Cable Eye Candy - Part II

I wanted to share a few more exciting cables for your viewing enjoyment :)

Below is a 4 pin XLR to RCA cable using a Switchcraft Triple A series XLR, Vampire RCA connectors, and Zynsonix Trebuchet Cable.

4 Pin XLR to RCA

This is a mini to RCA cable built for someone with exquisite tastes. It's a round braid of eight strands of Zynsonix Trebuchet wire with all ViaBlue accessories and connectors, including their smaller T6S mini connector (model 30539), their T6S RCAs (30506), and their Y-Splitter. Above the split features soft black nylon.

Eight Strand Mini to RCA

Here we have a four foot portable Trebuchet headphone cable for IEMs, these can be made for Noble, JH, 1964Ears, and previous model Westone IEMs. There is also a different plug for Shure, UE900, and the new Westone IEMs, Ultrasone Edition 5, Romeo, and Juliet, etc.

Westone 2 pin IEM cable

...and below is a very special speaker cable. This features a braid of Neotech UP-OCC 6Ns copper in Teflon which is then wrapped with multiple layers of teflon, then set in a PV tube sleeved with copper colored nylon multifilament. Above each split is a heavy machined brass Y-splitter, and each gold plated banana is terminated with Cardas silver and gold content solder. These speaker cables made the trek over to a client in South Africa. 

See something you'd like for yourself? Contact Zynsonix for a quick quote.

Balanced XLR to RCA Cable

Balanced XLR interconnects are what many people consider to be a superior connection between components. Typically found in Pro-audio equipment, they feature three wires rather than the two in an unbalanced RCA interconnect. The three wire system includes hot, neutral and ground. Current flows through the hot and neutral with both an inverted and non-inverted version of the signal. The component only needs to sense the difference between the two signals which assists in rejecting common noise. Common noise includes RF and ground loops, both of which can be quite annoying.

Some higher-end components have taken notice that balanced XLR interconnects can be more ideal and include them as optional inputs and/or outputs. Unfortunately there are many components that do not offer them, so you may end up with a component with XLR outputs and another with only RCA inputs. In this case, an XLR to RCA cable can be used.

The parts needed are relatively self explanatory. An XLR connector on one side (may be male or female depending on the component), an RCA plug on the other side, and three wires to connect them. One can also use only two wires and short the XLR internally between pins one and three. Note the diagram below that pins one and three are connected to the sleeve of the RCA and pin two is attached to the tip.

Starting with a Neutrik NC3-FXXB (3 pin female XLR connector), each of the pins are identified by the small number that's actually printed on the front of the plug.

The inside of a Neutrik NC3-FXXB

If you follow this blog, you've already seen countless litz braids of silver plated copper in PTFE, so we will skip that and move on to the soldering of the individual wires to the solder tabs on the Neutrik XLR connector. Each joint should be heated quickly but adequately (not too long which could melt the plastic casing) which will result in nice shiny joints.

Wire soldered to the Neutrik XLR

Next comes the sleeving. In this particular case, the braided wire is covered with soft black nylon multifilament. The black nylon multifilament is made by the company TechFlex and has a nice vintage look. It can be purchased from online retailers like Cable Organizer and WireCare. In order to sleeve the wire, a hot knife is used to cut the sleeve to prevent fraying, it is then slowly slipped over the braided wire and once completely covered, the other end is cut with the hot knife. To hold the sleeving in place, adhesive heatshrink is used on the ends where the strain relief from the plug will eventually cover the cable.

Sleeved cable

As you will note below, the strain relief system is placed over the heatshrink to give it something to "grip" to. The metal barrel is then slipped over the front of the XLR plug.

Barrel and Strain Relief

The boot can now be slipped over the other end of the cable and screwed in place to secure the barrel and strain relief system. Neutrik does offer the FXX line with a number of different colors. I'm using red here to denote the right channel. 

XLR side is complete

Moving on to the other side of the cable, the RCA connector will be attached to the cable. First, the metal barrel for the RCA is slipped onto the cable, then the RCA connector soldered in place. Both the number 1 connection and number 3 connection from the XLR side are soldered to the ground or "sleeve" in this particular configuration. The number 2 connection is soldered to the signal or "tip". Once soldered in place, a small piece of heatshrink (in this case red) is used to prevent shorting between the ground and signal. The nylon sleeving is then slipped as far forward as it can go and the strain relief on the sleeve is crimped around it.  

RCA connector soldered in place

Now another piece of adhesive heatshrink is placed over the bottom of the RCA connector to act as additional strain relief and further secure the sleeving.

Heatshrink sleeving in place

Now the metal barrel of the RCA can be screwed on. The cable is now complete and can be tested. 

