Interconnects

Can anyone recommend really good interconnects under £100 please  0.75 or 1 metre long.
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Comments

  • Are you willing to make some , or have them made for you?
  • edited December 2016
    sovereign said:
    Are you willing to make some , or have them made for you?
    A very good point!

    You can make some very decent cables from studio grade microphone cable and reasonable plugs. £10 to £25 a set. Maybe James has something a little higher up the food chain in mind?

    If buying, Blue Jeans have a reputation for very affordable good cables (no first hand knowledge myself)

    https://www.bluejeanscable.com/store/audio/index.htm

    A personal favourite of mine are the older, original Nordost Blue Heaven, second hand at £40 to £75 a set.


  • James im crap at soldering so would need them to be made
  • I'm sure I can knock up something special for you.
  • You know we'll be expecting a full story board of this!
    ;)
  • And pictures
  • Especially of your burns :-D
  • Burns...moi???
  • How goes the Sovereign Princess  RCA lead?
    ~O)
  • "Princess"?
    Did I miss a press release, Sov?
  • Princess, do what ?
    I think I missed the same thing as you Ben.

    Well I am making Farout two sets of Klotz?MS Audio interconnects.  All the parts are ordered and will be with us some time in the new year.

  • :)) Just me messing about with a dreamt up name somehow connected to "sovereign ".
    Could have gone for shilling I 'spose.
  • I thought it was a joke on old motors.
  • edited December 2016
    Sovereign "The Princess" phono to phono interconnect cable.
    This new audio product includes diamond encrusted 24 carat gold connectors and comes in a range of attractive colours:

    image
  • Those fur sheaths are, of course, naturally directional too. Hmmmmmmm, old car names, maybe the Dusenberg, it's such a doosey......Ford, fluid but shallow.....Morris, especially good with dance....Opel, a bit of a gem.....oh someone shut me up!
  • I'll have you know I'm more of a woman than you think.  
    After my bone marrow/stem cell transplant this year I'm actually a woman on the inside.  I had a female marrow donor, so my chromosomes are no longer XY they are XX.  SO I'm all woman in a very attractive and manly body.
  • There are so many sexist jokes about the changes you must be experiencing, that I am heroically repressing rigjht now...
    :-t
    More importantly...great that the transplant was effective, and I'm feeling grateful to the woman, and to anyone else who donates in this way.
    =D>
  • edited December 2016
    :@) :x :O) 8->
  • We don't have enough emoticons, may I ask why ???
  • Because we haven't saved enough Green Shield Stamps 

    8-}
  • edited December 2016
    sovereign said:

    :@) :x :O) 8->

    Pig, love, clown and excited anticipation.
    I'm not sure what other emoticons one would possibly need.

  • edited December 2016
    Docfoster said:

    sovereign said:

    :@) :x :O) 8->

    Pig, love, clown and excited anticipation.
    I'm not sure what other emoticons one would possibly need.

    Believe it or not, I am a qualified psychothetapist, and certainly most of my client work can be boiled down to those 4 aspects of human experiencing.

  • cj66 said:

    Those fur sheaths are, of course, naturally directional too. Hmmmmmmm, old car names, maybe the Dusenberg, it's such a doosey......Ford, fluid but shallow.....Morris, especially good with dance....Opel, a bit of a gem.....oh someone shut me up!

    Proper jokes. :smiley:

  • Back on track...
    Sov please could we have some piccies when you're done.
  • sovereign said:

    Er.... NO.

    Is that Bob Cratchit still working for Sovereign Building Solutions?
  • I thought he was the new CEO.
  • Hi Sov,

    Could you pm me the links to the plugs and cable used, just read the praise on AoS and fancy trying some.

    Ta.
  • cj66 said:

    Hi Sov,

    Could you pm me the links to the plugs and cable used, just read the praise on AoS and fancy trying some.

    Ta.

    Er.....No
  • Only kidding, in Knightsbridge at the mo, give me a couple of hours
  • cj66
    Sorry for the delay on the links mate, been away for a few days.  Here are the MS Audio plugs, they are all solid copper and not brass like a lot of plugs, and they are either plated in silver, rhodium or gold.  I have found them to be very good plugs.
    The Klotz MC 5000 can be found anywhere, I have used Studiospares a few times and found their service to be good.

    I'll take pictures as I build them, just waiting for finances to be transferred so I can crack on.

  • Aha! Thanks for that, will have a play.
  • Sorry this thread has ground to a holt, I can't build as there is no sign of finances to cover what I have already outlaid. Very odd.... 8-|
  • Looks like you're wording things diplomatically...
  • edited February 2017
    I'll pick up where James left off.

    Last night I made up a set of leads using the cable and plugs mentioned above.

    image
    This just shows the cable configuration.

    image
    This shows the source end of the cable set up for "pseudo balanced", meaning the two centre cores are signal and ground and the braid is grounded at only the source end.

    image
    Downstream end showing the two centre cores connected for signal and earth but the shield NOT connected.

    image
    All done. The white bands mark the shield grounded end.

