A novel way to massively improve the SQ of computer audio streaming

[tapatrick]

18 hours ago, tims said:

@tapatrickI haven't seen these compact end connectors before; do you have a link to buy please?

Hi @tims, I have to ask just in case but you are aware that the wiring in these connectors is not correct and must be replaced for your own usage and correct polarity otherwise it could damage your equipment. I don't have links to correctly wired commercial items, but I think there are some in @seeteeyous posts.

[kennyb123]

10 hours ago, bit01 said:

I received this a couple of days ago from Ghent:

 

Thanks your email.

We all are fine in Shanghai now, just have to slow the production since no enough engineers recently.

Thanks for sharing.  Glad to hear he’s fine.

[kennyb123]

(deleted)

[Ricardo007]

19 hours ago, LTG2010 said:

16GB works fine for me here with X10SBA

If it works and how I am really interested

Normally manufacturer specs limit RAM capacity to 8RAM

https://www.supermicro.com/en/products/motherboard/X10SBA

Can I pm? 

[bodiebill]

Today I DIY'ed some Mundorf Silver/Gold 15.5awg DC cables following Nenon's recipe, including JSSG360. I use them as follows:

• SR4 ------> HDPlex 800W (19V)
• HDPlex 800W ------> EPS/CPU (12V)
• LT3045 ------> Elfidelity AXF-100 usb card (5V)

In order to keep the cables short, I moved the HDPlex from inside to outside of the Streacom case, on top of the SR4: see pic. The result is immediate: more presence and detail. But I find it a bit too forward, too strident. I will give them some days to see whether breaking in will improve things...

 

 

 

[bodiebill]

And while at it, also

LDOVR DXP-1A5DSC ------> ISO Regen (input 9V, output 7.1V)

This one without JSSG360.

🙂

[LTG2010]

6 hours ago, Ricardo007 said:

If it works and how I am really interested

Normally manufacturer specs limit RAM capacity to 8RAM

https://www.supermicro.com/en/products/motherboard/X10SBA

Can I pm? 

Sure no problem.

I used it with 2 x 8gb Corsair Vengeance, I suppose if it's not in the manufacturers Spec there is some risk. but it works fine here.

[Blackmorec]

7 hours ago, bodiebill said:

Today I DIY'ed some Mundorf Silver/Gold 15.5awg DC cables following Nenon's recipe, including JSSG360. I use them as follows:

• SR4 ------> HDPlex 800W (19V)
• HDPlex 800W ------> EPS/CPU (12V)
• LT3045 ------> Elfidelity AXF-100 usb card (5V)

In order to keep the cables short, I moved the HDPlex from inside to outside of the Streacom case, on top of the SR4: see pic. The result is immediate: more presence and detail. But I find it a bit too forward, too strident. I will give them some days to see whether breaking in will improve things...

 

 

 

Mundorf cables do require substantial break-in but they should sound good from the get go. Are you sure the stridency does come from the positioning of the HDPlex? Its sitting right on top of a large transformer, has no protection from RFI/EMI and no isolation from mechanical vibration generated by the AC-DC conversion. If i was choosing longer cables vs those compromises intuitively I would think that longer cables would be FAR more benign. Just my opinion as I’ve obviously never tried to make the comparison

 

 

[AnotherSpin]

8 hours ago, bodiebill said:

And while at it, also

LDOVR DXP-1A5DSC ------> ISO Regen (input 9V, output 7.1V)

This one without JSSG360.

🙂

 

I like the look of this project. Even if it doesn't sound delightful, it looks very impressive.

[elan120]

Cables...

 

After having the EPS and ATX power supply built, I now move into cable making phase, while working on the first cable, I decided to record the sequence in more details to share here, hopefully this will help more people interested in trying out the long discussed Mundorf solid core silver JSSG360 DC cable.

 

1. Slide cotton tube over the Mundorf solid core silver hook up wire.

 

2. Solder wires to the connector.  In this cable, I have GX16-4 on one end and Oyaide DC-2.1G on the other end.  I started this wire from the GX16-4 side.

