DIY cables question


Hello,

I first dipped my toe into hifi during covid and being on a budget, I slowly bought used to build up my system including a decision to DIY my own speaker cables. I bought 20ft of Mogami 3014 wire along with some gold plated banana plug connectors and while having zero soldering experience gave it a go. To date everything works fine but I’m left questioning whether my potentially "shoddy" soldering work is my weakest link and is holding back my setup. I’ve been flip flopping back and forth on just buying some used name brand speaker cables so I can stop the torment. I guess my main question is, when wires work, is it black or white, meaning they either connect or they dont, or can bad soldering limit the max performance of the cables or furthermore my entire setup?

Aside from my DIY speakers cables everything else is name brand, I use AudioQuest Earth RCAs (TT to Pre) and AQ McKenzie XLRs (Pre to Hegel H360), and a Curious USB cable ( Stream Box S2 Ultra to Denafrips Pontus II)

Thanks in advance.



sc0rpi043
 @rockaway07866

Haha, Thats actually the video I followed when I made mine. Definitely not as clean as he made his but it was my first time. 
DIY?  Good for you!

First thing: do you live in a humid climate near the sea? If so, do NOT try to use unterminated cabling. The reason is that the salt air will oxidize the copper wire; if there is any air pollution, the problem will be worse. Your only recourse is to put solder right up the end of the insulation to protect those delicate wires and seal with shrink-wrap.

Some people use vaseline on the unterminated ends. It can work for a time, but I don't recommend it.

Second, with all the money you've saved with buying DIY cables and connectors, you've got enough left over to get decent tools. Make sure that you crimp before you solder, use the lowest temperature audio solder you can find (that's resin flux core, not acid flux core - I like WBT). and shrink-wrap the ends to retard oxidation.

To solder, put the soldering tip on one side of the connector and feed solder onto the connector where it meets the wire, ideally inside the connector itself, and then onto the wire wherever it's exposed. A good solder joint is shiny. If yours is not shiny, cut it off and try again with a new connector.

Take care to do this in a very well ventilated place, or better, outside. Keep your work at eye level to avoid the fumes. Be careful to NOT solder teflon insulated wire, because teflon decomposes into really nasty gasses. Leave that to people with special facilities. Mogami, if I remember correctly, does not use teflon.

Good luck!
@sc0rpi

 interesting, so have you tried bare wire yourself in comparison to connectors?

Not in 20 + years. Cutting off spades / bananas from speaker cables reduces their resale a lot. 

I am not familiar with your equipment so I'm the wrong person to give advice. 

What gauge of wire are you soldering? I've had to solder a lot of high current cable to lugs, and I found a small propane torch to work best. If there is too much wire and lug a soldering iron will not get them hot enough for the solder to flow properly. I crush fit first, solder afterwards.