Who uses home brew cables?

Wire build and configuration is going to make a huge difference, the problem as transparency goes up the need for shielding gets bigger, then shielding colors the sound. A large segment of the audiophile world works with coloration and the synergy obtained in one particular system. The closer you get to neutral i/c's and speaker cables the less tricky it is to have cables that work well with all systems. That is my definition of neutral. You are not going to get anywhere near ultimate performance with cheap wire conductors, oxygen free and exotic alloy does make a difference and so does cryo treating any given cable.

I make my own cables. I use teflon silver plated oxygen free copper in various gages depending on the application. With ic they are sheilded.....with speaker wire or hook up they are unsheilded. I have few unsheilded and they work with 2.5 volt signals but for low level signals...e.g they need to be shielded or I get emi and fm interference. I've used a variety of rca....lately I've been using rhodium plated wbt type with carbon sleeves. They sound good and look nice. The wire is all military surplus that I buy from a vendor on ebay. In my system they have sounded better than any cable I've tried from manufactures. Admittedly I don't have the cash to buy or try uber expensive cables but those that can be had for 500 or less have been bettered or equaled by what I make.

I also make my own mic cables, too. I use neutrix xlr....they are the best and are the only ones that are truly road worthy.

I have made a simple power cord that worked well as well as the "White Lighting Moonshine"speaker cables I believe they where called,that worked pretty well.Would like to make some IC's with silver but I find it expensive.

Wire, materials, geometry and connectors are four things DIY cables have in common with manufactured cables. After making cables for my own use for the past 15 years, and comparing with pretty good and somewhat expensive manufactured cables, I believe you can do well wrt SQ by building your own but.....probably not on your first or second attempt. You can get close to the sound of some high priced offerings by using the high quality, bulk cables available and terminating them with first rate connectors - a good bang for the buck option but not inexpensive.

I find the Cardas solder easy to work with. A Hakko soldering station helps too.

I agree with you on both counts and would add that a hydraulic crimper is also a good tool to have for SCs.

John421 - I have just finished (today) re-working my silver cables and as a result they now perform better and cost less - the new version cost around $110 for a 3ft pair - but they perform as good as some very expensive boutique brands

Parts List
- 1/10" dia Teflon tube - 6 ft
- 6 ft of CAT6 wire
- 1/4" heatshrink tube - 1 ft
- 1/2" Heatshrink tube - 1 ft
- 6ft of 24guage solid Silver wire
- 8ft of nylon stretch nylon cable sleeve (ptional)
- set of 4 Copper/Silver/Pure Harmony RCA's

How to:
- strip the sleeve off the CAT6 cable and obtain ONE conductor (there are 4 twisted pairs inside)
- wind conductor around Teflon tube with about 1/4" spacing between winds - this is the neutral wire - trim any excess.
- secure conductor on Teflon tube with 4 pieces of 1/4" heatshrink - on ends and equally spaced down cable
- insert the CAT6 wrapped Teflon tube into cable sleeve and secure with 1/2" heatshrink
- you may need to add a couple of layers of heatshrink on the ends to act as a strain reflief for the RCA.
- insert silver wire into Teflon tube
- attach RCA's

The choice of RCA is yours, but the Harmony line is an excellent performer and is priced as follows:
- Copper Harmony - $60 for 4
- Silver Harmony - $90 for 4
- Pure Harmony - $120 for 4

I've used this design with the Silver Harmony and Pure Harmony, which has a slight edge over the Silver Harmony.

For a lower budget version - use a second piece of CAT6 for the centre conductor instead of the silver - you'll be very surprised at how good it is. This version would probably cost around $75 for a 3ft pair

It took me around 2 hours to build 1 set

Nice little project for a winter evening :-)