 

3. After the wires are soldered, slide a short heat shrink tubing over the cotten tubes to help protect the end.

 

4. Reassemble the GX16-4 connector.

 

5. Twist the two wires.

 

6. Getting the Oyaide DC-2.1G side ready.  Slide the connector outer shell over the wires, cut two pieces of heat shrink tubing.  The smaller diameter one is to protect the positive lead after wire is soldered to the connector, and the larger diameter heat shrink tubing is to help protect the cotton tube ends.

 

7. Solder wires to the connector.  It is easier to solder the negative lead to the connector first, and then solder the positive lead.

 

8. Heat shrink the smaller tubing over the positive lead solder join.

 

9. Slide the larger heat shrink tube over the end of cotton tube.

 

10. Test the connector to make sure wires soldered is open.

 

11. Slide the outer shell over the connector.  It is a good idea to check continuity again after the connector is reassembled.

 

12. Base cable completed.

 

13. Now we will start working on JSSG360 shielding by sliding the tinned copper braid over the base cable from the Oyaide connector side.

 

14. Wrap the tinned copper braid with teflon thread tape.  It is easier to work with using 1" wide gas pipe tape.

 

15. Teflon tape wrapped cable.

 

16. Before sliding the second layer tinned copper braid, wrap a short section of teflon tape over the end of first tinned copper braid to protect the end and prevent the wires from braid from interfere with the second layer tinned copper braid while sliding over the first one.

 

17. After the second layer tinned copper braid is slided over the first layer, don't forget to remove that short section teflon tape.

 

18. Cut one piece of adhesive lined heat shrink tubing and slide them over the end of two tinned copper braids.

 

19. Apply heat to heat shrink tubing.

 

20. Do the same two steps (18 and 19) above for the Oyaide connector side.

 

21. Check continuity between the tinned copper braid and the connector to ensure it is open.

 

22. JSSG360 shielding completed.

 

23. Next is to dress up the cable by cutting the Techflex sleeving to proper length and then slide over the JSSG360 shielding completed cable.

 

24.  Final step is using the same adhesive lined heat shrink tubing to bond them together.

 

 

Hope these are clear and simple to follow.  Enjoy building them.

 

I will now move on to work on ATX and EPS cables.

 

 

 

 

[TheAttorney]

Very helpful photos @elan120

Two open comments/questions:

 

1. Is it better to twist the wires closely together and then put the twisted pair inside a single cotton tube? This more tightly couples the twisted wires, but I don't know if that is good, bad or indifferent. Relates to my next point...

 

2. Following a Sean Jacobs suggestion, Nenon now tightly couples the two wires as a straight parallel pair. So a single cotton tube is the only option for such a parallel pair configuration.

[mourip]

Sweet. Nice to see these DIY "Howto" posts showing up again.

[elan120]

3 hours ago, TheAttorney said:

1. Is it better to twist the wires closely together and then put the twisted pair inside a single cotton tube? This more tightly couples the twisted wires, but I don't know if that is good, bad or indifferent. Relates to my next point...

 

2. Following a Sean Jacobs suggestion, Nenon now tightly couples the two wires as a straight parallel pair. So a single cotton tube is the only option for such a parallel pair configuration.

These are two good questions, but I don't have direct answer for them at the moment.  Since this cable was just completed, I have not had a chance to make any comparison other than change out my temporary cable and let it go through the long burn-in process, and I might make one with the twisted pair inside a single cotton tube later as I do have more DC cable needs.  Once I have this one done with the burn-in process, I will compare with the best cable I have, which is a cable similar to AS signature silver but in JSSG360^3 configuration.  It is using a twisted pair solid core 16AWG Neotech silver hookup wire in 3 layers of shielding but without the cotton tube.

[Nenon]

7 hours ago, elan120 said:

Cables...

 

After having the EPS and ATX power supply built, I now move into cable making phase, while working on the first cable, I decided to record the sequence in more details to share here, hopefully this will help more people interested in trying out the long discussed Mundorf solid core silver JSSG360 DC cable.

