DIY DC power cables

[R1200CL]

For those that really like an Y-split DC cab with Oyaide plugs, just email Ghent with desired length. 

The Y will be done soldering the cable close to source plug. He will send you pictures before you decide. 

 

I just ordered his USB cable with JSSG. The shield "feedback" is done using 24awg silicone wire. 

 

And if anyone wonders. The USB plugs is connected to shields as the standard requires. 

 

It it't just for fun to test it against other USB cables. Though I expect it to be a winner. 

 

 

[austinpop]

@R1200CL

 

I lost track. Can Ghent build Y-cables with Canare 4S6? I don't see it listed on his site. Of course, I could just email him.

 

Just being lazy - hoping you'll know.

[austinpop]

Wow - talk about timing! You were answering my question a minute before I was asking it. 

 

Respect. 

[R1200CL]

5 minutes ago, austinpop said:

Wow - talk about timing! You were answering my question a minute before I was asking it. 

 

Respect. 

 

He is actually waiting your order now this very minute ?

(No joke)

[R1200CL]

Also. I've got indication the Ethernet cable with "super plugs" and JSSG shield as sketched in privuois post will most likely happen. 

 

Should be a a very good cable, even if those plugs end up a bit pricy. 

 

[austinpop]

6 hours ago, R1200CL said:

 

He is actually waiting your order now this very minute ?

(No joke)

 

Not so fast! I need to determine if my single LPS-1 driving my switch (sCLK-EX mod) and sMS-200 (sCLK-EX mod) through a Y-cable is significantly improved by separate LPS-1s. In that case, I'll save the ~$40 and apply that to a second LPS-1.

 

Even I can build a straight 4S6 cable now, thanks to this thread!

[R1200CL]

You can never have enough LPS-1 ?

 

My my next project is to serial connect two LPS-1 and se if my SonicTransporter i5 can work with less than 1,2 A. 

 

For switch I hope John and Alex surprises us with a audiophile 5 port 100 MHz some day. As I understand it's basically clocks and regulators, that need some upgrade. 

 

I must say I'm not sure how much a better switch is doing things as long as the endpoint and a USB regen is in the chain. 

 

Maybe you can post post about your switch in the Router and Ethernet Switch suggestions thread ? Remember to tell us what cables you use. 

 

[Superdad]

46 minutes ago, R1200CL said:

For switch I hope John and Alex surprises us with a audiophile 5 port 100 MHz some day. As I understand it's basically clocks and regulators, that need some upgrade. 

 

Oh no.  If we do one it will be FAR more that just a good clock and good regs!  

I know I posted the broad stokes of the recipe before, but to recap:

 

Digital isolators, high signal integrity Ethernet controllers, use of special modes of chip interface, and an fiber cage were all part of the design sketch John and I worked on when he visited my place for a few days shortly before his move.  We even picked out specific Ethernet controller chips.  We also decided it would have two DC power jacks to separately power the ultra-isolated port (though use of separate power supplies would be optional and accomplished with the 3rd pin insertion switch that most DC jacks have).

 

Sorry though, don't hold your breath for this one this year.  We prioritized more broadly popular products ahead of the ultimate audiophile EN switch.

[R1200CL]

WoW. So nice to know you have idea how the "perfect" audiophile switch should be. OK I can wait 2018. 

 

I think you must soon design a rack for multiple LPS-1, as I easily can se I need at least 6 of them. ?

Probably more, when your new releases submerge, as I would expect clean power is a must as always for the very best result. 

 

A standard hifi hifi rack is about 44 cm wide. So you may squeeze inn 4 units in 2 hight ...

If it's not going to happen. How about release a cad drawing or similar that can be used for printing such a faceplate ?

 

I will I'll not be surprised that a 9 or 12 V version of the LPS-1 soon will happen, as I understood it is doable within reasonable cost.

 

Thanks for this nice teaser ?

