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Anybody here terminate DH Labs BL-1 cable?

I want to make sure I'm terminating these correctly.
They have 2 conductors, a drain wire and a shield.

For unbalanced RCA termination, 1 wire for signal, 1 wire for ground, and combine the drain on the ground wire?
Is that correct? Or is the drain only used for balanced connections?

Thanks,
Itsik
itsikhefez
williewonka
1,826 posts
 
itsikhefez - re: the mains connectors - I've tried a few of those as well and the Silver plated copper connectors from Sonar Quest provided exceptional performance.

The silver plating is quite thick and I am yet to see the copper after many connections to the mains supply and to my components.

The IEC connector clamps like a vice - so much so that I've found plugging it into an old component first helps make seating in it the working component a little easier when in the rack

Most connectors use brass pins/clamps, which is not the best material for conducting electricity.

I have also tried the gold plated copper from Sonar Quest and it is an extremely good "second choice", but the silver plated copper delivered the fastest dynamic response.

Here's a link 
SILVER PLATED COPPER...
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/SONAR-QUEST-CRYO-Ag-Audio-Grade-Silver-plated-IEC-plug-US-main-plug-sonarquest-/181355696313?hash=item2a39a450b9:g:J~oAAOxyhXRTKcHi

GOLD PLATED COPPER
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/SONAR-QUEST-CRYO-Audio-Grade-Gold-plated-IEC-plug-US-main-plug-sonarquest-/18...

If some readers consider the spiral helix architecture is a little too adventurous, braiding is another geometry I have tried, using the conductors from a piece of DH Labs Power Plus, Encore and even Furutech.

Granted, you have to "butcher" the cable to remove the three internal conductors from the sleeve + shielding, but the results were significant.

The acid test....
- I made up two power cables, one with Furutech and one with DH Labs bulk cable
- I then removed the three conductors from a 12 gauge extension cables from Home depot and braided them.
- all were terminated with the same mains/IEC connectors

The braided home depot cables provided deeper bass, faster dynamic performance and larger image than both the stock DH labs and Furutech cables

So I then butchered the Furutech and the DH Labs and braided the internal conductors - the results were extremely good and better than the Home Depot braided version

But the best architecture of all is still the Power Helix!

With braiding or the power helix architecture, you do not need to worry about a screen/shield, since the architecture actually rejects any RF that is present in a normal home audio environment. Recording studios may present more problems though.

Sorry to go on, but this is all the stuff I've experienced over the past 4 years - so I'd like readers to get to benefit from it :-)

Cheers
williewonka
1,826 posts
 
Based on your experience, do you think that would be worthwhile with the BL-1?
 Re Let's put it this way - the Copper Harmony will allow the BL-1 to perform to it's fullest potential.

They are also the easiest RCA's I've ever had to connect to a piece of wire.

You can always transfer the Copper Harmony to a better cable at a later date. I've connected some of my Harmony RCA's to different cables several  times.

Regards...

auxinput
1,538 posts
 

Just some additional comments. I have used the BL-Ag in the past, which is somewhat similar to BL-1, but uses 2 x 23awg solid-core silver. I have done the floating drain wire scenario, but I could never get the cable to sound open enough. I ended up just soldering both the 2 x 23awg solid-core conductors directly to the signal pin of the RCA and soldered the drain wire to ground on both sides of the cable. This really opened up the sound (a single 23awg conductor just sounded too closed in).

Since the BL-1 uses 2 x 20awg stranded conductors, you may not have this problem, but I’ve always found that larger awg will allow more punch/power in the bass and overall better open sound (essentialy, less resistance in the entire cable, and it’s easier and faster for the preamp/source to charge the cable when pushing waveforms). You could experiment with soldering both 20awg conductors to signal pin and soldering drain wire to ground on both sides of interconnect.

On my interconnects nowadays, I always use 2x20awg solid-core for signal conductors (making a 17awg interconnect). This has proved to be the best solution so far.

erik_squires
5,268 posts
 
Sorry Aux, it doesn't add up like that unless you mean your + and - each have a pair of 20 AWG conductors. :)

Just like with speaker cables. A single pair of 14AWG does not add up to a 12 AWG. :)

Erik
auxinput
1,538 posts
 

When I used the BL-Ag I was doing a single-ended RCA cable.  RCA only has one signal conductor, the other is just ground (not negative like an XLR).  Using just one of the 23awg conductors in BL-Ag for the main signal wire (and doing the ground/floating drain solution) was not enough for good sound.  It wasn't until I combined the two 23awg together for the signal wire that it really opened up the imaging/soundstage.  The drain wire was just soldered to ground on each end of the RCA cable.  The drain/ground wire does not necessarily need to be the same gauge as signal.  The ground wire on the RCA doesn't actually carry a signal - it just connects to the ground plane on both source/target circuits.

As far as my own cables are concerned, they are all balanced XLR anyways.  I use two sets of braided 20awg solid-core, so each XLR conductor (positive/negative/ground) has two 20awg wires (6 wires total in the cable).  This proved to be better than just using one braid of 20awg (3 wires total).

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