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.

Pono Player Balanced Interconnect Cable

So you've taken the plunge on Neil Young's sweet little Pono player, however it uses a unique way to export those tunes to your balanced headphones or balanced rig. I'll be covering how I built an unbalanced cable, and how to build a balanced pair of cables so you can extract every juicy detail from those Hi Res tracks. As you may know, Zynsonix Audio offers these in any length or configuration, so reach out if you need one.

The Pono player features dual stereo 3.5mm outputs. You can use these to output to a pair of balanced headphones, a balanced rig that uses 3 pin XLRs (or mini XLRs / TRS plugs), or a single ended rig that takes good-old-fashioned RCAs.

Neil Young's Pono Player

Stereo 3.5mm connectors have three connections, the sleeve, the ring and the tip. When used in typical applications, the sleeve is a shared ground, the ring is the right signal, and the tip is the left signal. However not the case with the Pono in balanced mode.

Tip, Ring and Sleeve on a 3.5mm mini connector

In the case of the Pono player in balanced mode, each of the two 3.5mm goes to an individual three pin XLR. The Sleeve, as you'll note below, connects to the Pin 1 (ground). The Ring connects to Pin 3 (negative). The Tip connects to Pin 2 (positive). For a balanced headphone cable, you will note that the Sleeve connection is not used, only the tip (positive) and the ring (negative). These schematics are straight from the engineers over at Ayre Acoustics. If I'm not mistaken, this is going to be the portable standard for balanced connections including on upcoming models from Sony.

Pono Player wiring pinout / diagram

I made a handy dandy visual for the back of an XLR connector (note mini XLRs are different!) so you can see the pin assignments.

XLR pinout for reference

Below you'll see the pair of 3.5mm stereo mini to XLR cables using the great sounding Zynsonix Trebuchet 99.99997% pure ohno cast copper. The Viablue XLRs are very sleek looking, well made and use set screws rather than a traditional boot or crimp sleeve. The Amphenol mini connectors are my new favorite value connector, they offer a great connection and a recessed area near the barrel that allow them to be used with phone cases and portable DAPs with cramped faceplates.   

Pono balanced interconnect cable

All done and we have a pretty pair of Trebuchet interconnects for your Pono player. Off they go to a happy customer.

I hope you enjoyed this post on building a pair of interconnects for a Pono Player. Please reach out to Zynsonix Audio if you'd like your own custom Pono interconnects (balanced or single ended) or headphone cable, and keep enjoying those high res tracks!

The Fine Print:

The above steps detailing the build of a Pono player cable are for entertainment purposes only, and not intended to be used as assembly instructions. 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. 

Furez Copper Subwoofer Cable

A subwoofer only reproduces a limited range of audio in your system, most likely a frequency range within 20Hz and 100Hz. With this being said, subwoofer cables aren't as critical as the interconnects responsible for a much wider range (in my humble opinion). So, if you're weighing the benefits of subwoofer cable versus a pair of interconnects between your CD player and amp, I'd say go with the interconnects first. Still, as audio enthusiasts, we can't simply ignore our poor subwoofers, can we?

Today I will be assembling a pair of subwoofer cables from Furez FZ162AA audio cable. This is a reasonably priced cable that features thick 16 gauge oxygen-free copper conductors (99.997% pure, aka 4Ns), a very adequate foamed polyethylene dielectric and a dual-shield (tinned copper braid and a aluminum foil wrap) to help protect against EMI/RFI interference. I'll also be using some Furez FZ100BS black and grey sleeving to dress up the cable a bit, and a set of Cardas GRMO Rhodium over silver-plate RCAs.

The cable itself is nice and thick, thicker than the Cardas Crosslink 1i interconnect cable.

Furez FZ162AA Audio Cable

Taking a look a little closer, you'll notice the thick 16 gauge copper conductors. Normally audiophile interconnects are between 20 and 24 gauge, so this is a bit thicker than typical and thus will have additional capacitance (Capacitance @ 1KHz: 20.86 pF/ft). One could even use it for a speaker cable at this thickness. Whether or not this will be beneficial when used as a subwoofer cable remains to be seen.

Furez cable detail

As mentioned above, I'll be using some Furez FZ100BS black and grey sleeving to dress up the cable. This sleeving is made specifically for Furez products by ViaBlue. To see some of ViaBlue's bling, check out this mini to RCA cable made using their products. The FZ100BS is made from Monofilament Polyethylene Terepthalate (PET) and Fiber Fillers.

Furex FZ100BS black and grey sleeving

Do note that a hot knife is needed to cut the sleeving, otherwise it will fray, as you will see in the image above. The hot knife melts the sleeving together and prevents this. Also note that as you sleeve the cable, you will lose some length as the sleeving is expanding slightly. This amounted to several extra inches for each five foot cable length.

Noting the cable stripped below, you will see the two 16 gauge conductors, one in red dielectric, one in black. You will also see the mesh copper shield. For this particular cable, the mesh shield will be soldered to the ground on the source side and not connected on the other (floating shield configuration).

Stripped wire

Here is the opposite end of the cable after tinning the conductors. Tinning simply means covering the conductors with solder in this case. On this end of the cable, the shielding is not connected, so it is trimmed down and isolated with 3M electrical tape. Note that the black conductor (ground / return) is cut slightly shorter intentionally.

Tinned conductors

Now we will be soldering the Cardas RCA connector to the conductors. This is done by removing the barrel of the connector, then sliding it over top of the cable with the tinned ends and lining them up with the appropriate solder terminals. The red conductor (signal) goes to the center pin and the black conductor (ground / return) is soldered to the inner barrel. The Cardas GRMO requires quite a bit of heat to ensure a proper joint. I find that a solder station with adjustable temperature is necessary. The joints should be strong and shiny when complete. 

Cardas GRMO soldered in place

Once the soldering is complete, the RCA needs ample time to cool (they will be extremely hot to the touch). Then the outer barrel can be screwed in place and 1/2" adhesive heatshrink placed on top to act as a strain relief. 

Barrel and heatshrink added

I tend to like to cover about half of the Cardas barrel with the heatshrink so that some of that shiny gold bling is still visible on the completed cable.  

Heatshrink in place over barrel

All that's left is heating up the heatshrink with the heat gun and we have a completed cable. A second identical cable was made for the right channel and now we have a very fancy pair of subwoofer cables.

A complete set of subwoofer cables

Hope you enjoyed reading this post. If you are interested in having your own custom subwoofer cable (or any other cable) made, please contact Zynsonix for a quote.

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.

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.