    These work out at roughly £20 per 0.6m pair as shown above. I have not yet tried them out but they will up against the following;

    image
    A previous incarnation of DIYness at under £10 and...

    image
    Nordost original Blue Heaven, my current affordable (2nd hand) favourite cables.

    When I get a chance to play I will update the thread.
  • Double insulated...? Pseudo-balanced?
    What is this jiggery pokery?
  • Tidy job, CJ! =D>
  • Nice one Chris
  • I had a wee play last night with these interconnects. All comparisons were done on my home headphone rig consisting of;
    Marantz CD52ii as transport
    DIY DAC (heavily modfied Silicon Chip design)
    MF X-cans v2 headphone amp (heavily modified & linear psu)
    AKG K550 headphones

    The interconnect already on duty was a QED Qunex 3 (Nordost had been taken for other duties at some point) I therefore included that in the comparison.

    I'll try and keep this short and sweet, just pulling the key points I jotted down as I went. A variety of much listened to music was used of good recording quality.

    QED vs MS/MC

    The QED was in place first so the MS/MC followed it. Differences here were really obvious, the slighty over zealous top end of the QED disappeared and a little more depth to the bass was added. To begin with this made the sound seem slightly dull or curtailed at the top, after a little time ears readjusted but I still felt a little top end was missing, however reversing again confirmed the QED as being a tad too eager on HF. For clarity and tone in the mid range I'd say both were roughly equal.

    MS/MC vs old homebrew (OH)
    A very similar overall character here between the two. OH lost the the depth of bass gained by the MS/MC but definitely had a sweeter high end character. I had to switch a couple of times to make sure it wasn't just the difference in bass giving this perception but in conclusion no, the OH does have a better HF presentation. The MS/MC was superior in the mid range though, with better tone in particular on both acoustic and voice, it also seemed to allow a snadge more detail through.

    MS/MC vs Nordost Blue Heaven i
    Total slam dunk for the Nordost...again! It really easily outshined the MS/MC in every department, better defined and slightly deeper bass, which was faster, making the the MS/MC sound a little more dull still. Mid range, acoustic and voice were all more "real" and had a lovely sense of space. Lastly the the upper end was just spot on, no brightness, no curtailment and better defined. In fact overall a significant amount more information was being delivered intact and well presented.

    Overall I have to say I was a little disappointed with the MS/MC, I expected it to build on what the OH could do which it did in some areas but that held back treble really is an Achilles heel. I also prefered the less deep but more accurate bass of the OH compared the deeper, slightly muddy bass of the MS/MC. Maybe between these two it would be personal preference that would hold sway or the fact the MS/MC had that better toned mid.
    If I was on a really tight budget and had to choose between the £10 OH and the £20 MS/MC I would choose the former, YMMV.

    No scares for the Nordost, they still reign supreme, significantly, in my system, to my ears.


  • That is a bit disappointing, Chris.

    But top marks for 'snadge'. Defo Word of the Month so far here on Chews 
    :)>-
  • CJ,
    Thanks for the write-up.
    I can imagine your disappointment that MS/MC turned out to be not the significant step-up from the OH you'd hoped for.
    Heartening and credibility-boosting though that your ears were able to hear through any potential subconscious bias.
    What was the cable used in your OH design...? Apologies if you stated this earlier.

    As the Nordost probably cost over 10x as much, I suppose their continuing supremacy is OK. BTW I think I heard some Nordost cables at a hifi show about 15 years ago. I don't remember which ones. I do remember they were obviously the best in the A-B listening demonstration that was carried out (assuming that it was carried out honestly). But never owned any myself.
  • edited February 2017
    @DF

    The OH was another "professional instrument" cable with cheap but nice-looky-feely RCA plugs.

    The Nordost Blue Heaven i was approx. £150? in its day, which rose sharply through subsequent marks and models. I think they are £250 - £300 now? I try and track them down second hand for around £50. At that price they seem to be invincible!

    I used to sell the Nordost range back in my retail days and was always extremely impressed, particularly with the £/performance ratio of the Blue Heaven interconnects and speaker cables. The speaker cables, however, did not always suit the amp they were connected to. Red Dawn was the next model up at roughly twice the price, at the cost I wasn't totally convinced of their value.
    I most often partnered the BH interconnects along with the "Goldline" speaker cables, usually amounted to very good results.

    The prices of the new ranges are really scary though, wouldn't even consider them.

    I'm considering changing the plugs on the MS/MC, there's something nagging at me that they may not be all that they claim....
  • Top Wright up there Chris
    I'm surprised didn't get on better with the Klotz MC 5000 . Is there are so many reviews on AOS but that can be extremely misleading as the blind off and lead the blind or what ever else you want to call it
    I can't remember what cables I was using before the Klotz MC5000? But at the time my speakers were little harsh on the top end so maybe that's why I got along with them so well . I have since changed my tweeters which is transformed my speakers .
    All the best
  • Which tweeters did you go for James?
  • Ah, the old Golden-crown Warbler. Classic choice!
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