DIY Cables. Does guage and Shielding/Insulation really matter?

[samth3mancgp]

I am looking to make my own 1/4"-RCA cables, Perhaps a snake? I have already made a stereo one using old telephone wire because I have A LOT of it. It seems to work fine It just looks weird coming out of the back of my tape deck. I just soldered 1 wire going from tip of the RCA to tip of the 1/4" and sleeve of RCA to sleeve on the 1/4" tested for continuity and it works alright.

A Telephone cable has 4 wires in it and they are all individually insulated in their own rubber coating and housed in the flat rubber that we all know to look like telephone wire. I have jacks to make several more of these? To me wire is just wire except that thinner/longer wire means ore resistance and shorter/thicker gauge wire means less resistance. And that certain materials are more conductive than others like Silver is more than copper and copper more than aluminum.

Any potential problems doing this? I've already recorded some stuff to tape with the one "Telephone Snake" I have made and it seems to work and sound fine.

 

[Slowrider]

No way. You should spend no less than $50.00 per cable. Actually, at least 19.99 per foot.

 

[Washburn100]

First, don't judge a cable by how much it costs! Expensive cables are the biggest rip off out there. The best example is the $100 HDMI cables and the $5.99 Walmart brand. As far as the components are concerned, there is no difference.

Cost of cable also includes things like how soft the case is so they don't kink etc.

More of a factor is whether the cables are balance or not. Unbalanced cables will add noise as the runs get longer. Also, sheilding on any cable can make a difference as to whether it is noisy or not (picks up interference)

Normally, I wouldn't recommend telephone cable, but if you already used it and couldn't notice a difference, I think you answered your own question.

 

[dementedchord]

ditch the phone cable... it's not shielded... and will add up in noise as you do more channels... get some bulk wire from redco.com or similar...

 

[TheChikenMaster]

i did the same thing with this cheapy radioshack wires ugh too much noise. So I use these shure 1/4" to xlr cables which I dont use. I cut off the xlr and soldered rca to the end. sounds much better now. Ditch the telephone wire man

 

[Dani Pace]

Phone wire, like any other unshielded cable will probably not make a lot of difference on short runs but is likely to get pretty noisy on long runs. For this reason I wouldn't recomend phone wire for a DIY snake.

 

[samth3mancgp]

Thanks guys. These are all unbalanced connections that I have here. My cable length for the phone wire cables are a little under 10ft I think. 8 or 9? I have not actually measured them.

I realized too after reading a link off of a google search that there is a difference between shielding and insulation. The telephone wires are only insulated, not shielded. Here is the article I found, It's got a wealth of info in it. Audio Cables - General Information Maybe I could test the resistance and capacitance of the different types of wire I have to find the best ones for audio signals.

 

[dementedchord]

Phone wire, like any other unshielded cable will probably not make a lot of difference on short runs but is likely to get pretty noisy on long runs. For this reason I wouldn't recomend phone wire for a DIY snake.

perhaps you're thinking of balanced v unbalanced here... aand is true in that reguard... on the otherhand Never use unshielded for anything but amp to speaker...