|
Audio Asylum Thread Printer Get a view of an entire thread on one page |
For Sale Ads |
68.163.115.10
There are two recipes for making the speaker cable. In one recipe (Jon Risch version?) the outer jacket is removed in the other the jacket is not (audioholics version). Does that make a difference in audio quality? I am intending to make a 12 guage equivalent. I will be using them with Magnepan 1.6's driven by a Bryston 4B ST amp.
Follow Ups:
Assuming you're going to follow the Risch/CVH recipe with the jacket off.....-If the cable does not contain a 'rip cord' that can be used to help remove the jacket, remove the jacket BEFORE you cut the cable into individual lengths. It is very easy to rip the jacket once you get it started, but it takes a few seconds (if not more) every time you have to start it. If you cut the cable into individual lengths, you will need to 'start it' 14 times for the full-blown version of the recipe = not fun. Better to 'start it' just once and then cut the cable into the 14 pieces after the jacket is gone.
-Unless you're making short cables ( <5'), start braiding at the middle of the lengths rather than from the end. If you start at the end, you will need to deal with long loose ends and this is tough to manage (perhaps someone knows of a better braiding technique where you don't have to deal with loose ends, but I could not achieve a reasonable braid without working with my hands close to the braid). Starting your braid at the middle allows you to work with half-length loose ends and is much easier to manage. Braid to the first end and flip the cable (I was using a vise and this was very easy).
-Make sure the pairs are twisted all the way to the end before starting the braid - this will reduce the tangling of the loose ends as you braid. Also remove any kinks or bends that may be in the pairs.
-I wore nitrile gloves (similar to latex) while braiding the pairs and triple pairs. This worked very well to prevent blisters and I still had very good control/grip. I switched to thin suede work gloves for the final braiding since a lot more force is required and fine control is not needed.
-Unless you have very strong hands, I wouldn't braid for more than 90 minutes or so at a time. Step away for an hour or two to let your hands rest.
-Have music playing in your workspace. This is VERY repetitive work, and besides the obvious benefit of some entertainment while you weave, the right kind of music will help you keep your pace up. Subconscious slowing of your pace will make this project take much longer than it needs to, so anything that can help you keep your pace up is a plus.
-When it is time to terminate the ends, separate the indiviual wires into the intended + and - clusters BEFORE cutting them to length. Before you separate them, there is no way to predict where the individual wires need to be cut. You will obviously not want to waste time stripping the wires until after you've cut them to length.
-Use an ohmmeter to check for shorts or cross-connected wires BEFORE terminating the cables. Even if you're very careful separating the intended + and - wires, there are so many that you're bound to make a mistake. A simple trick to check for an obvious mistake is to count the wires on each side - if you something other than exactly 27 wires per side, you've goofed.
Some have reported this project taking upwards of 20 hours to complete, but I was able to do it in a total of about 11 hours (despite cutting the cable before removing the jacket - roughly a 20 minute penalty). I started with 9' lengths, and as else reported, I ended up with 7.5' finished cables.
I hope this helps folks save some time.
Dont do the platting on your own.
I found that a mate moving the tail-ends in sync as you do the platting at the business end, prevents the tangled mess you will inevetlably end up with; that actually takes way longer to sort out than it does the platting.
You should with a wee bit of practice end up doing almost a yard in about 2mins with 3strand platt (aka tnt style with the outer sheaving removed).
We were knocking out a bare 20ft cable of 24 ends in about 15mins.
A 4 way platt didnt take that much longer once we again got the synconization sorted out :¬0
you're just end up with aching fingers for a few days.A tinny aids construction. 2+ tinnys slows construction by the square law of consumption.
I never did the whole CVH unjacketed set, which is quite a construction job indeed! I only did the TNT version years ago with the jacket on and a triple set, not sextuple set. So you could say I took the quick way and instead of spending a whole weekend in fingernumbing work, I spent an hour and a half total. These worked great in my system for years and the recipe worked for friends as well.However, if you listen to Jon Risch you're going to get the best results. If you're determined to do it once and do it right, then follow his and Chris Ven Haus' advice and take the jacket OFF!
