Pure Silver Headphone Cable

I managed to get some 24 AWG 99.99% pure silver wire (California Wire Company), so I made a headphone cable with it. I sleeved the cable in un-dyed cotton I got from Etsy. I braided the 4 sleeved wires to the Y, then sleeved the braid in techflex (wish I used clear heat shrink). I simply twisted the wired from the Y to the tips, and sleeved that in clear heat shrink purchased from eBay. Connectors are a balanced XLR 4-pin from Markertek and clone Lemo connectors from AliExpress.

Note on the XLR, I got the NC4MX. I highly recommend the NC4MXX. The XX is a little larger and feels better.

Even though the wire is solid core, the overall cable is quite flexible.

How does it sound? Well, this is my first pure silver cable. To me it sounds a bit "brittle", but not in a bad way. Everything seems a little tighter. So hard to tell. I'm comparing it to an 8 strand Mogami cable. Not a night and day difference to me.

I haven't heat shrunk the black and red at the tips since I'm not sure I will keep this for the utopia. I'm thinking I may re-terminate it for an HD6XX.

I re-terminated it for the HD6xx I got from MassDrop, and an HD600 I got used. I also replaced the techflex with clear heat shrink. Also works on the Fostex TH900mk2, although the plugs aren't perfect on the Fostex. I think the silver sounds a little more detailed on the Fostex. So hard to tell.

Cable cost:

• Wire: 13' @ $0.32/ft = $4.16 (I got a deal)

• Neutrik NC4MX-B XLR: $4.83 (Markertek)

  • next time I will get the NC4MXX-B XLR

  • note the extra "x" at the end of the model number

  • The XX version is newer, and a few center cheaper. More importantly, it feels more solid and looks better, IMHO.

• 4% Silver solder and misc heat shrink: $3.00

• Clear heat shrink: 2' @ $0.33/ft = $0.67 (Y to tips)

• Clear heat shrink: 5' @ $.255/ft =  $1.02 (main section)

• PlusSound Y splitter: $12.50 ($10 each + $5 shipping; I got 2)

• HD6xx connectors from ebay: $3.99/pr 

• Total cost: $30.17

• Labor: priceless

2017-12-10

Finished my "Candy Cane" cable for my Utopia. Silver only was too harsh. 24AWG solid silver for the hot, and 2 Mogami 26AWG wires for each ground. Does it sound sweet? sure!

The white is cotton sleeved solid core silver 24AWG. There are two of those, one for the hot on each channel. There are four red 26AWG wires. The red wires where loosely braided into one "rope", then I braided the "rope" and the two hot wires into a three strand braid unit the Y split. From there it's one cotton sleeved silver to the connector, with two red commons wrapped around it to the connector. At first I braided the three wires, but braiding two thin reds and one thick white looked yucky (sorry about the technical term).