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I'm about to try, I have some DIY end pieces, good solder and iron ready and am in the final stages of narrowing down wire.
Any recommendations as to geometry or wire? I'm open....
Dynobots Audio
Music is the Bridge between Heaven and Earth - 音楽は天国と地球のかけ橋
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have perfected my diy silver core usb and aes/ebu cable
saved ££££
2m 99.999% 5N 0.4mm silver audio wire = £10.56
1m cat5e foil wrapped cable = £2.50
2m 1.5mm shrink sleeve = £3.00
cut silver wire into 4 x .5m lengths
thread into shrink sleeve and then shrink sleeve with heat
twist wire together so you get 2 x .5 m twisted pairs, add tape to 1 core at both ends before twisting so you can identify + and -
cut cat5 cable in half and remove 3 of the pairs, leaving 1 pair, the mylar foil and the ground wire
solder 1 x .5m silver twisted pair to the cat5 twisted pair
pull the cat5 twisted pair so that it draws the silver twisted pair through into the cat5 cable
remove the cat5 twisted pair
repeat for the other cable
terminate the silver twisted pair as required, I also soldered the ground wire to the transmit end connector ground
for the usb cable I separated the wires from a cat5 twisted pair and soldered them to the squeezebox touch +5v and ground and then soldered the other end into the usb B connector.
for the aes cable I grounded the drain wire at the transmit end and just connected the wires to pin 2 and 3, pin 1 left floating.
taped up all ends where the cable joined the connectors
sound is very good, the best I have had from the touch to vlink 192 into the nad m51, have ferrites on the transmit end of both cables.
before I tried the cat5 cable shielding technique I was getting very bad crackling, but now I don't have any.
had a problem with the diy usb cable in that I was getting occasional static noise, eventually worked out it was because the twisted pairs had too many twists so unwound them a bit and wound 4 threads of cotton string round the cable before pulling it back into the foil sheath.
to me silver wire produces a very nice sound detailed and smooth, well worth the time and materials to make it.
I absolutely have to intervene here before you get carried away.
Go buy a $1.99 USB cable from the nearest bigbox electronics store and be done with it. Stop being ripped off by B.S. There is *never* any need to buy super expensive *digital* cables of any kind.
Digital signalling 101: The data transmitted is either 100% perfect at all times, or it's error-riddled and the application reading that data crashes or throws an error.
This is true for USB, FireWire, HDMI, Ethernet - anything digital. What the cable is made of, the type of wire used, all of that is absolutely positively irrelevant.
Digital signal data uses a protocol at either end. This is how cables get their names. HDMI is not really a type of cable, it's the name of the language being spoken on that cable by the two devices at either end of it. Dittos for USB and all the others. This is also why you see "USB 1.0", USB 2.0 etc - they're variations on the protocol being spoken by the components on either end of that cable.
A core component of every digital protocol is error detection and correction. The devices at both ends of the connection perform this error detection and correction on every byte of data sent or received. It arrives at the receiver device in *perfect* condition, exactly as the sender sent it... or it doesn't and the receiving device immediately tells you about this (usually by popping up an error message)
THERE IS NO IN-BETWEEN. It's either PERFECT at all times, or your receiving program crashes and burns because it got bad data.
This is why these protocols, like ethernet, can safely be used in mission critical applications like, oh, sending control data to the computers managing a nuclear reactor. They do this with $2 cables bought in bulk.
It is *not possible* for the quality of the cable to have any affect what-so-ever on the sound you are hearing. About all you get out of high-grade cables is a little more durability so they last longer - but really they're so cheap nobody really cares about that. If it breaks, pop in another $2 cable.
Don't build your own. Don't buy $500 ethernet or USB cables being sold by B.S. artists. Buy cheap, buy in bulk, and buy in confidence that when it comes to *digital* signals the cable is the least of your concerns.
It's pretty simple, especially for audiophile use since you would not use the power-carrying leg, assuming your USB DAC/device does not use USB BUS power. If you need the power leg, then that's when things can get complicated, as you would want that power leg heavier AWG, well shielded and away from the signal legs, perhaps even running in a separate cable from the signal cable, like some audiophile companies do.
All that I can say from experience designing many, many, many high quality Audio tuned USB cables is, be creative and be patient. Once you start using larger than the specified 28 gauge wire then, soldering, maintaining patent solder connections without shorts, avoiding shorts and breaks via lifted solder pads and breaks post cable completion are all GOING TO HAPPEN PERIOD.
I can tell you that both high quality (purity counts here) wires and geometry really make major sonic differences with USB cable designs. Good luck.
Lance A.
I have done some experimenting with USB cables. I first bought two identical made up cables and sent one to Jena for cryogenics. The cryoed cable was clearly better. I have since made a couple using the surplus silver plated copper wire with Teflon sold on ebay. I use three twisted pair. Two for signal and one pair for power. I then had them cryogenic treated. They sound better than the same length generic cryoed cable. YMMV
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Dynobots Audio
Music is the Bridge between Heaven and Earth - 音楽は天国と地球のかけ橋
I seriously looked into building one, but didn't get around to doing it ultimately. However, if I were to build one, I think I would go with a twisted pair with shield for the middle two (signal) pins to isolate them from the power carrying and ground lines (1&4). The one implemented by Acoustic Revive, which goes as far as actually terminating the power side and the signal side separately into two USB plugs, also looks quite interesting. Just my 2 cents.
I don't use USB for computer audio applications, so I've never built one. You might wish to surf these links:
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