Anybody here terminate DH Labs BL-1 cable?

The drain is in contact with the shield across the length of the cable. It IS the contact for the shield. You never solder or crimp to a delicate foil shield like this directly.

Connect the drain at 1 end only, and place it towards the source for best RF removal with RCA cables.

With balanced, of course, you connect the drain wire to pin 1 and the outer casing.

Great, thanks for the help! You confirmed what I thought.

Re: the c7 connectors lack of ground, connect the ground lead at the mains plug only and cut it short at the c7 end.

It provides a little floating shield effect.

Regards

Since itsikhefez and Erik_Squires both appear to be quite comfortable with DIY projects, I thought I’d share the links to the interconnect and power cables that I now use throughout my system.

http://image99.net/blog/files/4127b5fe2694586e383104364360373b-74.html

http://image99.net/blog/files/be8de0c383c5434907610d6b55049e69-75.html

They outperform some high priced commercial products (exceeding $2k) from some very big names that I have also tried in my system.

With the IC’s, I have experimented with many permutations of conductor type and RCA plugs over the past few years, from inexpensive CAT6 conductors for all conductors, to the more pricey conductors used in the articles, which I found outperformed all other combinations. The one constant in later iterations of their design were the KLE Innovations RCA plugs. I would recommend starting with the Silver Harmony as a minimum starting point. The price for the hardware recommended in the article is around $300 for a one meter pair. They can also work extremely well as Digital interconnects and with the added benefit that the Copper harmony can be used without any loss in SQ. I also use the Absolute harmony on my turntable leads because they convey exquisitely fine details no other RCA that I have tried can compete with.

The power cables take a little more effort, but a 5ft cable is priced somewhere between $100 (using DH Labs Power Plus bulk cable) and $200 (using Furutech 10 gauge Cable) for the live conductor and the IEC/Mains connectors specified

One thing all these cables require is sufficient burn in...
- Power Cables - at least 60 hours before they start to sound their best
- Interconnects - They start off sounding very good, but then SQ degrades a little from 35-55 hours, but then start to really shine around the 80 hour mark and just keep getting better after that.

The one drawback with these Interconnects - they resolve to extremely fine levels of detail and although you will notice a difference from installing just one set of cables between two components like a DAC and an integrated amp, but if your system has a pre-amp + power amp you would have to install a set between these two components also in order to hear them at their very best.

Net Result...
- a much deeper and more controlled bass performance
- unsurpassed clarity across the entire frequency range
- extremely fast dynamics across the entire frequency range
- a holographic image that dissolves the walls of your listening room
- a color-free presentation with exquisitely natural timbres
- extremely fine details that recreates the realism of the recording venue

As for speaker cables - I use the KLE Innovations gZero6 model.- I have not yet tried building a helix version because I require a 10 ft pair and that gets a little tricky to build.

I found these cables elevated the performance of my modest $14k (CDN) system, surpassing systems exceeding $50k, so as you might guess - I’m a pretty happy listener :-)

One very surprising observation - my components run significantly cooler using these cables - strange, but true.

Start with one pair and see where it takes you :-)

Are there better cables out there? probably, but at what cost?

Enjoy

FYI - the prices/costs mentioned above are what the parts will cost you to DIY

I do not build cables for other people - it’s strictly DIY

Apologies for any confusion