Also, whatever you do, you need to get the Cat 5e that is Plenum with all Teflon jackets (some plenum is no longer all Teflon). That's just as critical to the recipe's quality.
I do not have the patience to braid like the CVH version. I am planning on twisting quad set like the audioholic version. I have ordered some plenum wire that the site says is teflon insulated but they do not say if the jacket is teflon as well. So at this time I am undecided whether to remove the jacket or not.Jon if the outer jacket is teflon as well then would there be a signifcant difference if I do not remove it?
Aside from all the issues concerning the braiding, and the twisting, etc., and just looking at the jacket dielectric aspect, if the jacket were teflon, it would not be very much of a sonic penalty to leave it on.HOWEVER, it is VERY unlikely that you have ordered a CAT5 cable with a teflon jacket, almost invariably if they say the cable is "teflon" they mean the twisted pair insulation and NOT the jacket.
If you have found a source of the rare and mythical teflon jacked CAT5, please share this source with everyone.
You can still just braid the 4 pairs per cable jacket set as one leg of the braid, in fact, if the jacket is PVC, it should be possible to braid the jackets, and remove the jackets after they have been braided, and them pull the wires tight after the jackets have been removed. You would have to kind of peel the jacket away from each section as it weaves in and out of the braid pattern, but it could be done, and it would keep the 4 pairs together so you wouldn't have to handle the 4 pairs loose while atempting to braid them as a set.
If you do it this way, then I would recommend a secondary wrap after removing the jackets, of some teflon gas line tape, while the czble is being stretched taut, so the twisted pairs are not too loose with espect to one another.
Jon Risch
Hi Jon,I thought this was Belden 1585lc?
Regards,
...but not quite:
Paired- DataTwist® Category 5e
Suitable Applications: Premise Horizontal Cable, Gigabit Ethernet, 100BaseTX, 100BaseVG ANYLAN, 155ATM, 622ATM, NTSC/PAL Component or Composite Video, AES/EBU, Digital Video, RS-422, 200MHz Category 5e, Vertical Tray Rated
Number of Pairs: 4
Total Number of Conductors: 8
AWG: 24
Stranding: Solid
Conductor Material: BC - Bare Copper
Insulation Material: PO - Polyolefin
Outer Shield Material: Unshielded Outer Jacket Material Trade Name: Haloarrest®
Outer Jacket Material: LSNH - Low Smoke Non-Halogen Plenum
Plenum Number: 1585A, 1585LC
Applications: Category Cables, Category 5e
John and others thanks everyone for the ideas. I tested the jacket of the cables I received - they burn with a cigarette lighter so not teflon. The insulation however just melts no burning - similar melting properties as teflon pipe thread.It will take me a few weeks before I have time to play with this. Will post my observations after auditioning carefully.
It will also produce a less thick carpet python so it will be easier to handle.
Electrically it will also keep the capacitance more even.
I have tried both jacket on and off i prefer the jacket off.
I hope this helps Chris
I haven't found other than one manufacturer in the US that does a Teflon jacket, and as Jon said, you have to buy that stuff in 1000' rolls! Also, it's not cheap at all.So if you're going for the sound and you're going through the trouble, you may want to go unjacketed, as Jon strongly suggests.
You're not going to get shit sound if you keep the jackets on, at least that's been my experience. But if you are going to do this only once, then you might as well do it the best way you can.
Once you unjacket them and have to deal with twisting or braiding or both, and especially if you're thinking of bi-wiring, then you may want to do some serious research here in the Cables archives. Try a thread called "longcat" as I recall, or "gomer cable". Different methods to determine best geometry and some construction details too.
