Home Built Audio Interconnects - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / beginners

author: Derick Freese
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: March 10, 2015, 10:37:02 pm
content: I'm big into 2 channel home audio and car audio, but skip over as much of the audiophoolery as I can. My question is one about interconnects. As I understand, cheap RCA interconnects pick up stray noise and can impart that into the signal. It seems that a solution to this would to be using shielded cable, like RG-6. I have plenty of it around, and plenty of compression fittings thanks to the RadioShack closeout. The fittings are already wanky gold plated fittings, but they were very inexpensive and felt like they were quality. I'm really wanting to avoid the interference that sometimes happens with a car, and this seems to be the way to go

author: macboy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 10, 2015, 11:48:25 pm
content: Well you didn't really ask a question, but yes you can make excellent interconnects from RG6 and good connectors. The main issue with RG6 is the stiffness, but it is usually very well shielded.Real gold plating isn't just for looks. Gold is only an "ok" conductor (less than half as good as copper) but it has two excellent properties for connector surfaces: it doesn't oxidize, and it is soft, so the contact pressure produces closer metal-metal contact. Silver is also good; it does oxidize but silver oxide conducts electricity quite well, and as a bonus, silver is has the highest conductance of any metal (not that it matters for such things). Unfortunately, the "gold" on many cheap connectors is anything but.

author: Chipmunk
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: March 11, 2015, 12:03:08 am
content: Completely agree with macboy's comments. I'd just add that a decent quality RCA connector should be difficult to mate and unmate, shows good contact pressure, a lot of the female connectors on even high end gear aren't very good quality, and a decent plug can make up for a degree of that

author: picandmix
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 11, 2015, 12:23:28 am
content: Have you been here -http://www.tnt-audio.com/clinica/diycables.html

author: Derick Freese
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: March 11, 2015, 11:18:02 am
content: I haven't been there, but the idea of using CAT5 cable interests me as well, since I have a couple of spools of both CAT5 and CAT6 from my networking days.

author: Derick Freese
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: March 11, 2015, 12:22:49 pm
content: Reading more into the CAT5 cabling, it looks rather wanky. Worse than my RG-6 with fancy ends. I'll take pictures when I'm done with the install.

author: macboy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 11, 2015, 04:58:53 pm
content: Quote from: Derick Freese on March 11, 2015, 12:22:49 pmUsing CAT-5 (or any twisted pair) is fine if you have true balanced outputs and inputs, which you don't, so ... don't. You have a single ended output referenced to ground. The appropriate cable type is shielded coax. All that talk about using CAT-5 for (RCA) audio interconnects is just a bunch of audiophools waving their hands in the air claiming they've discovered something that engineers don't know. They haven't. I might consider CAT-5 or 6 for XLR audio interconnects since they are balanced, but even then I'd opt for shielded CAT-6. XLR interconnects generally have a shield.

author: edavid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 11, 2015, 05:07:48 pm
content: Quote from: Derick Freese on March 10, 2015, 10:37:02 pmYour premise is incorrect. Common RCA cables are shielded well enough, and line out impedance is low enough, that there is rarely any problem with "stray noise". (If there is, there's a specific problem that needs to be addressed.) Also, ordinary RG-6 doesn't necessarily have better shield coverage than audio cables. So, stick with the audio cables.

author: Derick Freese
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: March 11, 2015, 06:47:54 pm
content: In my case, I'm running 6 cables from the head unit in the dash of a car to amplifiers in the rear. To make things tidy, I decided to make my own cables. With the prices of compression fittings, bulk RG-6, and the compression fitting tool, I couldn't go wrong. It all cost less than $30 for wire for the whole car, including interconnects, the tool, and 50 feel of audiophool speaker wire. I'll have at least a dozen RG-6 RCA compression fittings for my other cars.

author: edavid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 11, 2015, 07:34:07 pm
content: Quote from: Derick Freese on March 11, 2015, 06:47:54 pmFine, but you solved a non-existent problem...

author: Derick Freese
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: March 11, 2015, 07:46:28 pm
content: It solves the problem of custom length cables. Not to mention long RCA cables like this aren't exactly cheap when you have 6 channels going to amps.