[E-Stat]

While I ordered the supplies almost a month ago, I just received the connectors yesterday and replaced the stock 18" run used in the LPS-1 feeding a microRendu.

 

I was not prepared for the audible difference wrought with this simple swap.  Nor had any predisposition as to what it might be.  What I discovered is an improved rendition of dynamic range, especially at low levels. Naturally, when I reported my findings over at AA, a self-professed expert said there was no "objective basis" behind the change.

 

Thanks John for the power cord tip.  And for what it powers!

[Ryelands]

1 hour ago, E-Stat said:

. . . when I reported my findings over at AA, a self-professed expert said there was no "objective basis" behind the change.

 As it goes, I'd just drafted a comment for that thread when the moderators (understandably) deleted it. To show you weren't shouting into the wind, here's what I would have said:

 

++++

Your claim has no objective basis.

 

I can't speak for E-Stat but the notion that his claim has no objective basis is, to put it politely, ill-informed. As the article linked below explains, quad-core geometry was developed for the telephony sector about eighty years ago for reasons that are easily understood by those who bother to look. Quad-core cables of the type John uses in his "recipe" have been commonplace in pro-audio circles for some fifty years. Modern types are manufactured in bulk by, inter alia, Canare, Supra, van Damme and Mogami. Still, what do they know?

 

That doesn't, of course, automatically mean that they are effective in the application John was discussing but it was easy to confirm that they are. It was clever of JS to spot the potential for an inexpensive industry-standard product to provide it as low inductance is not generally considered critical for microphone cables though, of course, it is for speaker cables (see e.g. Supra data).

 

http://www.soundonsound.com/sound-advice/q-whats-special-about-star-quad-cable

[E-Stat]

1 hour ago, Ryelands said:

 ...but the notion that his claim has no objective basis is, to put it politely, ill-informed.

At least that he's aware of...  The Voice of Non-Experiential Omniscience.

 

Thanks for the link. 

[Superdad]

45 minutes ago, Ryelands said:

 As it goes, I'd just drafted a comment for that thread when the moderators (understandably) deleted it.

 

Hi Ryelands,

How come you hardly ever post over hear at CA?  Haven't you tired of trying to reason with the same few bickering individuals at AA? 

I don't actively browse there much anymore, but I've read hundreds of your posts over the years.  Might not always agree, but you are always reasonable never nasty (that I can recall ).  Think you feel right at home here.

 

On the topic of star-quad DC cables:  I've been custom building and including a heavy gauge (Belden 9418) piece with Oyaide plugs with our 5-7 amp JS-2 for close to 4 years.  All the interconncts we did at Hovland Company (the famous Music Groove 2 tonearm-to-preamp cable and our G3 line-level cable) were star-quad designs, so I naturally gravitated in that direction when planning the DC cable to offer for the JS-2.  I was more fixated on having it be heavy gauge, but John and I did discuss the known lower inductance at the time.

 

Anyway, hope to see more of you around here soon Ryelands. (BTW, my wife's last name is Rylands.  Not quite the same spelling, but her research showed that all the permutations traced back along similar European lines.)

 

--Alex C.

[Daudio]

35 minutes ago, Superdad said:

All the interconncts we did at Hovland Company (the famous Music Groove 2 tonearm-to-preamp cable and our G3 line-level cable) were star-quad designs,

 

Alex,

What did you do about shielding with those cables ?

 

[Superdad]

6 minutes ago, Daudio said:

Alex,

What did you do about shielding with those cables ?

 

It was the traditional, tie the shield at just one end.  

[Daudio]

Just now, Superdad said:

 

It was the traditional, tie the shield at just one end.  

 

Thanks, I'm relieved since that's the way my DIY analog cables have been 

[sockpit]

1 hour ago, Superdad said:

 

It was the traditional, tie the shield at just one end.  

Oh noooooooooooooooo!

 

Is their merit in clipping the tied end, or is the shield all for nought?

