Joe offered to review my cables publicly in a shoot-out thread that he already has running. I'm 100% confident that these things will ahem... kick ass regardless of the fact that for the time being they're selling for under 100 dollars shipped which is quite a steal.
These are going out Monday and I look forward to his impressions!
I had initial teething issues with fit, but now I'm confident that I can start selling these en masse. These are pinned for the Jerry Harvey Audio line of custom in-ear monitors in my flavor of silver wire. Ted builds the connectors by hand, it was his ingenuity and craftsmanship in his hand made connectors that makes these IEM cables possible. Being handmade, they'll start out good and only get better the more we make right? We've got the TF10, Westone, and Shure cables NAILED though!
I figure I don't post up enough of these even though they sell like hotcakes so here we go!
There are all for one of our first supporters, John "Anderoan" of Head-Fi. He's a great guy to talk to and I enjoy the PM's we send back and forth! How come Ted got homemade jam, I want some too man!
Now see, I don't understand why they're called Grado "LABS" if they've been making caveman simple, yet excellent headphones since before the internet was invented and just been tweaking it little by little every 2-3 years.
Anyway I was very sloshed one night off of Stone Brewing's Ruination IPA and I accidently disconnected the solder pad. Usually this is very easy to avoid. One phone call to Grado and the next day my headphones are sent off for repair. Having them upgraded to the SR125i cups and cable too!
I had to pay a very meager sum of money considering that I would just straight up pay for these upgrades myself so kudos to Grado for taking care of one of their biggest fans!
It's odd that even with the newer orthodynamics that are out, you still have the diehard Grado fans who will listen to nothing else! I was originally looking for a DT880, but I ended up liking the SR325is I heard in a store the other day so maybe I'm going to go that route instead haha.
So uh I've been fairly busy these days, I met a guy named Jin on Head-Fi who made what appeared to be really simple and awesome headbands for Grados, I asked if he wanted to distribute his products on my page as a courtesy to show the appreciation for his stuff, and he offered to do it vice versa! His HTML skills are vastly superior to mine apparently though -_____-
He has a fairly large fanbase compared to mine too!
Looking at possible small-scale distribution opportunities for any headphone, IEM, or interconnect cables to take this project to the next level, I've received a couple offers already which I am fully considering, so I just wanted to put this out there publicly for anybody looking for new friends haha.
Imagine a vast clone army of these in various configurations..
UP-OCC silver attached to some once-ordinary Grado SR-60's
It's 7:30AM, I'm really hungry. I could go make cereal right now which would be virtually silent while everybody is sleeping (carry the treasure back into my room and make it),
OR... OR...
I could go all out, make a bacon/cheese/avocado omelette with some steak tips right now (omelette skills are crucial to woman courtship at my age), which would not only wake 4 people in my house up from the sound, but from the smell.
"...When cable is twisted it becomes capacitive, which accentuates the low end while suppressing the highs to a certain degree. In a headphone cable, the tighter the twist the more prevalent this phenomenon becomes. Braiding a wire has a different effect on the signal put through it, which causes it to have the brighter sound. A friend of mine once explained in detail the phenomenon that exists with a braided cable, but as I'm not someone with a firm knowledge of electrical theory I forgot how it works. " -Van Jensen, one of my customers
I'll be honest, I've literally never had a decent explanation other than "it's silver, and it's more conductive" but apparently it's also been a fluke due to how we had been making them too!
I didn't believe myself that the litz braid displayed here had such a profound effect alongside the silver until now...
I thought braiding it was just putting more work and love into a cable but alas, sound tells everything!
I know I forgot to get pictures of some stuff, but you get the idea by now! They're made of silver and they're for IEM's lol. Whew I think thats all the orders for this week! Now off to go have a nice lunch, thank you for all your support guys and be sure to PM me your feedback!
SE535 in Mundorf silver/gold blend for Donzash
Westone ES cables for Randy for his Etymotic ER4/S (via adapter)
Ted and I have been so friggin' busy these past few days! Here is the latest sprint of in-ear monitor cables for your viewing pleasure, these will be updated in my Picasa albums as well!
UP-OCC gold plated copper YEAH THATS RIGHT (pics don't show, but it's quite gold) Ultimate Ears TF.10 cables for Leonard in Malaysia!
Thanks for waiting buddy!
Rayner wanted an Ultimate Ears TF.10 cable, got his friend to jump on 'em who had Shure SE215's! Now I don't know the sonic benefits of silver against the Shures, so hopefully excellent!
