Mini to RCA Cable with some ViaBlue Connector Bling

The mini to RCA cable is a great option when you want to plug a portable device like an iPod / MP3 player or portable CD player (anyone still have one of those? ) into your home stereo. Modern smartphones let you stream radio stations and services like Slacker Radio and Pandora, why not plug all those great options right into your stereo?  You may have seen my other Mini to RCA Cable blog post, but I will be putting a little twist on the basic cable design with some beautiful ViaBlue connector bling.

ViaBlue is a relative newcomer in the vast sea of audiophile boutique connectors from companies like Cardas, Kimber and Audioquest. Their connectors are designed in Germany and have a unique visual appeal with their gold plated tips and matte black shells. Building using their connectors requires a little bit more effort than other connectors, at least in my experience. The design makes use of allen head set-screws, which require one to build up a large amount of heatshrink so the screws have something to "bite into" as a strain-relief system. I personally prefer a crimp-around ground terminal or the system that Furutech and Neutrik uses with some of their connectors which compresses a plastic sleeve with plastic ridges that secures the cable, but some sacrifices must be made for good looks I suppose ;) 

My favorite connector that ViaBlue makes, the Y-split cover, specifically the SC-2 Splitter 44920 in this particular build, is great for covering up unsightly "Y" splits where the whole cable run enters and two runs exit. These splitters are perfect for headphone cables, mini-to-RCAs, speaker cables and a variety of other applications. 

The ViaBlue SC-2 Splitter

The other connectors that would be used for this build are the T6S RCA Plugs and the T6S 3.5mm Phono mini plug. All make use of the set screw strain relief system and have the same sleek logo printed on the barrel. 

A bevy of beauties

The wire that would be used for this build is military spec silver plated copper in PTFE dielectric. The cable is a hand-braid of four wires, two for ground (or return), one for left signal and one for right signal. The wire in braided as a four wire litz for about five of the six feet of this cable, the final foot being two twisted pairs. 

Hand braided litz of silver plated copper wire

Once the wire has been braided, it can be sleeved. Black nylon multifilament was chosen for this purpose as the matte black on the connectors will match nicely with the soft black nylon. 

Cable sleeved in black nylon

The first step once the cable is sleeved is to attach the SC2 Splitter where the cable splits. 6 or so layers of heatshrink (preferably adhesive) must be built up so the splitter can get a grip on the cable and not move around once it is completed. 

Heatshrink built up for ViaBlue Splitter

The heatshrink should be as large as possible but still be able to fit through the bottom of the splitter. The gold allen screws are scewed into the heatshrink tightly, but not so tightly that they strip. 

ViaBlue Splitter in place

Next comes the mounting of the RCA connectors. The two gold allen screws are removed to gain access to the solder tabs within the plug. 

Opened ViaBlue RCA

Heatshrink is built up at the ends so the screw can grab onto it, in this case it is 3 pieces of 1/4" heatshrink overtop of 1/8" black nylon multifilament.

Extra heatshrink added to ends of cable 

The black plastic spacer and barrel are slipped onto the wire before soldering.

Wires soldered to the ViaBlue RCA

Everything is lined back up and the screws are replaced in the unit. The other RCA is installed the same way.

ViaBlue RCA fully attached

Next comes the 3.5mm mini connector. 

Opened ViaBlue 3.5mm mini connector

Two layers of 1/4" heatshrink are placed on top of the 3/8" nylon sleeving on this side of the cable. The black plastic spacer and barrel are slipped onto the wire before soldering. The solder connection to the left and right are rather close, so I added a piece of heatshrink to keep them secure and isolated. 

Wires soldered to the ViaBlue mini

The barrel and plastic spacing piece are lined back up and the screws are replaced.

ViaBlue mini fully attached

With all connectors in place, the signal and resistance is checked with a multimeter to verify signal continuity and that there are no shorts. The cable is now complete.

Mini to RCA with ViaBlue connectors

A second angle

I hope you enjoyed this documented step-by-step process on creating a mini to RCA interconnect with ViaBlue connectors. This cable was a special request taken at Zynsonix, where you can purchase the same cable or one built completely around your specifications.


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.

Denon AH-D2000 Headphone Recable

Denon, or Kabushiki Kaisha Denon in Japanese, is an electronics company that founded in Japan way back in 1910, building gramophones and single-sided records. The brand's various products command a lot of respect in the audio video community to this day. In early 2007, Denon entered the headphone world with two well received headphones: the AH-D2000, with black plastic ear cups, and the AH-D5000 with mahogany earcups and a higher spec cable. Later, the company would release the high-end Denon AH-D7000 with a more powerful and resolving Neodymium driver, along with a variety of other in-ear and over-ear headphones.