 

1. Slide cotton tube over the Mundorf solid core silver hook up wire.

 

2. Solder wires to the connector.  In this cable, I have GX16-4 on one end and Oyaide DC-2.1G on the other end.  I started this wire from the GX16-4 side.

 

3. After the wires are soldered, slide a short heat shrink tubing over the cotten tubes to help protect the end.

 

4. Reassemble the GX16-4 connector.

 

5. Twist the two wires.

 

6. Getting the Oyaide DC-2.1G side ready.  Slide the connector outer shell over the wires, cut two pieces of heat shrink tubing.  The smaller diameter one is to protect the positive lead after wire is soldered to the connector, and the larger diameter heat shrink tubing is to help protect the cotton tube ends.

 

7. Solder wires to the connector.  It is easier to solder the negative lead to the connector first, and then solder the positive lead.

 

8. Heat shrink the smaller tubing over the positive lead solder join.

 

9. Slide the larger heat shrink tube over the end of cotton tube.

 

10. Test the connector to make sure wires soldered is open.

 

11. Slide the outer shell over the connector.  It is a good idea to check continuity again after the connector is reassembled.

 

12. Base cable completed.

 

13. Now we will start working on JSSG360 shielding by sliding the tinned copper braid over the base cable from the Oyaide connector side.

 

14. Wrap the tinned copper braid with teflon thread tape.  It is easier to work with using 1" wide gas pipe tape.

 

15. Teflon tape wrapped cable.

 

16. Before sliding the second layer tinned copper braid, wrap a short section of teflon tape over the end of first tinned copper braid to protect the end and prevent the wires from braid from interfere with the second layer tinned copper braid while sliding over the first one.

 

17. After the second layer tinned copper braid is slided over the first layer, don't forget to remove that short section teflon tape.

 

18. Cut one piece of adhesive lined heat shrink tubing and slide them over the end of two tinned copper braids.

 

19. Apply heat to heat shrink tubing.

 

20. Do the same two steps (18 and 19) above for the Oyaide connector side.

 

21. Check continuity between the tinned copper braid and the connector to ensure it is open.

 

22. JSSG360 shielding completed.

 

23. Next is to dress up the cable by cutting the Techflex sleeving to proper length and then slide over the JSSG360 shielding completed cable.

 

24.  Final step is using the same adhesive lined heat shrink tubing to bond them together.

 

 

Hope these are clear and simple to follow.  Enjoy building them.

 

I will now move on to work on ATX and EPS cables.

 

Excellent post @elan120. Thank you. I would suggest utilizing the clamping mechanism on the Oyaide connector as well. This way, if you pull the wire rather the connector, all the strength from the pull does not go to the soldered connections and heatshrink. But this has to be done carefully not to break the insulation/heat shrink on the PLUS wire/pin. 

 

4 hours ago, TheAttorney said:

2. Following a Sean Jacobs suggestion, Nenon now tightly couples the two wires as a straight parallel pair. So a single cotton tube is the only option for such a parallel pair configuration.

That suggestion from Sean was for the internal wiring inside the PSU. But I decided to try it on my DC cables. 

In my latest version of this cable I do use two cotton sleeves and I keep the wires parallel (untwisted). You can go either way, and it's hard to hear a difference. I would not stress too much about that for short runs. But I do recommend using two cotton sleeves. 

[elan120]

1 minute ago, Nenon said:

I would suggest utilizing the clamping mechanism on the Oyaide connector as well.

Thank you @Nenon for the suggestion.  The clamping is always been used, but didn't take a picture...😊  I kind of assume everyone making the cable will do that, but it is a good point to make here so anyone who is going to build one will know.

 

 

 

5 minutes ago, Nenon said:

That suggestion from Sean was for the internal wiring inside the PSU.

I do follow that recommendation as well when I was building the two power supplies.  Just a quick note, the cable shown earlier is currently used on my EPS power supply, and it is a very clear huge step up in SQ, and brings out much more from that EPS power supply with SJ modules.

