My First DIY Power Cable

You didn’t say which component you are planning to power with your cable. IME, high current power amps and even preamps like large wires while digital front end components can get by with less copper but do better with good shielding.

Also IME, the Furutech stuff works quite well for simple DIY, and Eric made a good observation about the current 20% off ac products sale at Partsconnexion. I like the Furutech unplated copper plugs and IECs. As for the power cable, Furutech has a variety and I am not familiar with all of them. I have used the FP-3TS20 (14awg) and found it to be a good basic cable for front end components and preamps. For power cables I like having more copper so you might check out this 10awg Oyaide Oyaide Tunami V2 cable that is available from VH Audio. I made two of them and IME, they sound great but the wire is really stiff. I suspect this Neotech NEP-3200 OCC Copper Power Cable from VH Audio would also be great for amplifiers.

If you are more adventurous, you could consider making cables using NOS Western Electric wire like this 10awg twisted pair. I have not purchased from this seller but the pictured wire looks authentic. Put a tinned braided shield (or, Interference-Shielding Expandable Sleeving) over the pair and counter-spiral a 10awg ground wire, connect the shield at the plug end only, connect the other wires at both ends, cover with techflex and you have a nice PC for your amplifier at a very low cost. BTW, that is the same Western Electric wire used by TWL in their well-regarded American series power and speaker cables. I use doubled up runs (7awg) for the two PCs powering my amplifiers, but they are difficult to terminate when doubled. You might also look at this website for some interesting DIY cable configurations that seem to be popular.

Good luck.

I'm the same way about Furutech.  Rhodium connectors are one of the worst conductors, you might as well uses nickel. The difference is nickel/lead RCAs need to be cleaned but is a lot softer. Rhodium is for severe enviro conditions, and it looks pretty. It's WAY to hard on non Rhodium connectors. Red copper or silver over copper. I'd use gold plating over red copper as a 3rd pick. The rest has it's place but never in audio use..

Automotive or heavy equipment, yes.. It's part of my job making cable (s) for just about any mobile or trackable equipment. We use Rhodium around salt or brackish water.

BTW their is a direction on the cable, you have to look at it under a 100-1000x. You'll see how it was pushed through the extrusion dies. That is the single best thing you can do to build your cable. Get the direction right, don't touch the exposed wire with your hands/fingers and use contact enhancers before you tighten the securement screws. Get the thinnest shrink tube you can find and use braided armor. There is a conductive armor that be used in a grounding / shield app. I personally don't use that type of mumbo jumbo. I've used battery packs to check the nulls in cable when it's buried in lattice or 100 feet in the air. It proves there are NO leaks for the lack of a better term. Other than that it's a worthless test as far a sound goes..

Cables are easy to make. Follow the rules and you'll build a BETTER cable than you can buy for 10X the money..

@jbuhl - Since it is your first DIY Power Cable and you are on a budget I would recomment the following

1. SonarQuest Silver plated Copper mains connectors
   • they sell on Ebay for around $40/pair and the IEC connector grips like a vice
2. for the live and neutral conductors use 12 (or 14) gauge Neotech Stranded UP-OCC wire with teflon insulation
3. for the ground wire, 12 (or 14) gauge stranded copper wire from Home Depot sill suffice
4. Braid the three wires together to form the cable
5. use cheap spades from any suto supply store on all wires
6. you can use the nylon expandable sleeve to finish the cable off

This will get you a very good power cable with the minimal of effort.

The UP-OCC stranded copper wire is very good because it can take a lot of bending/handling and still provide excellent performance

The solid UP-OCC copper wire with Teflon insulation is better, but it is more dificult to handle

The cables in DIY Helix Cables Website are among the very best out there, but are a little more complex to build.

• But if you choose to go that route I can answer any questions you may have
• because it is my web site 😎

Hope that helps - Steve

Regardless of brand, Rhodium is a terrible surface plating for electrical conductors. It's just too hard a material for a good grip, and not that good a conductor.  It is however very shiny and pretty to look at. 

And I'm going to gripe about Furutech forever. :)

Rhodium connectors are one of the worst conductors, you might as well uses nickel.

Have you ever tried a rhodium plated connector?!?! (after 300 hour burn in, that is).  I do understand that rhodium is very low down on the list with regards to conductivity, but that is only part of the story.  You really need to listen to how rhodium plated elements sound.  In many many experiments, rhodium plated connectors is the only way to get the highest amount of resolution and transparency.  Gold plated connectors have a warmer sound and you lose high frequencies as well as deep tight bass.  Silver/silver-plated will be bright because they tend to push the upper mids, but they do not have very good ultra-high frequencies and the bass is typically weak.

One approach is to use silver/silver-plated wires with unplated or gold-plated connectors.  However, the best result is using pure copper conductors with rhodium plated connectors.