 

Pasted from JS post above:

 

"OK here it is: cable shielding, how to make it work and how almost all cables have it wrong . . . 

 

So what about shielded cables? I hope is now obvious that for shielding to be effective there needs to be a conductive path from one end of the shield to the other. If there is not such a path the only shielding that is going to happen is for high frequencies due to cpacitances involved with the shield.

 

The best way for the shielding to work properly is a separate wire connected to each end of the shield. This is sufficient for shielding from DC to very high frequencies. Note the shield does NOT have to be connected an earth ground, the "ground" of the circuit at either end, or any thing else for that matter. A cable with a shield the is not connected to anything else except itself (ie a separate wire from one end to the other of the shield) will be highly effective in shielding what is inside.

 

Where does this wire need to go? It can be either inside or outside the shield, but if it is inside it can couple to the signal wires inside, so it is usually best to have it outside the shield. Note it has to be insulated from the shield except for the ends where it connects to the shield. It should intersect as little of the external field as possible so it should NOT be tightly spiraled around the cable. Just running along side the shield is best, although a very loose spiral (say one turn per foot) is almost as good.

 

So some ramifications of this: The traditional "connect the shield to one end and let the other end float" is not good, it does not allow a loop so shielding does not happen very well. If you add the external wire connected to the shield at both ends, then you CAN connect one or both sides of the shield to the signal ground or some other ground, but you don't NEED to for effective shielding. You will find that in many cases leaving the shield completely disconnected from the rest of the circuit is the best way to go, you get the benefit of properly working shielding without any interaction of the shield with your system. You may wind wind up with static charges on the shielding so a resistance from the shield to ground may be useful in some cases in order to dissipate static charges.

 

So how come nobody does this? I don't know. My only guess is that cable shielding has been going on long before the actual mechanism for shielding was worked out, thus by the time it was understood, cable shielding was "standard" and nobody ever even thought about analyzing it based on an understanding of how shielding actually works.

 

But shouldn't the big companies know about this? It seems they don't. I have read several app notes from Belden that state that shielding is only effective at high frequencies, at audio frequencies and power supply frequencies (60Hz etc) it is totally ineffective.

 

Audio people are the only ones that seems to at least empirically know about this. Remember phono cartridges and preamps, there is a little green wire that goes from the "ground jack" on the preamp to the tonearm. Everybody assumes that this is to "ground the cartridge" but what it really does is provide a loop from one end of the interconnect shield to the other, it has nothing to do with whether it is "grounded" or not. So if you have (or had) a turntable you were actually taking advantage of this without realizing it.

 

So there you have it, shielding DOES work, but only if you provide a path from one end of the shield to the other. This is effective even if you don't connect the shield to anything else.

 

John S."

 

 

 

[Daudio]

2 hours ago, sockpit said:

Oh noooooooooooooooo!

 

So, we live and learn ! Plus, there are two different applications here. No need to freak out

[jamesg11]

4 hours ago, Superdad said:

 

Hi Ryelands,

How come you hardly ever post over hear at CA?  Haven't you tired of trying to reason with the same few bickering individuals at AA? 

I don't actively browse there much anymore, but I've read hundreds of your posts over the years.  Might not always agree, but you are always reasonable never nasty (that I can recall ).  Think you feel right at home here.

 

On the topic of star-quad DC cables:  I've been custom building and including a heavy gauge (Belden 9418) piece with Oyaide plugs with our 5-7 amp JS-2 for close to 4 years.  All the interconncts we did at Hovland Company (the famous Music Groove 2 tonearm-to-preamp cable and our G3 line-level cable) were star-quad designs, so I naturally gravitated in that direction when planning the DC cable to offer for the JS-2.  I was more fixated on having it be heavy gauge, but John and I did discuss the known lower inductance at the time.

 

Anyway, hope to see more of you around here soon Ryelands. (BTW, my wife's last name is Rylands.  Not quite the same spelling, but her research showed that all the permutations traced back along similar European lines.)