Mr. Jensen's JH Cable
Pandab55 (Derrick) is getting his interconnect game pimped to match those sweet TF.10 cables
Pics do not do this pair justice (why do they look white)
Grado cables for Tool462
AGAIN I have no idea how they turned out white, all my cables are very much silver.
(Please send me pics when this is all done!)
So lately my page has been getting a lot of foreign interest. The interwebz is crazy.
I just want to publicly state that I ship to anybody, anywhere. USPS has a 100% hit rate for me, haven't lost a package, some things have been rerouted, but everybody makes mistakes :D
I'm very flattered that I have support from people around the globe now and I want to do everything to make sure everybody gets their headphone cables in a timely manner! Usually I can ship to most places and get you your stuff within 5-7 days depending on your location from me. Overseas companies have trouble getting me stuff within 2 weeks.
Thanks for the support guys, take care and have a good one.
I'll get to postin' pics soon...
Shure SE215 cables for Rayner in Singapore!
(He also has a pair of TF.10 cables going to him)
So some of you guys have been waiting for some stuff, I'm going to ship out a buttload of product tomorrow to all my patient supporters who've been patiently waiting to receive their sound tubes from me! Thats good news and bad, the good is that I finally got to it, the bad is that it's not within my desirable time frame.
I apologize for any grievances this may have caused you, it ultimately came down to logistics due to a delay in the supply chain. That was a lot of big words in one sentence. (I'm edjumakated)
Anyway, due to the interest that this page has generated, I am able to afford supplies to be able to maintain inventory, versus ordering small batches of plugs and stuff. In short: "Zombie_X" from head-fi came through and he's supplying us with enough materials to supply all the good boys and girls with thingamajiggers for their headphones and IEM's for a while! Thanks buddy, you're definitely one of the good guys!
I have like a bajillion of these things coming now.
+500 Chris points to Zombie_X of "Zombie X Amateur Cables"
I'll have pics of the latest cables to leave the forge. Big gigantic thanks to Ted too, I couldn't have chosen a better and more reliable person to work with and this wouldn't have been possible without him working side by side with me. (I know you read my blog dude)
I have a few of these suckers coming in too kekeke
Anyway, from the bottom of my heart thank you to everybody who's made this possible, I promise no more delays, and I hope you all enjoy the rest of your week :)
I uh... didn't make my picasa albums viewable so unfortunately you guys haven't been able to see the gallery of all my previous work. Those pics were available on my Head-Fi account though so maybe some of you guys saw it...
Boarding flight USPS Priority to a certain somebody
So after starting my blog and the interest that followed it, some people have had to wait a week so far for me to ship their cables out, I've contacted most of you guys out there or informed you guys beforehand but I want to extend a warmhearted thank you to all of you who have been so patient!
I might have a big update for you guys in the coming weeks, thanks for following my blog and liking me on Facebook! Once you guys get me to 25 likes, I can get my custom URL from facebook! Not like facebook is even that important mind you, just another cool milestone.
A little background about myself as a headfi member.
Recently I have become more fascinated with improving the quality of the sound of the music I listen to. I am now in my early 30's, and the last time I was this interested in audio equipment was 10+ years ago when I was in college and wanted a nice "system" for my truck. Fortunately now, I am a member of the headfi community and have finally come across something that has compelled me to write a review for all of you to read. Take it easy on my amateur review...when it comes to exact details and things of the like, I am no expert.
I have been using a set of triple.fi 10's for two years now. As I became more informed about upgrading cables from reading the boards, I naturally wanted to spend my hard earned money getting better sound from my IEM's. Scouring the boards, I saw that there are a few places that sell cables and it seems as if most of those places are located in China and customer service can be pretty spotty. SO after reading I saw that some members were raving about custom cables made by the user Chris_himself located in my state of CA...I PM'd him and asked him to make me cable for my triples.
My experience with him began on a positive note because he literally responded with a price that was very reasonable compared with the companies in China(he was much cheaper). He asked me lots of detailed questions of what I wanted. Being new to this, I told him to make me something good and I would spend a little extra as long as I liked it. I was SUPER skeptical that silver cord could really make a difference. Boy was I pleasantly surprised that I was wrong. The silver cable he made me not only looks cool, but more importantly it gave new life to my triple.fi's and made my music pop. Every bit of sound was improved. The highs, lows and especially mids. I dont know if this is a by product of upgrading cables, but it seems as if I don't need to turn the volume up on my iphone/ipad/amp anymore. I find myself cutting the volume by 20-30% with the new cables vs. the stock. I absolutely love this upgrade and Chris_himself has satisfied my desire to upgrade my IEM's...for now. I listen to a wide variety of music, but I gauge how much I like the sound using Dave Matthews.
