the banana connector, the diameter contracts to provide a tight fit. so I just crimped the unslit end, wrapped the bare metal with teflon plumbers tape before shrink tubing, sprayed a bit of Cragpro onto the connector before slipping into the hole for banana.
I think this would be much better than the bananas. I'll try and get a photo of some.
That's insane. I just finished my braiding last night. Started with 6ft, ended up just under 4.5ft. I can't wait to hear the difference. I'm replacing some old 16 gauge zip cord, so it should be very noticeable. Now I just have to order all of the finishing touches. My new Yamaha receiver will only take bananas, so I now have to research what to get for that end. I had planned on using PostMasters all around, but oh well.
I finished my cables about a week ago. I too have a Yamaha reciever(RXV 1000). I thought that there may be a problem with capacitance, but so far no problem what soever. however I have not cranked it up for any extended periods of time. My cables are 11' (started with 13' lengths) terminated with "Dayton" banana plugs from "parts express" (not bad).These cables are definitely worth the effort! The mids and highs are so much more defined, I can here the space around the instruments. The bass is much tighter too, although not as pronounced. This may be because my old cables were 10 or 12 gage bi wire from Monster. I doulbled the up because my new speakers were not bi wireable (pretty fat). In comparison they sound boring and muddy. I am realy suprised with impact these cables had on the overall sound of my system(My wife too, and that's telling you something). It almost sound as though I upgraded my speakers!
enjoy!
Does anyone know if there is any avantage between using the Techflex "PET" "FR", or "CC". Is this purely cosmetic?
Hi,The 3 are pretty much the same. PET is the basic type, FR has flame retardant added to the plastic, the melting point remains the same, however. CC (cleancut) is PET that has been rendered less prone to fraying by a process that would be like perma-press is to pants. The sizes are a bit different for CC, here is the link for info
Kind regards,
Ray
Hi trancemitr,I would suggest trying some Ixos bananas (their top of the line ones).. my roommate is using them in his system and they are by far the tightest bananas I've ever seen. I normally wouldn't recommend them because most people probably can't even push them in, but after the braiding I bet your hand strength and durability exceeds that of most people :) The way they're designed keeps the wires screwed in very tight (the screw is at the base, near the plug), while my Phoenix Gold bananas loosen the wire sometimes when I plug them in (the screw is at the top of the banana, so twisting the banana sometimes makes the wire fall out of the plug!). Also, I plan on ordering a smaller size of Techflex.. I think the 1/2" will be a slightly better fit, although the 3/4" works pretty well too.
--Alan
I started with 14 ft runs of the cat5 which braided down to 13, 12, and finally 11 ft with each successive braid. I terminated with post master spades and esoteric audio bananas from parts express. I then covered with violet 3/4" B2 heatshrink and 1/2" B2 for the leadouts. I covered that with 3/8" slate blue PET techflex and 1/4" for the leadouts. Finally for all the strain relief and holding the techflex in place I used 1/2" O2B2 in red and black and 3/4" O2B2 in black. The only problem I encountered was that the 1/2" O2B2 holding the techflex near the bananas was a little tight going on. But I have to say every thing looks and sounds amazing.Hope this helps,
Jessie
Can't help with the techflex.The heatshrink I used was polyolefin, which is better than PVC.I'd measure the desired outside diameter and make sure your heatshrink will shrink to that.I think I used 1/4 in. for the individual leads and 1/2 in. over that.The stuff I used would shrink 50% Enjoy,Gordy
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