 

--Alex C.

I'm still hurting from having not noticed this local sale til too late -

 

http://www.stereo.net.au/forums/topic/101560-sold-fs-hovland-music-groove-mg-2-phono-interconnect/

[asdf1000]

On 5/5/2017 at 10:26 AM, JohnSwenson said:

OK here it is: cable shielding, how to make it work and how almost all cables have it wrong.

 

You may wind wind up with static charges on the shielding so a resistance from the shield to ground may be useful in some cases in order to dissipate static charges.

 

Hi @JohnSwenson

 

Some very silly questions below but appreciate if you can help me to better understand this before I give it an attempt (I'm making some XLR and RCA cables using the Belden 1804A cable).

 

Rather than PM you more questions, I thought it's best to post here to save you from getting the same questions from others.

 

1. With the external wire, are there any special requirements or things to note for the wire to use? A recommended wire gauge or particular conductor material? 

 

2. This external wire doesn't itself need to be shielded, does it? 

 

3. Is it best to solder this external wire to the shield at each end?

 

4. Do the potential static charges you mentioned affect audio? And how would you recommend to best add a resistance from the shield to ground? In particular with making up XLR and RCA cables with this method.

 

Many thanks in advance

 

[JohnSwenson]

2 hours ago, Em2016 said:

 

Hi @JohnSwenson

 

Some very silly questions below but appreciate if you can help me to better understand this before I give it an attempt (I'm making some XLR and RCA cables using the Belden 1804A cable).

 

Rather than PM you more questions, I thought it's best to post here to save you from getting the same questions from others.

 

1. With the external wire, are there any special requirements or things to note for the wire to use? A recommended wire gauge or particular conductor material? 

 

2. This external wire doesn't itself need to be shielded, does it? 

 

3. Is it best to solder this external wire to the shield at each end?

 

4. Do the potential static charges you mentioned affect audio? And how would you recommend to best add a resistance from the shield to ground? In particular with making up XLR and RCA cables with this method.

 

Many thanks in advance

 

#1:

no special requirement, I wouldn't use 30AWG if you have 50 ft, 24AWG to 20AWG is probably fine. I have not done extensive testing on this, but 24-22AWG seems to work very well for normal length runs. I have been using some silicone rubber insulated 24AWG ultra flexible wire I got on Amazon.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01LZ8UNCV/ref=biss_dp_t_asn

 

#2:

the shield connection wire does not itself need to be shielded.

 

#3:

Yes, solder the external wire to the shield at each end. Do not solder the shield (or external wire) to the "gnd" connection on RCA cables. Connect to pin 1 at both ends for XLR. SOME configurations may not need the pin 1 connection, but assume you need it to begin with.

 

4:

you can ignore this, I shouldn't even have mentioned it.

 

John S.

 

 

[asdf1000]

11 minutes ago, JohnSwenson said:

#1:

no special requirement

 

Can someone please induct @JohnSwensoninto the HiFi and Computer Based Audio Halls of Fame please.

 

Thanks heaps John.

[Middy]

The nice guy award is more than enough ...

[Daudio]

7 hours ago, JohnSwenson said:

#2:

the shield connection wire does not itself need to be shielded.

 

 

Hmmmm... But one never knows in this 'everything matters' hobby, do one ?  So I'll bet some enterprising CA'ers will want to experiment with this (@Cornan ?  ) anyway.

And the thought of any of them getting caught up in an infinite progression brings a wicked little smile to my lips 

 

[Cornan]

24 minutes ago, Daudio said:

So I'll bet some enterprising CA'ers will want to experiment with this (@Cornan ?  ) anyway.

 

This kind of news is normally like rocket fuel to me!  However, I will pass this one since based on my earlier experiments I am a strong beleiver of a 100% unshielded wire approach (ie. ALL cables without shield or drain wires)!