If you are at all curious about upgrading, I strongly recommend using Chris_himself. You can learn from him, as he is very helpful. I can say that if my cables have any problems I have full confidence that he will make it right.
Some specs according to him: (I don't know anything about this stuff, all I care about is what sounds good to me)
28AWG 99.99997% Solid Core Silver in a Litz braid twisted in black and clearPolished Yak bone Y-connect that he makesCyro-parts Carbon fiber gold plated mini-plugCusom hand rolled epoxy connectors with 24k gold plated nickle alloy pins.
Originally I never made a headphone cable, we (Ted and I) only did IEM cables because it was what we were good at, it had a very low failure rate, and we could make them look relatively good and/or better than the other people overseas with 2-3 week lead times to the US.
Until I ran into Sawyer60, I never really thought of doing a DIY Grado kit. From the looks of it, he hadn't touched a soldering iron before and look at him go! He basically just got an IEM cable minus connectors + some wood bits and look how it turned out!
Lookin' great buddy and I totally dig the grill mod. Very SR-225i-esque He wanted a square wood plug cover too which was new to me at the time but I think it looks totally cool lol. He's had the cable for a few months and it would appear he's more than pleased with the outcome!
"I'm going to blame you for my smile wrinkles two weeks from now! Took me 45 minutes to disassemble everything, I chose to use the hairdryer rather than the steam method (seems safer) and the sautering took about 15 to carefully do it. To reassemble I just put the two cups together, applied the heat from the hair dryer and SMOOSH, good as new! The best part from all this was when I put the headphones on themselves and listened to some of my music and immediately I noticed the difference in sound and complexity, I'm so tremendously thankful and in debt to you! Thanks for everything!" -Sawyer60
Looks like the Grado and cable pair seems worth the effort!
Just got back from the movies and finished replying to e-mails and PM's in my box. THOSE DT-880's WILL BE MINE SOMEDAY. I got some really awesome offers, the best being a 600-ohm "Premium" for like 180 bucks! Just gotta work hard and be extra grateful to my supporters!
Watch it. It's really good.
RotPotA Trailer. I'm going to popularize that acronym before the movie stops playing in theatres.
I hate Calculus. There is a guy who is mouth breathing really hardcore (loud) right next to me right now. Time to compete with my own mouth breathing! I should find other hobbies....
I can let this go for 110 shipped to your door, let me know if you want a 1/4" plug on the end!
IEM Cable for UE/Westone/JHA/Shure/Etymotic**
(Gonna have to think of an interesting name for these later)
46" of raw hot 28AWG 6N OCC silver forged from the fires of Mt. Doom. It can only be destroyed in the fires in which it was made. No seriously though, this is pretty tough stuff, I haven't had a breakage yet due to the wire coming apart.
Amboyna Wood y-connect and slider
I haven't connected a plug for this yet so it's up to you guys what you want. I really like the DHC/ZXAC plug and the Cryoparts carbon fiber for a dressier cable, but Neutrik 3.5mm straight or right angle works just fine for me!
I can ship this to US/EU/CA for 65! :)
**Etymotic requires you to buy an adapter to run Westone pins, I don't currently have access to stock Ety pins for now.
Also check out this awesome video I found about a cat.
People have been nagging to have me write about my stuff and my opinions on various things so I just spent like the last hour trying to figure out how this confangled interwebs thing works GRRR! I hate the word "blog" but here I am. Stupid conformer...ism..ist..whatever
But here I am, post #1 and I'd like to introduce myself.
My name is Chris obviously, I can be found on Head-Fi.org. My favorite headphones are Grados and my favorite IEM's are Etymotic and Westone. and I recently became really attracted to headphone modding and recabling so I do it mainly as a hobby and a way to pass time.
I'm nearing 1k posts on Head-Fi, I can't believe it's been 4 years since I joined. I was 17 when I started posting and I can't believe how far this has taken me!
I'm a student at San Jose State University and I study materials engineering and materials sciences. Basically just GOBS of nerdy stuff about what stuff is made of and how to make the stuff that makes other stuff!
Hope I can have interesting things to post in the future!