Despite the high spec'd cables included in the higher end Denon headphones, I've found that they benefit highly from a recable, probably more than any other headphone aside from maybe the Sennheiser HD580 / HD600 / HD650 series. Today the Denon AH-D2000 will be getting a Zynsonix Xev recable to elimate the stock cable that's holding it back. It's also going to be used for portable duty, so the replacement cable will be shorter and more flexible. 

Zynsonix Xev wire on a spool. PTFE coated silver plated copper

The first step is to trim the wires to be braided for the new headphone cable. This cable would be approximately 5 feet, but this does not incorporate the wire lost within the cups and length lost during the braiding process. Because of this, the wire needs to be measured longer and trimmed down after the braiding process to the size needed. 

Braided Xev 5 foot headphone cable

The Litz braid is done by hand and helps the cable maintain geometry over the whole length and can help reject EMI / RFI. The braid can be done tightly or loosely depending on preference. At the split of the cable where it separates to enter the earcups, the braid is converted to two separate twisted pairs. After this process is complete, the cable is sleeved, in this case with non-microphonic soft black nylon multifilament. This sleeving requires a hot knife so that it doesn't fray after being cut. The Zynsonix logo heatshrink is also placed on the cable during this stage.

Sleeved Xev headphone cable

Now comes the process of adding the Switchcraft 35HD 3.5mm connector. The twisted pair wires are labelled with electrical tape so that it's known where each will connect to the right and left headphone drivers. Green tape was used for ground, red for right signal and black for left signal. The conductors were then stripped and tinned with solder on both sides so that a multimeter could trace the signal from one side to the other to ensure that the wires were being soldered in the right places on the Switchcraft. Once the wires were soldered in place, black heatshrink was used to ensure no possibility of shorting. 

Soldered Switchcraft 35HD mini connector

Once the connector has been soldered, the sleeving is pushed into place and crimped using the ground connector on the plug. 

Switchcraft mini connector with crimped sleeving in place

After the crimping is complete, a piece of black heatshrink is used as a strain relief system.

Strain relief heatshrink

Finally, the barrel can be screwed over the connector and this side of the cable is complete.

Switchcraft mini connector attachment complete

The cable is now ready to be soldered to the headphone

The Denon headphone earcups each have two sets of four screws and earpads that must be removed in order to gain access to the inside. A solder joint should be shiny as it indicates good conductivity and virtually ensures that it is not a cold joint. I believe Denon is using tin solder which is not easy to achieve a shiny joint with, and in most cases the joints on the stock headphone are not shiny.

Stock cable

The stock wire is completely removed and all stock solder is removed from the solder pad with a solder sucker. The new cable is fed through and tied and zip-tied as a double strain relief. the new wires are soldered to the pads using Cardas Quadeutectic solder. Nice shiny joints are ensured.

New Xev cable soldered in place

Once both cups are attended to, the headphone is reassembled and tested to verify it is sounding great ;)

Completed Denon AH-D2000 Xev Recable

Would you like an audiophile quality cable installed on your Denon headphones (or any other headphone) or do you need them to be repaired due to the metal hardware coming loose? Zynsonix offers the service for a very reasonable price. 

The Fine Print:

The above steps detailing the recabling of a headphone 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.

Custom C7 Power Cable

If you're familiar with a standard IEC inlet, it has three separate connectors for hot, neutral and ground and is on nearly all audio equipment worth its salt, with a few exceptions of course. But we just can't be lucky enough that all equipment has an IEC three prong power inlet, can we?

Furutech gold IEC power inlet

Older equipment and certain newer universal disc players, among other things, have a C7 inlet. A C7 inlet does away with the safety ground connector, and is unpolarized, meaning that the hot and neutral is interchangeable as the cord can be aligned either way on the inlet. There are certain C7 connectors that are polarized which have a square end on one side and a circle on the other to ensure the hot and neutral go through the appropriate route.

Polarized C7 power cord

In my case, I'm currently building a Dynaco ST35 kit which combines the circuit ground with the chassis ground. When this is the case, there is a good chance for hum if attaching a preamp and amp on the same breaker if the circuit ground of each is attached to the safety ground of the power cords. Many of the forums I've visited recommend not attaching the chassis ground to the safety ground on the power connector to prevent hum on Dynacos. Please note that safety ground is called safety for a reason, if it's not connected and the circuit shorts to the chassis, it can be very unsafe.

