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Anyone else making their own cables?

Over the years I have owned a lot of different brands of very sought after and very expensive cables(interconnections both balanced and single ended and speaker cables). Each time selling and then trying another. I recently have been experimenting with making my own. I have been doing a lot of reading on the subject of design. Also I have been dissecting some old inexpensive ones I had lying around. I am starting with ic's. From my experience and what I have read, when done right balanced is the superior method. What I had not realized is that single ended cables can be balanced as well. In fact Annolog(vinyl) starts out as balanced. This is the way I have chosen to make my cables. Also I have found that grounding at the receiving end and simply connecting the grounds at the sending side works best and in my view is the only real reason for directional cables. I have been using wbt and eichmann ends. I would like to hear from others with knowledge of design, cable types and materials, soldering, end type(brands) and their benefits and covers to improve final appearance. I would also be interested in any other point I have not mentioned or to simply disagree with any assertion I or anyone else makes on this subject. I do realize that cables are the single most controversial subject in this hobby. I am not trying to settle that argument. Just offer another option. It may even prove cheaper to buy a brand cable then make your own. I do not have a degree in engerneering nor am I an electrician or computer genius. Just a long time audiophile. My single ended cables are for vinyl set up(turntable to step up transformer to phono stage). Balanced everywhere else. My system is fully balanced(as earlier described) from end to end. Thanks for informative insights.
128x128pkoegz
almarg's avatar
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almarg
9,670 posts
 
Hi Michael (Swampwalker),

I don't see any inconsistency between our two posts.

Regarding the EMC-1 you had, equipment that is made in some European and Asian countries sometimes applies the non-inverted signal in the balanced signal pair to XLR pin 3, and the inverted signal to pin 2, rather than the opposite which is the usual convention in the USA and many other countries. In those cases, to maintain correct polarity/absolute phase, if one considers that to be audibly significant (and if one is using multiple sources, so that absolute phase cannot be restored by swapping + and - at the amplifier outputs or the speaker terminals), the cable would have to connect pin 2 at one end to pin 3 at the other end, and vice versa.

I suspect that is what you are referring to. If not, and if pin 1 were used for a signal connection, that would have been really oddball, and incompatible with conventionally designed cables and components.

Re your last question, fortunately and surprisingly Snowmaggedon didn't materialize down here. Only about 8 inches so far. Seems like the storm moved further east than expected, and eastern MA and southeastern NH are having the worst of it.

Best,
-- Al
mitch2
4,003 posts
 
If I can jump in on the topic, I don't believe the OP meant that single-ended cables can transfer a signal in the same way a balanced cable does, or that single-ended cables can interface between two balanced components, but rather that the design of a signal ended cable is sometimes referred to as a balanced design in cases where the positive and negative conductors are of the same type and gauge, and treated the same geometrically. This is most prevalent as a twisted pair type cable, most often made with a separate braided ground shield that is only connected at the source end. This type of single-ended cable is in contrast to those where the positive and negative conductors are dissimilar, such as in coaxial cables where the braid shield also serves as the ground/return conductor.
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almarg
9,670 posts
 
Thanks, Tim (Mitch2). Well said, as always. After re-reading PKoegz's posts I suspect that you are right. If so, my suggestion would be that it would be better to refer to such cables as having a symmetrical pair of conductors, or something to that effect. Or perhaps saying that they employ symmetrical construction, or perhaps even that they employ balanced construction. Saying that some "single-ended cables are balanced" seems like an oxymoron.

Best regards,
-- Al
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swampwalker
5,138 posts
 
Hi Al- Not really on-topic but no, the EMC-1 did not have inverted phase, it flat out did not work w conventionally wired XLR cables. No sound. Nada.
almarg's avatar
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almarg
9,670 posts
 
Hi Michael,

That's really strange. I took a look at some rear panel photos of the EMC-1, including the -UP and MkIII versions as well as the no suffix version. The XLR connectors appeared to be standard 3-pin male XLR's, as would be expected for outputs. In most cases a pin diagram for the XLR connectors was marked on the rear panel, which showed the standard convention used in the USA and many other countries of pin 1 = ground, pin 2 = +, pin 3 = -. The physical locations of the pins that were depicted in the diagrams properly corresponded to the indicated pin numbers.

The only possible explanation I can think of for why you got no sound using a standard cable is that the connectors were not wired per the diagram, but were miswired with pins 1 and 2 swapped (a mistake that's not hard to make, because those pins are symmetrically located), AND the design of the unit was (as is sometimes the case) such that the signal on pin 3 is generated by an inverter stage whose input is the signal that is applied to pin 2. In that situation both signals in the balanced signal pair could very conceivably have been forced to 0 volts (i.e., grounded) when the CDP was connected through a conventionally designed XLR cable to a preamp having pin 1 grounded per the standard pin convention.

Best,
-- Al
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