Project for a -30F day, clean and recable

I purchased a box full of cables a couple of months ago.

After some research, and a couple of phone calls, I decided on Cables for Less sold out of Indiana, I purchased their mid point product.

In addition to their Chinese made stuff, they hand make cables using Belden, I could have done this myself with Belden's RG6 product and Gold plated RCAs they sell at a reasonable price. The mid point product has all the right buzz words inc gold plate and 15GA cable, so I lost my ambition and pulled out the credit card.

I spent hours today with DeOxit and a tooth brush cleaning the 25 years of crud off of the panel connectors on all of my gear. I need to remember to buy a bag of the large pipe cleaners for the pin socket on the RCAs. Hosed down all of the AC sockets too. Lacking pipe cleaners "I did the old in out" with and RCA jack and an AC plug.

The cabling is a lot neater since the new cables are 3ft, not 6ft, shielded with one layer not three, but it's one more than I had before. The power cords are routed on the outside of the rack and RCAs down the middle.

I can't say there is a huge sonic improvement........ or any at all. It doesn't sound worse and everything is clean and tight and now shielded.

Some of the panel jacks on the C-32 and 2205 Amp may be near the end of the road, plastic likes to dry out over time.

IMHO $100 well spent.

Have to love the C-32, the swiss army knife of pre-amps.

With all of the gear I have plugged in, the C-32 still has more capacity, what a great product.

Looks great. I did something similar this spring, more for visual consistency, appropriate lengths, less tangle, etc. I feel the new cables make it sound better, in about the same way I feel my car drives better right after I wash it.

Great Job!

rolltide said:

Looks great. I did something similar this spring, more for visual consistency, appropriate lengths, less tangle, etc. I feel the new cables make it sound better, in about the same way I feel my car drives better right after I wash it.

Click to expand...

The car is more aerodynamic minus the dirt specs........

I would like to think the electrons are now moving more freely through the cables....

Perhaps I should do a write up for the famous review site.......lets see it now sounds like a glass of fine wine......and the cables sound fast........well it's a start ..........I'll have to borrow more material from their next review.

As of this AM I have to report that there is one significant improvement.

I noticed my fav Jazz station sounded a lot better this AM.

Rolling the dial on the MR78, it's now pegging the needle on lots of stations all the way out to 35 miles.

This is what I was hoping for when I did my antennae project a couple of years ago, all Belden cable and nice mono pole and ground plane antennae at 38ft.

It could be the result of cleaning the RG6 connector on the back of the MR78, I really hosed it down with cleaner inside and out, or it could be that the copper conductor in the RG6 cable was bent completely to the side while it was out and my straightening job was inadequate leaving it bent slightly to one side. Thus making a solid contact inside the connector to what appears to be a foil membrane.

Ever since I made the decision to use UHF connectors on my mil spec gas arc fuses used for the antennas, I have wanted to replace the RG6 connectors on my receivers with UHF connectors. The radio guys have a special crimping tool they use with the male UHF connectors and RG8, perhaps it would work with RG6, you solder the antennae conductor to the UHF conductor. UHF connectors are approx $2 each, why weren't they used??

http://www.rfparts.com/connectors/connectors-uhf/uhf-pl259.html

That's a great somewhat unintended result. I'd wager the less shielded cables you were using in the rest of the system before could have possibly been polluting the FM signal as well.

Goes to show there's plenty of reasons to buy new cables at times even if the results aren't the dramatic, astounding, better-then-new-components differences some claim them to be.

rolltide said:

That's a great somewhat unintended result. I'd wager the less shielded cables you were using in the rest of the system before could have possibly been polluting the FM signal as well.

Goes to show there's plenty of reasons to buy new cables at times even if the results aren't the dramatic, astounding, better-then-new-components differences some claim them to be.

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IMHO definitely an unintended consequence, the stock connectors on our FM tuners suck big time. They are however slightly cheaper than the UHF ones.

This is what the shortwave HAMs use.....

http://swling.com/blog/2011/09/alinco-dx-r8t-review/