I'm using a Shurter C7 inlet for my ST35, and it would be blasphemous for me to connect an ordinary C7 power cord to my tricked out new Dynaco ;)

Schurter C7 Power Inlet

So, what are the options for aftermarket C7 cables? PS Audio produces the 12 gauge Jewel power cord which is offered in a C7 configuration and runs ~$70-80 on the street, then there is the Audioquest NRG-1 power cord, which has a similar street price and comes in 16 gauge. Both are larger than the typical 18 gauge unshielded C7 power cord that comes with most equipment and are of course much more attractive.

In the interest of DIY, I chose to build my own. There are sparse few choices for a cable-end plug. Furutech offers a very attractive one, but at $45 as of this writing for a C7 plug is a little rich for my blood ;) It's also a little large for my purposes.

Furutech C7 power plug

Luckily, a builder in Japan offers a low cost C7 connector with solder connections that accept anything up to 16 gauge. These are floating around on that auction site if one searches for "C7 solder".

The power cord starts off a little differently than my other power cords. Rather than twist 10 gauge wires together in a spiral, I chose to use 16 gauge wire and braid it in a tri-braid configuration.

A bundle of 16 gauge silver plated copper in Teflon

Tribraided conductors

Then came the Teflon tape insulation, which covers the braided cable twice over.

Initial Teflon wrapping

A shield is then added over the top, which is connected to the source side ground via a soldered bus wire to create a floating shield.

Wrapped with a tinned copper mesh shield

The next step is two additional layers of Teflon are added to the top, over the braided mesh shielding.

Teflon wrapped 16 gauge power cord

Finally, the decorative techflex sleeving is added to the top, in this case both Chrome XC and black PET sleeving was employed to give a low-level shimmer. The low-cost Marinco 5266 is screwed down on one end and the C7 connector is soldered to the other. A piece of heatshrink is used as a strain relief, and in this case, the joint was bent at 90 degrees while the heatshrink was still hot for ample clearance behind the amp.

High quality DIY C7 power cord

Reverse shot detailing Techflex covering

The Fine Print:

The above steps detailing the creation of a power cord are for entertainment purposes only, and not to be performed under any circumstances. Please remember that attempting to use homemade power cords can be dangerous to you and/or your surroundings. The owner of this blog and all associated parties can not / will not be held responsible if you attempt the process posted below and cause physical harm to yourself or your surroundings. Many electronics contain high voltages that can kill, and DIY power cables can be a fire hazard. Please keep this in mind.

Pure Silver RCA Interconnects

Audiophiles have had a fascination with silver for as long as I can remember. Silver is about 7% more conductive than annealed copper (59 x 10^6 siemens/meter for copper versus 63 x 10^6 siemens/meter for silver). So on paper, silver is better than copper, but in regards to sound, it's more a preference issue to the listener. Your average silver interconnect tends to be a bit more smooth and detailed than the average copper interconnect. Because the cost of silver continues to increase year after year, silver interconnects will, unfortunately, continue to get more and more expensive. Even still, the sonic qualities are well worth it to many music lovers. 


A silver interconnect starts out with a number of cut strands of pure silver wire. The number of strands varies depending on the geometry of the cable. In this case, each interconnect will be using three wires, one for the signal and two for the return. Typically, silver wire is rated at at least four nines (99.99% pure) and some of the more expensive wire can get as high as six nines. 

High purity silver wire

Silver wire will sometimes come pre-sleeved with Teflon, and in some cases you have to sleeve it yourself into empty Teflon tubes (or your dielectric of choice, some interconnect builders use unbleached cotton). I find a general rule of thumb is to get a Teflon sleeve at least a couple of gauge sizes larger than the wire itself (eg: 22 gauge Teflon tubing for 24 gauge wire), otherwise its far too difficult to sleeve. Once one gets about 3 feet in, the friction gets to be too much, so it's better to get the silver pre-sleeved if one is making a long cable. The advantage of sleeving the wire as opposed to pre-sleeved wire is that you are actually getting pockets of air where the silver is not touching the Teflon. Since air is a better dielectric than Teflon, it's more ideal. You may be thinking to yourself "well, with air touching the wire, doesn't it become oxidized over time?". Copper oxidation can deteriorate the conductivity of the wire, but silver oxidation is highly conductive, so there's nothing to worry about ;)

Teflon sleeved silver wire

Once the wire has been sleeved with Teflon tubing, it can be braided. I've chosen a standard Litz Tri-braid for these interconnects. Electrical tape is used to hold the braid in place before the decorative outer sleeve is placed on the cable. 

Completed braiding process

Soft black nylon multifilament is now added over the cable for a more attractive and finished look. A hot knife is used to cut these sleeves to size to prevent fraying at the ends. 

Cable Sleeved with black nylon multifilament

As an added touch, a piece of custom labelled heatshrink is added to each cable to denote the brand. 

