Why cables can be expensive

What really bothers me is that at the end of the day most cables can be replicated by the diyer these days as the majority of materials are available to the end user, so why do we still feel the need to keep buying pre manufactured cables at an extortionate price! Maybe a boycot is in order!

Copper silver plated copper and silver, shielding and a wrap with some decent plugs, whatever the choice can be hand made, now the prices people like Richard charge and Will from silver high breed for instance become acceptable as they are low and the cables work well and it saves us the hassle, but anything more than that and I aint interested anymore!

I still believe cables make a difference (but then my hearing is exceptional as I am virtually blind!) but now Id rather spend the extra on better components and the room to have a much better larger impact on the sound!

After speaking with Rob about the physics of cables and some of u other guys my opinions on the way a system should be put together and where the real money should be spent my views are changing somewhat, I am now looking at the bigger picture

I think this is mainly why I am switching to pro studio gear as it is far cheaper and can be tuned very easily to the room, with all its softwares and funky dials! Then a few tweaks on the room and I'm sure I will have better results

 

Do you realise what a small percentage of Hi-Fi enthusiast can actually solder adequately or even own an iron!

 

LOL - yes very true.

Didn't you run a thread on how to solder over on Subjectivist?

Practical guides like that are very useful.
Be good to build a reference section here using stuff like that.

 

Well the big problem is people try to solder things together, recipe for a bad joint man

You should solder things individually (tinning), then just hold them together and apply heat until they flow into each other.

Also without a temperature controlled iron you get blobbed unsoldered joints if too cold or crusty burnt dry joints with too much heat.

It is all about practice, which makes perfect.

 

Yes, a lot of people try to use solder as paint with the iron as the brush.

I still use the old tin/lead multicore myself.
Got loads as I'm not sure you can even buy it these days.

 

I have the tin/lead stuff too.

Two years at tech college doing an OND and then 10 years installing AV systems has honed my soldering.

It's not hard BUT its a skill that needs to be learnt.

Andrew.

Perhaps a ZG soldering skills seminar (beer fest) might be a good idea?

 

I had a job as a youngster working in a factory, soldering circuit boards.

with the right tools - and copying an original, I would knock out about 8 circuit boards (with about 50 components per board) every twenty minutes.

soldering is very easy, and quickly learned.

you just need the right tools. you don't even need an understanding of electronics if you're simply copying a template - non of the workers in my factory could read a circuit diagram (as far as I was aware)... and yet we knocked out literally hundreds of circuit boards each worker per day.

 

Me too, in fact I'm still using the same large reel of solder I bought back in the early 80s to make / fix loads of guitar and studio leads, which shows how infrequently I need to solder anything these days!

Tony.

 

Any long term effects of inhaling lead, a liking for prog rock etc? (just like me)

 

Once establishing the skills and methods to use, a good way to test is buying those little Maplin electronics kits - buzzers, door bells etc for about £5 each and practice.

No reason why we can't have a reference piece with some video on it.

 

Who is going to be brave enough to post the first 'tip to finger' moment?

 

Yup even with all the regs it is still available and is much better than silver solder. Its funny how the magic words effect people. Say it has silver in it and everyone says wow it must be better. If someone invented solder with gold in it they would make a fortune. Nothing like a good bit of bullshit, everyone loves it

 

PCB work is a different technique and in many ways easier than terminating cables. No tinning required, the component leg is already pre tinned and so is the PCB track.

 

I use 60/40 myself from Radio Shack (Multicore rebranded from what I understand) - never cared for the sound of silver solder or the way it flows. (It also doesn't dry shiny which doesn't inspire confidence with an infrequent solderer like me)

Richard and/or Rob -do you still recommend pre-tinning when joining a wire to a banana plug? I figured there'd be too much flux if I used additional solder to complete the join so I skip the pre-tinning of the wire. Am I over thinking or just plain wrong?

regards,

dave

 

blackdog - just go on youtube.

there are loads of videos showing the simple act of soldering


like this

 

Don't know about "tip to finger" but I have a colleague who was soldering bits of model railways and in a momentary lapse of concentration he put the hot iron in his mouth as he tried to swap hands. Surprising the damage wasn't too great as he could still talk the next day.

 

Well I wouldn't do it that way, I would tin each lead seperately before putting together and joining, and that is a horrible cumbersome soldering iron.

 

Interesting Richard.

I personally would not tin each lead seperately - because it would then be very difficult to twist the wires together, establishing a very good physical bond before adjoining with solder.

Am I missing something though? possibly. I am not an electronics expert.

 

That technique is only possible with similar wires, and I still don't like it. You couldn't do that with joining plugs and wires or solid wires and stranded or just about any other senario as you would create dry or blobbed joints. Then the rule applies, tin each item seperately, then place together and apply heat until the two sets of tinning flow into each other. You shouldn't need to apply any more solder.

 

Thanks for the video Bottleneck. That's exactly how I solder -no pretinning normally, just let the solder flow all the way through the heated joint.