Making Your Own Audio Cables

[You_are_a_cunt]

Recently @UnlimitedTMD asked about making his own 3.5mm audio cables and I offered to get this small guide rolling. So lisen gud, this is how it done!

 

Difficulty: Very Easy

Time required: 5 minutes

Tools required:

• soldering iron
• solder
• optional: heatshrink

Materials required:

• audio cable
• 3.5mm jacks x2

 

The guide

 

Let's talk connectors first.

 

Your garden variety 3.5mm jack looks like this:

You'll immediately notice it has 3 sections: the tip, the ring and the sleeve. Why's that?

Well, this particular plug is stereo. The mono plugs only have the tip and the sleeve.

As we (should) already know, you need a positive lead and a negative lead. But wait, why are there only 3 sections if we need 2 for each channel? Well, the negative lead is common for both channels, hence the need for only 3 sections. The 4-section plugs you'll see on your phone headset has a 4th because it needs a positive connection for the microphone. We'll only focus on stereo plugs for now.

 

On to cables!

Since we're only making a male-to-male 3.5mm jack cable, we'll need a 3-lead cable, something like this:

 

 

This particular one is shielded (image is off google, so I couldn't be able to tell you how much it would cost), but most electronics stores or audio stores should carry at least some variation of this.

You'll want to use the "naked" lead as the common negative, red for a channel and right for the other one (this is up to you)

I found this rough wiring guide for audio cables.  We're looking at the balanced wiring (first diagram). You'll notice that you connect each section of one plug to the corresponding section on the other one.

 

An easier, more bite-sized diagram would be this:

 

 

This diagram is pretty much everything you need to know regarding 3.5mm to 3.5mm cables and their wiring, and remember to connect the sections to their corresponding ones on the second connector.

But, how long can I make my cable?

Upon a bit of research, I stumbled onto this nifty table:

 

 

So, for our little project we'll want to keep it under 15m so we don't have to deal with audio degradation over a cable that is too long. Please take this with a grain of salt, since quality will depend on how good the cable you're using is.

I generally keep my cables under a couple of meters, since I don't generally need anything longer than that. For connections that are longer than 10m I usually use an amplifier that can send enough power through the cables to power the speakers (and since I'm using an amp I'm not using tiny, crappy speakers).

 

Feel free to point out anything I missed or ask questions.

 

Have fun and keep making stuff!

 

As usual, I take requests for guides and tutorials. Just PM me here or leave a comment on my personal blog.

 

Shameless plug: This guide is also featured on my own personal blog, here.

[QueenDemetria]

A DIY cable needs a good braid:

(not mine, found it on the DIY Cable thread on Head-Fi)

[You_are_a_cunt]

1 minute ago, QueenDemetria said:

A DIY cable needs a good braid:

(not mine, found it on the DIY Cable thread on Head-Fi)

That's for people that have too much time on their hands

Awesome looking but helluva time eater

[Minzo]

11 minutes ago, revsilverspine said:

That's for people that have too much time on their hands

Awesome looking but helluva time eater

Shouldn't take THAT long time right? It isn't very long.

[Darel321]

time eater?? .. maybe if you never soldered anything...

[You_are_a_cunt]

1 hour ago, Minzo said:

Shouldn't take THAT long time right? It isn't very long.

if you get it right the first time, maybe

1 hour ago, Darel321 said:

time eater?? .. maybe if you never soldered anything...

ain't no soldering involved in braiding cables, lel

[UnlimitedTMD]

Thanks for the guide mate, really appreciate it

[You_are_a_cunt]

3 minutes ago, UnlimitedTMD said:

Thanks for the guide mate, really appreciate it

No problem. Let me know if there's anything that needs further explaining

[fabiosapplou]

Does anyone know where to buy these connectors?

Thanks.