[Nenon]

6 minutes ago, elan120 said:

the cable shown earlier is currently used on my EPS power supply, and it is a very clear huge step up in SQ, and brings out much more from that EPS power supply with SJ modules.

Enjoy . They go through some nastiness after a couple of days and settle completely on the third week. 

 

I think my next purchase would be a cable cooker... that's the one device that I always laughed at and could not believe people were spending their money on 'snake oil'. That was a few years ago. I am now at the point where my high doubts about cables and burn-in myths seriously faded away and curiosity and open mindness wins. It would be interesting to see if those DC cables would change after 2-3 days on that strange 'cable cooking' device. 

 

Another thought that has been growing in my mind is to try to make a power cord with the Mundorf silver/gold wire. 3 twisted bare 15.5AWG wires would give something close to 10-11 AWG per conductor. Put that in a oversized PTFE tubes and terminate with Furutech FI-50 NCF plugs. This would be a very expensive DIY power cable, and I am not sure I am ready to spend approximately $2K on something I have no idea how would perform. But the idea is that if my computer's custom LPS is all wired with this wire, it may be a good idea to try a custom power cord from the same wire. Does it ever end?

[RickyV]

58 minutes ago, Nenon said:

Does it ever end?

On a creative note why not use the 28mm silver and gold foil. Also easier to get your mm^2. 😀

It’s 14 awg.

[Nenon]

7 minutes ago, RickyV said:

On a creative note why not use the 28mm silver and gold foil. Also easier to get your mm^2. 😀

It’s 14 awg.

Foil power cords don't work well in my system. I have been too lazy to put my Verastarr Grand Illusion Signature for sale. 

[Bricki]

11 hours ago, Nenon said:

Enjoy . They go through some nastiness after a couple of days and settle completely on the third week. 

 

I think my next purchase would be a cable cooker... that's the one device that I always laughed at and could not believe people were spending their money on 'snake oil'. That was a few years ago. I am now at the point where my high doubts about cables and burn-in myths seriously faded away and curiosity and open mindness wins. It would be interesting to see if those DC cables would change after 2-3 days on that strange 'cable cooking' device. 

 

Another thought that has been growing in my mind is to try to make a power cord with the Mundorf silver/gold wire. 3 twisted bare 15.5AWG wires would give something close to 10-11 AWG per conductor. Put that in a oversized PTFE tubes and terminate with Furutech FI-50 NCF plugs. This would be a very expensive DIY power cable, and I am not sure I am ready to spend approximately $2K on something I have no idea how would perform. But the idea is that if my computer's custom LPS is all wired with this wire, it may be a good idea to try a custom power cord from the same wire. Does it ever end?

The FI-50 NCF IEC plugs sound absolutely fantastic in my system 👍 and speaking of burn in - they take a ridiculously long time to fully burn in. They still have an irritating treble to them after 450 hours and it's not until after 500 hours that they fully settle down and the bass comes back...I found the same time frame with both an FI-50 NCF IEC and an FI-06 NCF IEC inlet... I used furutech TCS-31 for the AC cable and that has a nice "full" furutech house sound to it.

 

When you consider that the FI-50 NCF IEC can have almost the same level of impact as the PSU itself then I don't consider it expensive... I rest my IEC plugs on constrained layer dampening discs for vibration control and that has another nice impact even with the FI-50 plugs that have a suppressor ring built in. 😁👍

[bodiebill]

On 6/14/2020 at 8:35 AM, AnotherSpin said:

 

I like the look of this project. Even if it doesn't sound delightful, it looks very impressive.

 

And I must admit, it does not sound delightful at all. I lost my smooth mellow sound. Given the alleged long burn-in time for the Mundorf wires, I will have to be patient... If it does not improve in more than a week, I may consider removing the JSSG360 shielding.

[Blackmorec]

1 hour ago, bodiebill said:

 

And I must admit, it does not sound delightful at all. I lost my smooth mellow sound. Given the alleged long burn-in time for the Mundorf wires, I will have to be patient... If it does not improve in more than a week, I may consider removing the JSSG360 shielding.

How many things did you change? Just the Mundorf cables or did you also relocate the HDPlex at the same time?

[bodiebill]

53 minutes ago, Blackmorec said:

How many things did you change? Just the Mundorf cables or did you also relocate the HDPlex at the same time?

 

I changed the position of the HDPlex 800W DC-ATX at the same time.

 

In order to forgo an extra connector the cable from the SR4 goes directly into the 6-pin HDPlex DC-in (group 1).

As a result I cannot completely close the Streacom case.

 

Also, I fastened the LT3045 battery LPS (here seen on old pic) within the Streacom case, where the HDPlex was previously. This powers the Elfidelity card with 5V.

 

Do you think any of this can influence the sound?

[Blackmorec]

Hi there,

I recently implemented 4 of Nenon’s Mundorf Silver/Gold cables and while they do need running in, they did improve the SQ pretty much immediately and harshness certainly wasn’t one of their characteristics, at least not in my system. 

 

I’ve never tried making the changes you list but I would ‘suspect’ that something like harshness could come from placing the HDPlex directly on top of a power supply, with its intrinsic vibration and transformer electrical field.

 

Certainly before altering the cable you made i would first try relocating the HDPlex                           

 

The cables also need longer than a week so if the need to run in is the cause of the harshness, its going to need maybe 3 weeks to fully resolve

[Peter Avgeris]

I would just like to add my two cents here...

 

Please do not consider my writings as an offense but as a starting point for further experimentation and critical thought. I need to double-underline this, as I have no intention to 'treat' one's mind or to persuade anybody in favor of my thoughts.

 

I have been in the audio cables business for several years as manufacturer of audio cables. Together with my partner we had made in depth analysis and theoretical approach to the plethora of the phenomena that impact sound waves transmission through conductive material. Both lab measurements and theoretical models of transmission.

 

After having spent more than 100k Euros in this arena, two things I would like to focus on:

 

1. Don't lose your valuable time and money searching for silver conductors. All silver conductors, regardless of structure, treatments, mixture with other metals, etc, sound *worse* than copper conductors but please be careful: all other parameters being equal. When you compare silver vs copper with all the parameters of A-B comparison being identical (diameter, insulation, tempering, crystalline structure, etc), copper *ALWAYS* wins and silver always loses. This of course means that you may experience a silver cable performing better than a copper cable but when you examine the conductors under identical denominators, then copper always wins.

 

2. Don't spend a cent for cryogenicaly treated parts and accessories. They are so bad for audio. They take out the soul and magic of music. I'm a mechanical engineer as you know, with gathered experience in this field for aprox. 20 years now. Cryogenic treatment does exactly the opposite of what we are looking for, in audio reproduction. Several guys here know who I am. For those that don't, I need to write that I manufacture audio reproduction components where cost is not considered an obstacle. In my components, a single cryo treated item or part or whatever is enough to destroy their flavor and their signature. I have evaluated each and every component in the past and under no circumstances I accept to install cryo treated parts, even if this is a custom order or even if this has the impact of cancelling the order. In my amplifiers I am using an IEC socket that costs around 50 cents of a dollar only for the reason that it sounds best among all. I hope that this might sound as something strange to your ears. It's true. 100% true.

 

The debate copper vs silver has a long history. Please don't start over another debate here. After having spent so much in research and manufacture in the field, with this notice I would just like to declare my findings so as you benefit. I know that the vast majority here will not take my comments into account, they won't have a second thought because they also have their own judgements. My intention is that the few that anticipate life through a thoughtful approach, now have a hint to think over their own findings and judgements once more. Under a critical thought and point of view only!

[RickyV]

10 minutes ago, Peter Avgeris said:

IEC socket that costs around 50 cents of a dollar

 

Mmmm wouldn't a pure copper and gold plated IEC inlet be better than a 50 cent one?

The 50 cent ones are usually brass.