This thread started from another where users were showing off their custom cables. It is fairly difficult to find good resources for a fair price online when building custom cable solutions. I have found luck at the places I have listed below. Please post your favorite places to buy individual parts for building custom headphone cables (Connectors, cables, Splitter, etc.).
Connectors:
Amazon Neutrik Connectors: can’t beat Amazon for their shipping and reliability. The Neutrik connectors are Prime eligible and fairly inexpensive. Not the highest of quality or best looking but they are very easy to solder and work with. Perfect for beginners.
AV Outlet ViaBlue Connectors: These are high quality connectors at a reasonable price. If you buy in larger quantities the shipping costs are more reasonable.
Eidolic Connectors: Great looking and high quality. Expensive and there is a minimum purchase for shipping. Does anyone have a better place to buy these?
Eidolic Splitters: High quality aluminum and carbon fiber splitters. Expensive and there is a minimum purchase for shipping. Does anyone have a better place to buy these?
Cable:
Mogami 2582: Very good cable with shielding. I found it here at Redco Audio, and sometimes you can find it in smaller quantities for cheaper on Ebay
Sleeving:
Paracord: Very easy to use and cheap. I recommend the 275 paracord (3/32 diameter). Using this to individual wrap your cables and then braid together.
Mod-One MDPC-X: Very good looking cable sleeving and easy to apply. Bit more expensive than the Paracord. The medium cable sleeving will fit a full non separated Mogami 2582 with shielding. The smaller version is good for individual wire strands but offers less shielding. Not good for analog applications.
One of the big challenges with building your own cables, especially if you only do one or two, here or there, is that the shipping charges can often exceed the cost of the parts you’re buying. $40 in parts can easily come with $30 in shipping fees for a one-off build!
Places/stuff I like to use:
Connectors:
Neutrik 3 and 4-pin XLRs, which I buy from Redco. They’re pretty much an industry standard connector and by far the easiest to work with for beginners, in my opinion.
Furutech is my preference for Headphone Connectors, as well as source/amp connectors, and I get those either from Sonic Craft or Parts Connexion. I also use Eidolic connectors in a couple of cases - generally where Furutech don’t offer the connector I need - and those come from either DHC or Norne.
For the LEMO connectors used by the Utopia I buy from Mouser.
Splitters:
I’ve used the Eidolic splitters for builds with narrower cable gauges, but they’re a pain to get the wire through if you’re doing anything fancy. I don’t bother with them for anything but simple braided cables or IEM builds anymore.
The Furez and ViaBlue splitters, via AV Outlet, are very easy to use, if a bit bigger than is ideal for a headphone cable. And the Furez stuff has hidden set screws as well as being available in a multitude of entry/exist diameters and counts.
Cable:
Canare and Mogami via Redco for the simpler builds. Their microphone cable (Star Quad) is a good way to get started, either used as intended or stripped apart for the individual conductors.
The more exotic wire I use in my high-end builds is custom sourced and you need to be prepared to buy thousands of feet at a time in order to get it at all, but reasonable alternatives are available from both Norne and DHC, especially their litz-stranded wire (requires a solder pot to use).
Sheathing/Sleeving/Heatshrink:
Paracord, when I use it, comes from Paracord Planet - you can get this via Amazon but they have a nasty habit of not getting the exact color you order … as there are, for example, many variations of “Purple” and the Acid Purple you ordered might not be what you get … so ordering direct gets around that.
For “Tech Flex” (and similar) expandable sheathing as well as heatshrink I like WireCare, though I would not use “Tech Flex” or similar products for headphone cables … it’s much too stiff and microphonic. It’s great for USB cables or interconnects though.
If you see something in one of my builds (in this thread) that isn’t available from one of those sources … it’s probably that I’m custom fabricating it (or having it done for me).
VH Audio: The site looks a little shady but Chris is great to talk to and I’ve found awesome sale prices on connectors there ($40 for KLE Copper Harmony 4x set at one point).
Markertek: Great for some stuff like Neutrik connectors because they have decent prices and free shipping.
I like the screw-on 1/8 and 1/4 inch connectors, which are readily available on eBay.
I got MiniXLR Connectors (e.g. for Audeze) from Amazon.
For the cable I liked Silicone Hook-up Wire, which I just braid and leave unsleeved since the individual silicone sleeves are plenty robust and look good enough. Also available on Amazon.
I picked up some cheap heatshrink from Amazon as well.
For solder, I ended up using leaded solder from Amazon because I’m just not skilled enough to use the lead-free stuff with the higher melting point. I don’t love having lead around though.
Being a prime member, shipping on Amazon is kind of a non-issue
I can second this - Ian at Cosmic is an absolute pleasure to deal with and goes out of his way to help out.
We don’t have a huge choice of places in the UK, but Cosmic is easily the best one I’ve had any experience with
Nice work, and I particularly like the fact you used heat shrink on the twisted pair going to the headphones. Not everyone knows to keep the twists uniform but the heat shrink is a fine way to do that.
Your braiding looks nice and uniform as well.
What sleeve alternatives exist that are less mechanically noisy? I’ve found Paracord to be very very scratchy and this transmits whether it’s IEMS or even headphones
