My DIY ICs

[JCOConnell]

About 10 years ago I decided to rewire my entire audio system after first starting on a phono cable project. To upgrade quality and save money I decided to make my own custom cables.
I bought 100 feet of silver audio cable. Core stranded solid silver, Teflon insulation, silver plated copper braid. Gold RCA Connectors except for
the phono cable which uses a cardas 5 pin DIN connector. I kept all the cables as short as possible and they sounded at least as good as the various
low to medium grade cables they replaced so the project was worth the time and cost invested. BUT I never experimented with any other cables since
then. I'm satisfied with the sound, but could I have made a big mistake ( I'll admit I don't know much about cables, my original intent was to make a phono cable only)?

[BillH]

Sounds like you did a nice job. I'll bet those cables you made would stand up well to some of the expensive commercial ones. Do your interconnects have two wires in addition to the braided shield, or does the braid carry the ground side of the circuit? If you don't use the braid to carry the signal, do you connect it at both ends or only one? I use a lot of balanced gear and have got some Cardas wire out of which I keep meaning to make some nice balanced interconnects. But I don't seem to have found the time yet.

[JCOConnell]

Sounds like you did a nice job. I'll bet those cables you made would stand up well to some of the expensive commercial ones. Do your interconnects have two wires in addition to the braided shield, or does the braid carry the ground side of the circuit? If you don't use the braid to carry the signal, do you connect it at both ends or only one? I use a lot of balanced gear and have got some Cardas wire out of which I keep meaning to make some nice balanced interconnects. But I don't seem to have found the time yet.

This cable was just a single insulated conductor and the braid, no extra wires. I used the braid to carry the ground side of the circuit and connected it at both ends of each IC. the key to making these cables yourself is to clamp the
connector in place in a small vise while doing the soldering work. It makes things much easier and safer.

[Rob]

This cable was just a single insulated conductor and the braid, no extra wires. I used the braid to carry the ground side of the circuit and connected it at both ends of each IC. the key to making these cables yourself is to clamp the
connector in place in a small vise while doing the soldering work. It makes things much easier and safer.

What you created is basically a co-axial cable and not optimum for audio esp phono. The attached pic is a twin-axial cable made by twisting two equal signal wires with a shield, it treats the +/- half equally and the shield is only connected on the "load" side or the component receiving the signal from the source end. This is also referred to as a pseudo-balanced connection.

[JCOConnell]

What you created is basically a co-axial cable and not optimum for audio esp phono. The attached pic is a twin-axial cable made by twisting two equal signal wires with a shield, it treats the +/- half equally and the shield is only connected on the "load" side or the component receiving the signal from the source end. This is also referred to as a pseudo-balanced connection.

As I mentioned before, I didn't know a lot about cable design when I made these cables so I just copied the most common design found in inexpensive rca patch cords. I would have needed different cable ( 2 conductor plus shield)
to construct ICs per your illustration.

[Ki Choi]

Nice project. You should try not using the shield and have the two conductors twisted for most of your line level signal interconnects.

If you would open the top of most of the high-end preamps, you will see the wires to the inputs and output connectors to be non-shielded type. It will reduce capacitance in your cable significantly as long as your cables are relatively short and your system will not experience hum.

[Dr.Ears]

N/A

[Alrainbow]

May I ask how long are your single ended interconnects ?