I made a DIY cable for my Sundaras and they turned out fine, but next time I want to try for thinner cables, with four braided cores instead of two thick dual-core wires. On top of this, I plan to apply that knowledge towards IEM cables too.
Any tips, advice, and/or resources for learning? I understand the general premise, but could use input on things like where to source y-splitters, what kind of cables aren't snake oil, how to pull off an 8-strand braid as easily as they do in the youtube tutorials... etc.
EDIT: Also! I was looking at 2.5mm balanced cable schematics, and essentially each side of the cable should have independent ground, populating each TRRS contacts correspondingly? Hopefully I'm not far off
It tends to be difficult to get good prices on quantities suitable for DIY projects locally, so AliExpress is your friend.
All cables are snake oil in the sense that the "quality" doesn't matter. Resistance can still change the sound, but cable length and thickness play by far the biggest role here, the difference usually isn't big, and not every headphone is impacted. The guy over at diyaudioheaven actually measures frequency response changes with different source impedances and for most headphones it's either nothing or an extremely minor change in bass response.
And yeah, the independent ground is the important element that makes balanced cables different.