I think the recipe you want it the one by Chris VenHaus. Link to this recipe is below. I built these cables three or four years ago, and still use them today. They were a no-brainer step up from the Audio Quest Midnights I'd used for more than ten years. No break-in at all, they were an immediate improvement. Be advised that constructing these cables is as much an exercise in character building as anything. Took me an entire weekend to build a biwire set. The cramps in my hands and the blisters caused me more than once to examine just how obsessed I'd become with this hobby. At the end of it I, or my obsession (not sure which), prevailed and my efforts were more than rewarded. I use 27 pair for the low side and 15 pair for the highs. Started with nine foot lengths and ended up with runs around seven and a half feet long. Only tip I can give you about construction is the wrap your thumbs and first two fingers on each hand with cotton adhesive tape. Helps keep the blisters away but still allows you to firmly grip the conductors during braiding.
The most prominent recipe that did not call for removing the jacket was published at the TNT audio site, however, in Europe, they have available a brand of CAT5 that used a polyethylene type jacket along with polyolefin insulated twisted pairs, this jacket material is not nearly as bad of a dielectric as the much more common PVC jacketed CAT5.Because neither the jacket nor the twisted pair wire insulation was a poor one, you could "get away" with not removing the jacket, and it wouldn't sound too bad. Realize that this particular brand and part number also had all the other factors correct: solid bare copper wire, no shielding, so it had no other sonic penalties to deal with either.
However, in the US, this particular brand of CAT 5 was not available, even the proper plenum grade part numbers that had FEP teflon for the twisted pair wire insulation, still had PVC jackets.
So when you do not remove the jackets from these kinds of CAT5 cables, the sound suffers because even with the wires having FEP teflon insulation, the PVC jacket is still there, and degrades the performance.Unfortunately, with insulators (dielectrics), the worst dielectric tends to dominate the sonic equation, so what you hear is mostly the PVC signature, with most of the benefit of the FEP teflon lost.
The guy from Audioholics claimed that he had a CAT5 with a teflon jacket, and there was one company that does make such a CAT5 cable, BUT, it is only availble in bulk, which means that you have to buy an entire spool of at least 1000 feet, AND you have to find a source that will sell 'only' this much (a single 1000 foot spool is considered an order too small for most manufacturer's, and even a lot of the larger distributors). No one has been able to come up with such a source for this rare cable. So really, you as an individual will be unable to dupulicate the results from the Audioholics recipe, as that cable is not readily available, unless you have inside contacts in the cable industry, or happen to know the right guy.
For the recommended Belden part numbers (see:
http://www.geocities.com/jonrisch/s2.htm
"speaker Cable #3" for the part numbers. Note that a lot of them are obsolete, but I keep them in there in case someone can find those part numbers at a surplus outlet, etc. Some modern CAT5 part numbers that do have the FEP teflon insulated wire pairs, also has the wire pairs bonded together, and with each other (pair to pair), this makes separating them and braiding them almost impossible, so beware any new part numbers, be sure to check them for construction details.Avoid common CAT 5 cables that have the following:
PVC insulated wire pairs (almost all common CAT5 wires have this)
tinned conductors
stranded conductors
foil or braid shield; there is no good way to incorporate this into the signal path, and otherwise, it is just a hindrance.Not to be a scare monger, but the CAT 5 braided construction has a very high capacitance, but adding a shield or using the PVC makes this even worse, and can cause the sound of a fairly clean clear (but a bit on the bright side) FEP based CAT5 to become downright harsh and nasty.
Your Bryston should be able to handle the capacitance, as long as you are not planning on an atypically long speaker cable, or bi-wiring, or both.
If you don't remove the outer jacket, you can't braid individual pairs. Since the geometry is a big part of the advantage of these cables, it will likely make a difference. Some folks also claim that the PVC jacket is detrimental to the sound if left in place. I followed the JR/CvH recipe which removes it so cannot make the comparison, but I will say that I am very happy with my results.
Thanks, do you know if the LCR of the cable without the jacket was posted anywhere?
This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors: