Sotm sps-500

[ronfint]

I've made two of these cables — one with Canare 4S6 and, more recently, a Y-cable using Neotech 18 gauge stranded silver wire which I twisted in a (pseudo) star-quad configuration. Sonic Craft has this wire on closeout

http://www.soniccraft.com/product_info.php/neotech-stranded-upocc-silver-in-teflon-18-awg-blue-p-1882

 

The Canare was much easier to work with since the teflon sleeving on the Neotech wire is quite stiff. The key thing to watch out for in soldering the Hirose plug is to avoid creating shorts. Use minimal amounts of solder to tin the solder cups in the plug, and only strip enough wire so that each wire's sleeving abuts its corresponding solder cup. This is a very small length! Tin each wire and then solder to the plug. If you are sufficiently careful, it should go well.

 

Good luck!

[ronfint]

45 minutes ago, Lebouwsky said:

Thank you @ronfint for sharing your experience. My sps500 will arive next week with the standard dc cable and was planning to solder my own Y shaped cable using Neotech (which makes very good coax too). 

 

How does the Neotech sound compare to the Canare? And did you notice a sound degration using a Y cable compared to a single wire? And do you use silver soldering?

 

I'm sorry that I can't give good answers to your questions. I plugged in my new cable, it worked (happily), and everything I played sounded good; so I left it. I can't make any audiophile-type comments about it. Also, I don't yet have the tx-usb ultra that the Y-cable will also link to. I seriously doubt that there will be any 'sonic' degradation, but I'll never know.

 

In retrospect, one thing that I should have done making the cable is to strip the wires right to the point where they enter the plugs and replace that insulation with heat shrink. It would have made the wires much easier to work with.

 

(I didn't use silver solder. I always use Cardas solder since I find it the easiest to work with.)