DIY Interconnects with VAN DAMME Silver Plated Copper Solid Core Coaxial cables (RG6) & WBT Connectors

[balavignesh002]

After trying few interconnects stranded ofc copper cables on Mogami, I got bored of them, wanted to try the better solid core ones. Surprised to notice that there is no solid core offering on Mogami.

The predominant use case is to have a SPDIF digital interconnect with 75 OHM impedance and Analog RCA interconnects between CDP and AMP.

So Finalised on

1. VAN DAMME 75OHM ENHANCED PERFORMANCE UHD VISION 12GHZ RG6.
2. WBT - 0110 Cu nextgen™ RCA Connector for SPDIF 75 OHM RCA connector for Digital Interconnects
3. Aucharm RCA Male Plug CX-3 Tellurium Copper RCA Bullet Plugs for Analog interconnects. Just want to try left over cables with other terminals.
4. AECO RCA Male Plug Tellurium Copper CX-4 Just want to try left over cables with other terminals.

Yes, thats too many of connecters. But wanted to compare and try between WBT and other shortlisted connecters for low impedance and eddy current. just wanted to hear the difference if any.


Made the order for cable, connectors and sleeving and covers from UK. it took 2 weeks to deliver home. 4 meters of cables charged with 661 INR import duty and WBT Connecters been charged with 5600 INR import duty.










Post all the cables and connectors arrived now the plan is to cut the arrived 4.5 meter cable in to 3 pieces and try on all connectors. thats close to 3 x 1.5 meters.

Then started with WBT connectors first.




This Solid core cable is hard to cut the di-electric as its glued with aluminium shield. Unlike other RCA connectors WBT is different to make termination and solder.

So prepared the cable in a unique way to hook in to the plug hole so that it will form a good hold.



Adding a cotton sleeve may add more diameter and a soft touch and feel while handling or using the cable.



Ensured the cable perfectly slots in the terminal.



Put on the outer nylon sleeve and griped it with 10mm heat shrink.


Soldered the joints using Mundrof 9% Silver and 1% Gold lead and solderon 50w iron., forgot to take a picture, please refer the pics of other end for clarity.

For low low quality connectors recommend 25W soldering iron as it may melt the dielectric on the cable and RCA positive pin as well.

Ready on one end


Preparing the other end the same way.


MOunted the cable on soldering station and Applied the required flux lavishly







Here it finally finished as a complete cable. Ready to connect it on the CDP and AMP to hear it.

 

[balavignesh002]

Adding More Pictures of finished cable here, as a single post has a limitation of 20 pictures.

 

[balavignesh002]

How does this cable sound?

By this time would have listened lose to 100 hours on this cable.

To compare with this cable, i am just referring my existing SPDIF copper and optical cables.
I have been using below.

1. Lifatech silfex glass fiber optic cable for more than 2 years
2. Belden 1694F on a MX RCA connector.
3. Mogami 2964 on a Deltron and Rean RCA connector.

The initial 15 minutes of listening on this cable made me to through both the Mogami 2964 cables to Archival box. Can clearly sense the details and high-frequency clarity.

Belden 1694F was my favourite SPDIF cable. I always want to try their 1694A solid core stuff, didn't get a chance so far to source one. Compared to this cable Van Damme silver plated ofc is bright but clear on the representation of notes. So the open and clarity of top end is missing in 1694F. Can sense the richness in the vocals especially female (Diana Krall, Celine Dion & Whitney Houston).

Post this connected the Lifatech optical parallel to this Van Damme RG6 so that I don't have to change the cable and tweek the input source in the amp via remote.

Felt Lifatech is warmer and layed back compared to this. Can feel the difference in the male vocals between these. The low end response of male vocals (SPB) in Lifatech is broad, but high frequency response is rich in Van Damme. This made me to try some solid core bare copper with this silver plated one.

Bottom line, this solid core is better compared to stranded ones, as there is no harsh or rough edge. More of toppend and still keep the charm with out bothering or annoying the ears.

Need more listening though.

 

[balavignesh002]

Making Analog Interconnects:

Post all this Digital Interconnect use case in my chain with this cable, wanted to try these cable as "Analog Interconnect". So decided to make remaining 2 x 1.5 meter cables on all 4 x Achuram RCA connectors.

Unlike WBT, Achuram is having 8.3mm diameter of cable inlet, But i still want to dress the cable with inner and outer sleeve to give it a premium touch and feel while using. So cable with cotton sleeve and 10mm Heat shrink is first applied to cable then soldered the conductors to the terminals then really struggled to push the metal cover to lock.



A close up picture to view how the terminal cover clutches over the cable. Its perfectly grip holding it, I felt the gold plated screw strain relief will punch in to the outer sleeve.

There were some rough edges internally, can see the markings on the heat shrink while i twist push the cover through.




Pushed the outer sleeve gripped it with a 12mm heat shrink it worked well as you see in the below pic.


Put the required inner heat shrink, connector cover and outer heat shrink in the reverse order. Spliced the other end of the cable to prepare for termination and then soldered it.




Here is the view of fully finished cable. Not an easy work to deal with solid core at least this RG6 which is as hard on its own to maintain the circumference of dielectric and maintain the co-axial property through out its length.

The cable looks and gives a touch and feel of Interconnect premium cable. In deed its one.



Followed the same process for its other pair and here is how the duo looks like. This cable has a bending diameter of 11mm being a solid core.

 

[spirovious]

Adding More Pictures of finished cable here, as a single post has a limitation of 20 pictures.

View attachment 77129
View attachment 77130
View attachment 77131

Very nice looking.

 

[KNRAMU]

The cable looks and gives a touch and feel of Interconnect premium cable

Excellent workmanship. Please do share it's sound performance comparisons.

 

[balavignesh002]

Excellent workmanship. Please do share it's sound performance comparisons.

Thank you.

Very nice looking.

Thank you.

How does this Aucharm cable sound as an Analog interconnect?
Removed the existing Rean - Mogami 2803 interconnects and swapped it with Aucharm - Van Damme silver plated OFC.

Played Noting Hill SACD to take a known reference.

This cable as an interconnect through a lot of brightness on my sound stage. Can here a lot more details in Vocals, and up high frequency which i never hear on the previous clearly. Bass slam is very tight and fast. The over all presentation is rich and expressive.

If I got hold of this cable before my Linton crossover upgrades, I would have definitely hesitated to spend on new crossover as most of the problems of Linton's may get addressed, at least that is my strong feeling. Definitely recommend this cable to those who feel the Lintons lacks top end and less expressive.

How does this Aucharm cable sound as an SPDIF Digital Interconnect?

Well I couldn’t notice much of difference between this and the previous one with the WBT connectors. May be I could use more time.

Will try it again post my speaker cable upgrade which is next in the cards (a 9 AWG Solid Core). The Mogami 3082 is a bottle neck to the speakers as its only close to 14 AWG Stranded coaxial but its definitely better than the previous Mogami 2804.

 

[mallikreddyk]

Resurrecting the thread to share my experience with Silver plated copper cable.

My experience is very similar to balavignesh in that, the clarity has improved and the stage fully opened up, is a clear improvement.

I tried Belden 4694R Silver plated oxygen free copper cable. (12G, UHD ), terminated with Neutrik NYS373 without the boot.
The Belden 4694R is relatively easily available online in India. (kiransales for cable and element14 for the connectors)

Thanks
Mallik

 

[MaSh]

Thank you for resurrecting this thread. I seem to have totally missed this amazing thread. I personally use a couple of cables mentioned by @balavignesh002 . Lifatec optical and Belden. I totally agree with his observation. Got to try the Van Damme cable soon.

MaSh