AguycalledSimon
pfm Member
I commented on another members recent thread (on the “Audio” forum) about copper foil cables, and there was some interest about the foil cables I made myself, as well as the connectors, which I designed & 3D printed. I thought this would be more suited to a thread in “DIY”, so here we are
I plan to make up a set of cables shortly, so can post some images later in this thread, but thought I could start the ball rolling now with a little bit of background, and see if there was any interest in the community:
==================================================
My journey with cable started when my audionote (japan) cables, both speaker & interconnect, started having some issues at the connector end – repairing looked a nightmare, with litz cables and epoxy coating inside the connector, so I thought it might be fun to see how close I could get to their sound by making some of my own cables
Surprisingly close, actually, and for really low cost
In fact, in some cases I thought they were equal – not sounding the same, but quite viable, so I carried on with lots of different configurations, and found some common areas that seemed to always give a marginal gain (as always, YMMV):
· Screens - I never liked what they did – sound just became dull
· “Shared” return on L & R channel (ok, this was pretty marginal, but looked “trick”)
· Silver cable was better than copper. Silver/gold was better than silver. Copper was still good but also cheap, so great for experimentation
· Flat cable is better than coax
· The influence of connectors is exaggerated – I never heard massive differences (much more on this later on……)
· Small differences in wire gauge are easily audible (it’s possible? this might be more noticeable for flat cable vs coax – just conjecture)
My DIY-cable journey is certainly not over, but I have reached a point where they sound very good indeed and comfortably beat commercial offerings, from companies I respect, up to £1k, and probably above.
Along the way I have refined the use of copper foil in interconnects, designed & made my own phono plugs, made my living room stink of acetone, and finally found that the venerable Allen Wright got there several decades earlier, and reading his book could have saved me a couple of years of effort
I’ll post a little later about my self-made phono plugs, but I the meantime, it’d be great to hear from other foil users……
I plan to make up a set of cables shortly, so can post some images later in this thread, but thought I could start the ball rolling now with a little bit of background, and see if there was any interest in the community:
==================================================
My journey with cable started when my audionote (japan) cables, both speaker & interconnect, started having some issues at the connector end – repairing looked a nightmare, with litz cables and epoxy coating inside the connector, so I thought it might be fun to see how close I could get to their sound by making some of my own cables
Surprisingly close, actually, and for really low cost
In fact, in some cases I thought they were equal – not sounding the same, but quite viable, so I carried on with lots of different configurations, and found some common areas that seemed to always give a marginal gain (as always, YMMV):
· Screens - I never liked what they did – sound just became dull
· “Shared” return on L & R channel (ok, this was pretty marginal, but looked “trick”)
· Silver cable was better than copper. Silver/gold was better than silver. Copper was still good but also cheap, so great for experimentation
· Flat cable is better than coax
· The influence of connectors is exaggerated – I never heard massive differences (much more on this later on……)
· Small differences in wire gauge are easily audible (it’s possible? this might be more noticeable for flat cable vs coax – just conjecture)
My DIY-cable journey is certainly not over, but I have reached a point where they sound very good indeed and comfortably beat commercial offerings, from companies I respect, up to £1k, and probably above.
Along the way I have refined the use of copper foil in interconnects, designed & made my own phono plugs, made my living room stink of acetone, and finally found that the venerable Allen Wright got there several decades earlier, and reading his book could have saved me a couple of years of effort
I’ll post a little later about my self-made phono plugs, but I the meantime, it’d be great to hear from other foil users……