Custom blue heatshrink

Color coded heatshrink is added and Cardas GRMO Rhodium and silver plated RCAs are soldered to the ends using Cardas Quadeutectic solder. As described in more detail in the Cardas RCA Interconnects post, a large amount of heat is necessary to really make sure the wire is well attached to the barrel of the RCAs. Once these are secured, black adhesive heatshrink is added to act as a strain relief system between the cable and the RCAs.

Cardas GRMO connectors

After a signal test with the multimeter, these are ready for action. 

Finished silver interconnect cables

Craving a set of solid silver interconnects of your very own? Contact Zynsonix Audio today.

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.

Silver Plated Copper Mini to RCA Cable

We've all been in that position when we want to plug our iPod / MP3 player / PCDP or other portable device into our home stereo. Today's smartphones let you stream music from your computer, radio stations and services like Pandora straight through the web; it's tough to disregard all this utility and flexibility when compared to something like the single disc CD player plugged into your rig. In today's blog, I will be constructing a simple but excellent sounding mini to RCA cable that can bring all those modern features to your home amplifier.

A mini connector, also known as a 1/8" or 3.5mm TRS (Tip, Ring, Sleeve) is the de facto standard for portable headphone connections and has been around since the mid 20th century, being used with earpieces on transistor radios. The original 1/4" version dates all the way back to 1878 (!) and was used for telephone switchboards.  This mini connector is connected to a braid of wires that then convert to a left and right RCA connection. RCA connectors were designed in the 1940s to connect phonographs to amplifiers. It's a mild curiosity why the industry is still using such an age-old connector designs. More modern and esoteric designs like the iBasso Toucan and Ray Samuels SR-71B make use of unique balanced connectors such as the 6 pin Hirose and 4 pin Protector, designs that will likely never make it to mainstream audio equipment, but it's nice to see the designers offering these options.

I'll be starting this mini to RCA cable by trimming four strands of equally long wire in preparation for braiding. I'm choosing silver plated copper in Teflon as it has nice sonic properties and is relatively inexpensive compared to boutique audio wire. Silver plated copper (SPC, as I call it) in Teflon is offered by companies such as Belden and can sometimes be found as military surplus (mil-spec). Not all SPC is created equal, and you'll want to be sure you're getting silver plated copper and not tin plated copper. SPC is discussed in more detail in my post describing custom made SPC Speaker Cables.

Four Strands of Silver Plated Copper in Teflon

Once the wire is laid out, the strands are braided into a formation of four wires so that the cable maintains the same EMI/RFI rejecting geometry all the way across the length of the cable. Do note that one needs to cut the wire a little longer than necessary as a few inches of length will be lost in the braiding process. 

A nice, tight litz braid leading to two twisted pairs

Once the braiding is complete, the wire is fed into a sleeve of soft black nylon multifilament. This gives the finished product an attractive look. Nylon sleeving can also help negate microphonics in headphone cables. At the Y-split, I melt the multifilament together to ensure that it does not separate when pulled or tugged. A Y-split is also added with multiple layers of adhesive heatshrink. You can see an another take on a Y-split in my custom AKG K1000 cable post.

The sleeved cable with Y-Split

RCA connectors will now be added to the two twisted pairs of wires. Some sleek-looking chrome plated RCAs were selected for this particular cable, but I will typically use Canare F-09 or Switchcraft 3502 series gold plated RCAs as I have found them both to be well-built and reasonably priced. 

Chrome RCAs attached

Next comes the mini to mini connector. I almost exclusively use Switchcraft 35HD series connectors. They are made in the USA, sturdy, and not too large. The Canare F-12 minis are nicely made, but the barrel is very large compared to other connectors. If one needs a plug that's physically smaller than the Switchcraft, the Neutrik NYS231 will fit the bill. It's about a quarter of the price of the Switchcraft but doesn't seem quite as solid in my humble opinion.


The Switchcraft connector has a small piece of metal on the ground connection that I personally don't use, so it's trimmed off with metal snips. Once the soldering connections are made, all connectors are tested for continuity and shorts using a multimeter. They are then isolated with heatshrink as an added precaution to prevent shorting. The crimp on the ground connection holds both the wire and sleeving in place and prevents strain on the soldered connections.  

Switchcraft mini connector attached

As an added strain relief, a piece of 1/4" polyolefin black heatshrink secures the sleeve to the ground crimp.

Added heatshrink as a strain relief

The barrel is now screwed onto the Switchcraft mini connector and that completes the mini to RCA cable.  

The finished mini to RCA cable

I hope you enjoyed this step-by-step walk-through. If you are interested in purchasing a custom, hand made mini to RCA cable, they are more affordable than you think, and are available from Zynsonix.com