Show us your homebrew cables

[olds1959special]

Ingredients: a couple boxes of precut red and black heat shrink, a hot air gun, wire strippers/cutters, hardware store speaker cable (12/2 awg untinned copper with THICK insulation), a couple flex pin screw on banana plugs (I didn't even have to solder anything!)

I used the banana plug cables for bi-wiring my speakers that require that. I twisted together the positive/negative wires for each speaker and shoved them into the banana plug and then screwed it as TIGHT as I could. (These wires were too thick to fit into the bare wire terminals and I didn't feel like trying to evenly cut the strands, because of the mess of all the cut strands, etc.) Then I afterwards I decided to try to pull the colored insulation coverings over (the wrong way) because I couldn't fit them in before at all (they are supposed to go on before you attach banana plug.) This proved to be very hard but in the process I got to see how secure the screw on plugs were. Even with all the manipulation and pulling I did on them to get the coverings on (a lot,) none of the twisted-together wires pulled out. Then I decided to put some layers of heat shrink on too, just in case, which are color coded.

Making color coded speaker cables and adding banana plugs (only if needed,) is fun and makes things neat, organized and nice to look at.

 

[Wolf]

Made some 6awg speaker cables, just cuz I could....

 

[Keith_W]

Jaycar 8G power cable @AUD$10.95/m. For some reason they didn't sell spade connectors. So I made my own by twisting the bare conductor into a loop and soldering it together. The new cable was required because the old ones weren't long enough.

It sounds ethereal, as if a fog has been lifted from the system. My wife was in the kitchen and noticed the difference immediately. She sat down to marvel at my new speaker cable and remarked that it sounded so much better than my old one. My neighbour stopped mowing his lawn and came to marvel at this wonder of engineering. Even the construction workers down the road could hear the difference, they put down their jackhammers and listened in amazement.

 

[JohnnyNG]

Pretty simple here. I have a few 4' runs with amps close to speakers in a fully active setup. I use Monoprice 12AWG along with either crimped, tinned copper ring terminals or Parts Express locking bananas where the rings won't work.

I crimp a ferrule on before inserting into the bananas and giving it a good squish with the screws.

 

[Grotti]

No more "home-brewed" cables for me: for ten years I assembled countless cables for customers and now I order them for reasonable money from Amazon or Thomann.

 

[Carlton80@0]

Canare/Neutrik

 

[Palmer]

Well, not particularly a cable - but someone tried to solder on this arm, and ruined two leads. Pioneer PL-5L arm, hard to rewire, so I had to change to the the needle tip for the soldering iron, and get real calm and collected. Phew. New, better clips, too. Had to undo the crimps on the old ones, can't loose any length.

 

[boxerfan88]

It sounds ethereal, as if a fog has been lifted from the system. My wife was in the kitchen and noticed the difference immediately. She sat down to marvel at my new speaker cable and remarked that it sounded so much better than my old one. My neighbour stopped mowing his lawn and came to marvel at this wonder of engineering. Even the construction workers down the road could hear the difference, they put down their jackhammers and listened in amazement.

Where's the anti-subjective police?

 

[timechaser]

I just wrote a separate post on homebrew cables. Two for me - one is a power cable, the other a speaker cable. First time I built something. Took way longer than I thought including getting just the right components, but the end result was worth it - and way cheaper than buying.

 

[Berwhale]

Balanced Y splitter cables used from DX5 II DAC/Amp to iLoud MTM monitors and Presonus Sub8

More details here: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...commendation-please.56860/page-3#post-2223304

 

[dualazmak]

As for rather long multiple SP cables in my multichannel multi-SP-driver multi-amplifier fully active audio setup, I have been using color-coded Multi-Core Vinyl Cabtyre AWG10 and AWG12 cables with crimp-type very-much affordable tin-electroplated pure-copper connectors/terminals and heat-shrink insulator covers.
- You should never solder the crimped spade terminals: #904
Ref. #28, #895, #931, and #976:

We should carefully avoid/eliminate any magnetic susceptible (magnetizable) metal, such as screws, Y-lugs, metal plate on terminal straps, etc. in SP high-level signal wiring.

Spoiler

In my post #931, I wrote;
I once have tested “Multi-Terminal Electromagnetic Relay” and “Multi-Terminal Snap-Toggle Switch” for this purpose (i.e. switching the wires between passive and active SP modes), but I found they gave some “uncleanliness and/or distortions” to the total sound. Consequently, I believe that the “physical screw-up cabling connections” like in these SP cabling boards should be the best way to go with. I carefully and completely eliminated, therefore, any magnetic susceptible (magnetizable) metal, such as screws, Y-lugs, metal plate on terminal straps, etc. in SP high-level signal wiring; please refer to my post #4, #250 and posts #013(remote thread), #023(remote thread) and here #9(remote thread).

You would please be reminded "the typical issue case" in this regard (even with no relation at all to my project thread) happened with first version of BUCKEYE 3 Channel Purifi Amplifier in which measurable (and I think audible) distortion was caused by iron (steel) plates at the SP binding posts, then BUCKEYE quickly and nicely replaced the parts with brass plates by a kind of recall announcement; please refer to the specific thread on that amplifier, amirm’s first review pointing the issue, as well as his second preferrable review on the fixed/revised amplifier.

Furthermore, in my post #9 on a remote thread "Ferromagnetic materials in audio connectors", I also wrote as follows;
If you take a look inside some rather high-end HiFi amplifiers, you'll see that the SP output wiring (and power wiring?) uses non-magnetic terminals and screws made of brass (no iron at all) or pure copper. However, this is also a common-sense measure to prevent sound quality deterioration in HiFi amplifiers. I remember it being pointed out and explained in interviews with a Yamaha amplifier designer and a Rotel engineer. It is frustrating when working with magnetized screwdrivers (screwdrivers) because you can't catch the screws, though. Yamaha's and Rotel's amplifier designers had a hard time persuading the assembly workers at the amplifier factories, but in the end, they convinced them to use non-magnetic terminals and screws, giving priority to sound quality; I've also heard that the screwdriver, which uses a chuck to fix screws and bolts to the tip, was devised so that it could be used in factories. In my DIY audio setup, I have the same thing; I strictly/completely eliminate/avoid any magnetizable metal/screw in my SP cabling/connecting.

 

[Limopard]

Mostly there is no need for diy cable soldering anymore. But most headphone extension cables look somewhat flimsy to me. So I bougt Neutrik connectors and 5 meters of Sommer stage cable (2 x AWG 22 shielded) and put it together. Works fine and is less than 25 €.