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In the Forum: Audio Discussions
In the Thread: We who are about to die... (a cable thread)
Post Subject: A "Shielded" Version of the Above (for all it's worth...)Posted by Paul S on: 10/4/2018
Over 10 year later, I finally "finished" and installed a shielded version of the above cable for the short run between my phono SUT and my phono stage, replacing the nondescript Placette cables I've been using there all this time. As anyone experienced in this sort of thing (myself, for instance) might have predicted, the ultra-quiet grounding scheme I used for all these years (with the Placette cables) does not work with the new cables. I spent less than an hour futzing with the ground scheme this go. At one point I was listening to Elvis despite there was "no input" , just system gain, so RFI (obviously). The quietest I got it before I ran out of patience was a still too annoying, fairly pure 60 Hz hum. Other than this, I like the sound now better than the Placettes. I hope I can stifle the hum before I die from old age. Something besides the shield and bleed wires I did different this time was using Eichmann Silver Bullet connectors (with plastic sleeves) vs. (metal sleeved) WBTs . I hope this isn't the problem, although I suppose any other fix procedure would beat having to re-fish each "layer" through each subsequent sleeve; what a PITA that was! And despite I use a very tiny soldering iron (Thermaltronics), soldering tiny wire to the tiny Eichmann terminals was also a major PIT, including melting the plastic jacket where the negative stud terminal runs through it!
Construction was: a twisted pair of the silver wires mentioned above, and twisted over them a single, coated copper wire (as above) for signal only. Then foamed PTFE tube over that. Then braided, tinned copper wire tubing for the shield. Then braided poly tubing for the jacket over that. Heat shrink tubing binds the ends. Stud screws hold the connector jackets to the heat shrinked sleeve ends. I soldered tinned Cu bleeder wires to the shield near one end of each cable. Eichmann Silver Bullet connectors (RCA), as mentioned above.
Paul S
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