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Is nylon sheathing for DIY cables just window dressing?

Hi, quick question. Looking to make my own calbles, like the Mogami W3104 -12AWG 4 Conductor Speaker Cable material. It seems relatively easy to cut, strip cables into 2 separate right / left leads and add banana plugs. But every time I look for a little DIY u-tube education they all add the shrink wrap tubing and nylon sheathing to the assembly process. Is this really necessary? I can see where maybe using shrink wrap from the casing edge that was cut exposing the 4 individual leads and also having shrink wrap tubing over banana plugs to keep out air, but do you really need the fancy nylon sheathing? It adds about another $50-100 to the total cost. Thanks
phill55

Showing 2 responses by erik_squires

erik_squires
16,592 posts
 
Most of my DIY cables use tinned copper braid wrap for shielding and damping. The tinned coatings rub off on your hands unless covered by Tekflex plastic braid. 

@dgarretson The OP was asking about speaker cables, do you shield those too? :)

Best,
E

erik_squires
16,592 posts
 
Yes, more or less. They prevent the cable from looking bad when it abrades, but also the shrink wrap that does the transition from the nylon flex wrap to inside the jacks adds some strain relief, reducing the likelihood of a kink which impairs performance.
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