A single completed cable

The pair of XLR to RCA cables

I hope you enjoyed this post. If you are interested in purchasing a completed XLR to RCA cable, please contact Zynsonix.com.

The Fine Print:
The above steps detailing the building of a cable are for entertainment purposes only and not to be performed under any circumstances. The owner of this blog and all associated parties can not / will not be held responsible if you attempt the process posted and cause physical harm to yourself, your surroundings or your property. Please keep this in mind.

A Simple Recipe for a High Quality Digital Coax Cable

The audiophile world has really changed in the past decade. Most of us have moved from a stand-alone CD player to a computer-based music server. Whether you use iTunes, Foobar2000, WinAmp, MediaMonkey or some other program, you really need a quality DAC to extract your music from your PC to your audio rig. The industry has caught on and there have been myriad high-end DACs being released in recent years.

Carrying your precious 1s and 0s to your DAC should be a quality cable you can trust. A good digital cable should have an impedance of 75ohms. Cable impedance is important in digital audio because the signal runs at high frequencies. Because of this, impedance needs be matched from the source to the cable to the load. If it's not, then your end up with reflections. The concept seems to be that some of the signal is reflected back to the source along the cable. If the source isn't 75 ohms, it will return the reflection to the load, creating a time delayed reflection. I've also read some essays on the matter stating that the coax cable should be 1.5 meters (appx. 5 feet) or longer to further minimize the possibility of this effect. 

It seems that there are plenty of opinions on the above that spark long debates running thousands of pages through hundreds of threads, so that's why I'm only going to touch on it and move on ;)  The important thing for the DIYer to get out of the above is that one should use 75ohm connectors and 5 feet of 75ohm coax cable when possible (unless it's a balanced AES/EBU connector, which is a different story). 


There aren't a lot of audiophile quality DIY Coax connectors out there, so you have to spend a little bit to get the good ones. Furutech makes the FP-3-117(R) Audio grade BNC connector which is attractive and rhodium plated. There really isn't much else out at the moment that falls between this and the pro-audio quality Canare connectors. I believe Vampire used to make one but the usual suspects (PCX, Percy) don't carry it. A pair of the Furutechs will set you back approximately $40 at the time of this writing.

Furutech FP-3-117(R)

To connect these two lovely coax connectors together will be some nice quality wire. DHLabs, a company that has been around since 1992, is known for providing audiophile quality parts at reasonable prices. I'll be using the DHlabs D-75 wire, which has a solid silver-coated center conductor to maintain uniform impedance. From DHLab's website: The use of a solid center conductor minimizes signal reflections, which are very important in digital data cables. This center conductor is encased in a very uniform closed cell foam Teflon dielectric. The result of these efforts is a cable that can provide excellent performance to beyond 2 Gigahertz ... In continuing with our policy of providing maximum value, the D-75 costs much less than its performance level would suggest. I would tend to agree. I'd imagine if other companies were selling the same wire, it would be at least twice the price.

D-75 Cutaway

Using these parts together is actually fairly easy. One strips the jacket, folds back the braided shield, trims away a small amount of the dielectric, then inserts the cable into the connector. The solid core center conductor is soldered to the center pin of the Furutech, and the connector clamps down on the shield for a solderless connection. 

Example of a solderless connection

So you're thinking to yourself, "those BNC connectors look a little strange, I don't think my DAC / CD Player / etc. has those". It is actually a little less common to have nice BNC females on your gear than a generic RCA female to accept or send a digital signal, but more and more new gear seems to be including BNCs now. If one isn't already mounted on your gear but has room to mount it, one of the Vampire BNC female connectors below typically works:

Vampire BNC Female

One can either mount it free-hanging and solder wire to it or it's a drop in replacement depending on certain PCB layouts. PartsConnexion carries these, and I'm sure other retailers do as well. If one would rather not futz with it, DHLabs still makes a nice RCA plug that matches the D-75.

DH Labs RCA-3

It's certainly possible to have an RCA-3 on one side and a Furutech BNC on the other depending on the application. Here's what my completed Furutech / DHlabs coax came out like:

Furutech / DHlabs Digital Coax Cable

And here's an example of an RCA to BNC using the aforementioned DH Labs RCA-3. 

RCA to BNC Digital Coax Cable

If you'd like to have your own custom Digital Coax Cable made, please contact Zynsonix. 


I hope you enjoyed this detailed discussion of a Digital Coax cable. Please note that this post is for entertainment purposes only and not intended as a walkthrough. The owner of this blog, Blogger, and all associated parties will not be held responsible if you attempt to recreate the above cable and damage yourself or your surroundings.