Preferred-Too

The 2nd interconnect of microphone cable

last updated 04-Oct-2003

Introduction

With all new equipment that I'm building I running into a shortage of interconnect cables. Because I have good experience with cables made of microphone cable I decided today to make some new interconnects.

In my local electronics shop (I was shopping for something completely different btw) I asked the salesman for 4 decent-but not to expensive RCA connectors. When he came back with these Altai connectors my next project had a start.

Of course these connectors are "gold plated" like everything else today, but after taking the connectors apart it shows that soldering and cable clamping were above average.

And since I was in the shop anyway I looked for some length of unbalanced quality microphone cable. The shop stocks microphone cable of Prefer, carbon screened and not too thin. I decided to build a pair of interconnects of 50 cm length.

My goal is to improve these interconnects over the first project made with Prefer cable. That's why I named it Preferred-Too, which sounds the same as Preferred-Two anyway.

What do you need?

1 meter of Prefer MGK-56 Microphone cable, it should be available in just about every electronics shop around the corner. ( €2.00 per meter). Here you find the link to the technical specifications of the manufacturer.
2 black (/left) and 2 red (/right) RCA connectors of for example Altai (€ 3.00 a piece)
Soldering iron with a small tip. Hobby knife and a small screwdriver.

Construction

Making of the interlinks does not require special skills other than some basic handling of soldering irons and hobby knifes etc. Strip about 2 cm of the sleeve and get the copper shield away. Now get another 1 cm off the inner central wire. Use some solder to get the shield and the signal wire tinned, because when soldering later you first bring the connector on the right temperature with some solder and only then bring the wires into place.

Remember though that the connector will become really hot therefore you need to heat it quickly, solder wires and then cool it after soldering to prevent damage to the plug. Therefore, I use a rubber (or so) sleeve which I put over the central pin and clamp the sleeve and pin in order to have my hands free for the soldering. After soldering I quickly remove the sleeve. The sleeve insolates the plug during heating (necessary to ramp up the temperature quickly) and when removed I clamp the bare pin which cools down quickly.

Since the Prefer cable is carbon shielded (and carbon is a conductor) you also have to remove the black carbon "tube" from the central wire. What remains is a clear insolation tube (PTFE) from the central tube.

On the picture on the right it is shown how the connector falls apart in three parts. put the back-end of the connector over the cable first, because if you forget it you have to take things apart later (and you'll curse yourself while doing that). Then you'll solder the front part of the plug after which the back-end needs to be shoved up tightly to the front part. Tighten the screw with a small screwdriver, and then fasten the silver cylinder over the front part.

Listening

I connected the Preferred-Too between the McStep and Tweety, (step-up transformer and phono amp) which is a very critical application where noise or humm are easily introduced.

Compared to cheap black interconnects the preferred-Too does a better job. I did not measure anything (yet) but to my ears it showed less noise when used in the setup above.

Anyway, listening to a few of my favourite records it's clear that Preferred Too is nothing to be ashamed of and although I prefer the vdHul 102-III for the moment I do not think that the difference is earth-shaking or so.

More Preferred Cable

Just for comparison below you find a short list of Prefer cable I used in my interconnect projects:

Prefer MK-106, Twin-core Low-Noise Microphone Cable. This was the cable originally used for the "Preferred"interconnects. Datasheet values: Capacitance 85pF/m and resistance of 125 Ohms/km.
Prefer MGK-56, Carbon Screened, unbalanced en single-core microphone cable. This is the cable I used in this project. The datasheet mentiones 105pF/meter and resistance of 100 Ohms/meter for the core and 27 Ohms/Meter for the shield which is used for signal return/ground.
Prefer MGK-226, Carbon Screened, Twin-core Microphone Cable. This Prefer cable has a double screen with carbon and copper. The cable has a capacity of 65pF a meter and a resistance of 130 Ohms per km. This means that it is usable for larger lengths. Since I had two meters on the shelve I built myself two perfect interconnects.
Prefer MGK 6, Carbon Screened, Single Core High End
Prefer MGK-18, Carbon Screened, single core low noise/loss cable.

Which cable is my favourite? Difficult to say as it is dependent on the application and also on the connectors used. The Preferred-Too based on the MGK-56 has a slight preference over the others partly because it has the better connectors. Recently I built the MGK-18 version with high-end connectors and this one may be the best buy today.

For Improvement

There is always room for improvement, and I'm the first one to admit that very expensive high-end interconnects will possibly provide better sound quality. But for the money this is a no-brainer, €14.00 for a pair of interconnects is not too much.

Conclusion

At the moment we're listening for more than two weeks to several different versions of the Preferred Too interconnect: One based on the MGK-56 cable and one on the MGK-226. Pricing is equal for both cable and both cables do not add to the sound of the equipment, have a low internal resistance and capacity and are therefore useful to build longer interconnects or turntable interconnects. For those looking for an economic alternative to expensive brand interconnects I do recommend building one yourself.

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