I started my quest for improved sound by making my own interconnects. Along the way I improved my technical knowledge and soldering skills. I'm still experimenting and building interconnect cables six years later.
Old Style Patch Cable
Here's one of my early patches using low end RCA plugs, Tygon tubing, solid 26 AWG wire, Teflon pipe tape and shrink tube. I helically wrapped the wire around the tubing, wrap the assembly with Teflon tape and heat shrink the assembly. The design goal is to minimize capacitance. These worked well and sound good, but after several connecting and disconnecting cycles the cheap RCA plugs loosen up and eventual the plug tabs break off.
New Style Patch Cable
The latest design I found on
Platenspeler.com.
Maarten uses microphone cable for his RCA patch cables and for my new patch cables a bought the components from Parts Express. I used Dayton MSC-1 Microphone/Signal Cable (Parts Express pn 100-220) and Dayton RCAGS-ST RCA Plug Solder Type plugs [qty 4 (Parts Express pn 091-1265)]. The cost of these are $.59/FT and $9.90/package USD respectively.
Here's a shot of the RCA plugs. These are gold plated plugs with a black heavy barrel. The ground connector is substantial compared to the cheaper style plugs.
Interconnects
