An Interlink made of 99.99% pure Silver

Probably sounds better than Norit©

last modified on December 14, 2001 being translated from Dutch

This project is a direct result of building my own tube amp. During the building phase of the amp I realized that tube-fanatics may use less components than solid state fans, but the components are often of highest quality available.

I recently built my own tube amplifier and plan to use it for all music sources. However, I’m still dependant on the phono preamplifier in my old Philips integrated amp since the tube amp does not contain a phono in. For this phono amp I bought some meters of pure silver wire, and people recommended me to upgrade the internal wiring of the UL-40 tube amp as well with silver wire.  

Therefore it was not more than logical to me to use silver wire for the interlink between turntable, phono pre-amp and the power amp as well. So I ordered another 5 meters of silver wire to make interlinks of.

TriodeDick, designer of the scratch phono equaliser and Stefan of the Hear forum and several other of hifi newsgroups all make use of fine silver for interlinks. What was special about Dicks desgin is the use of PTFE tube as an insolator for the silver wire. Silver wire up to one meter in length can be easily inolated using the thin PTFE tube. Because I wanted to have each wire to be individually insolated (to avoid short circuit) I decided to stay close to Triode Dick’s design when building my own interlink.

At the moment, I use an interlink of van den Hul: The First Ultimate as the interconnect between my Cdplayer and the amp. The First Ultimate is made of thousands of carbon fibers and I together with many othe think it is a very good interlink with sweet sound that is never harsh in treble.

The First Ultimat edoes not have a metal shield, and for this and other reasons I’m curious whether there is room for improvement with my own interlink.

What do you need?

The following components are needed for building a pair of 60cm interlinks:

·        3 meters pure silver wire of 0.8 mm, costs are about Hfl 8.53/meter ( AE Europe in Schagen NL)

·        3 meters of PTFE tube isolator for the silver wire, also available from  AE for Hfl 3.27/meter.

·        4 cinch connectors. I built mu pair using Neutrik connetors. The go for about Hfl 19.00/piece.

·        1.20 meter aquarium tube (available at the pet place) use max 6 mm diameter. Costs: Hfl 2.50/meter

·        1.50 meter very rigid coax cable (type RG-213/U-BX) using a high-quality copper screening. (Hfl 3.75/meter, available  en verkrijgbaar bij electronica zaken.

·        PTFE tape, available from your local plumber (Hfl 3.30 on a roll of 15 meters).

·        Two pieces of crimp sleeve of 4 cm each (Hfl 7.25/meter in several fashionable colours)

·        Patience, a clean desk, soldering iron etc...

Total costs for building a pair of interlinks is about Hfl 130,-- ($55)

How to build it

According to other who made similar interlinks from fine silver, before working with the silver wire one should first put the silver in an ofen for about two hours (250 C) and after that slowly cool down with 50° C a quarter. This process is called “ontlaten” in Dutch and I do not know the English translation (will look up, promised)

Although I’m pretty skeptical about this heating process, I was under no time pressure at all so I gave it a try.

Cut the 3 meters of silver wire and the PTFE in 4 pieces of 75 cm each. Use some kitchen paper to clean the silver wire and straighten it which will ease the process of getting the silver wire inside the PTFE tube. Up to about 1 meter of silver wire can be isolated this way without any special tools. According to some people on newsgroups/forums it may be better to clean the silver wire first with cleaner and then rinse with destilled water. After that some even use a transparent laquer in order to prevent the silver from oxidizing.

Well, since I’s told that silver-oxide is a very good conductor, equal to silver itself, I won’t apply any finishing to the silver since such a solution might be worse than the original problem.  

Now take the desired length of tube and fixate two pieces of PTFE insulated wire with a piece of tape. Make sure that the two silver wires are always opposite of each other. After this, start twisting the two wires around the tube in a slow motion, one turn around the tube in 10 centimeters is fine. If necessary, use tape to prevent the wires to move too much.

Now take the PTFE tape and start wrapping the cable. Make sure that the tape is overlapping each round and wrap the tape real tight. This way, the cable will be completely mummified and the leads will not be able to move anymore.

Take the RG213 coax cable and cut with a very sharp knife the jacket over the full length. Be careful not to damage the metal shiels inside, as that is the only component we are interested in. After the jacket is completely removed, the shield can be rubbed of quite easily by compressing it a little which makes the diameter a little larger.

Handle the shield with care, by keeping is compressed just a little it is wide enough to be moved over the mummified but still unshielded interlink we just made. After the interlink is completely covered with shield stretch the shield so that it covers the interlink really tight.

Cut excessive parts of the shield. On one side make sure that there is some extra shield left since we are gonna use this to connect to the mass of the connector. Note: The shield is connected on one side of the interlink only.  Look at the picture on the right side to see how on one side we have the two leads (signal and return) and one shield that will be connected to the ground of the Neutrik connector. Finally, wrap the cable again with PTFE tape just like the last time. Do a good job this time, since the PTFE tape will be the cosmetic finish of the interlink as well.

After I had mummified the cable for the second time, I put 4cm of blue-coloured crimp sleeve over the cable. For me, this indicated the side where the schield is connected to the mass of the connector.

I discoveren that the Neutrik plugs are just a little bit too narow for this cable. Neutrik supplies two sizes of internal clamps to tighten the cable in the connector. However, both were too small for a 8mm wire and even the hole of the plug is nearly large enough for the cable. With a little bit of pressure I managed to fix the cable in the connector, but next time I will make this interlink I think I will use WBT of Bullit connectors.

I’m sure you would like to see a better picture of the final result. Well, I was so curious about the first listening experience that I did not take the time to make a picture. And as a result, the interlink is still connected to the DVD-A player since. Therefore, some pictures made of the back of the set are the only ones available for the moment.

And how does it Sound?

It’s too early to give a very detailed description of all improvements (if there are any). Annemarei and I decided that we are going to connect the interlink to the DVD-A player together with a contestant we know very well: The van den Hull First Ultimate interlink. The DVD-A player we have has two equal front-channel outputs and wih two inputs available on the amp we can switch back and forth to the silverlink and make a better comparison. Watch the diy pages for a separate review of this interlink.

Room for improvement?

Is there any room for improvement is the standard question one should ask himself after finishing a do-it-yourself project. Well, apart from the sound, which is not yet reviewed yet (will be on a separate page) and my own capabilities of soldering little wires etc. there are some things that I will consider when building the interlink another time:

·        The trick with the PTFE tape works fantastic and the overlap is normally enough for interlinks. However, I would like to use a nice coloured braid for the next project.

·        The Neutrik connectors are not wide enough to accommodate the finished interlink. Some people are speaking highly about the bullit plugs, I might te using these or WBT connectors in a next project.

·        Using aquarium tube works fine, but I expect the PVC metrial to have less than optimum characteristics. I would like to use PTFE for the inner tube also, and I’m lookin for a place to buy this material.

© Maarten&Annemarie, November 2001, 2006