Please help on soldering connectors

Hello!

I finally installed cables. I found a really good shielded cable that was not built for audio but it works really well (and it was for free, 75 meters, wow!).

This cable has three small cables in it: one ground (green and yellow) and 2 signal cables. Then it has a really thick metal shielding.

I soldered stereo jacks on it, anyway I'm not sure about what I did (TRS = Tip Ring Sleeve).

I soldered:

signal 1 to Tip
signal 2 to Ring
and ground+external metal shielding to Sleeve.

Is it ok?

I soldered in this way 2 cables (I have to speakers) and first I had an heavy noise on one speaker, then I resoldered the noisy jacks and the noise disappeared. But after some minute of playing the organ the noise appeared on the other speaker. So I'm pretty sure that the noise is because of bad soldering, but I'm not sure which connections do I have to make.

May be I need not to solder at all the ground cable?

I have a professional audio cable at home that I used for connecting an guitar amp to a guitar cabinet: it has 1.4" standard (mono) connectors with the external shielding soldered to the ground and the signal cable soldered to the Tip of the connector. So there are only 2 things in this cable: the small cable for the signal and the external shielding used as ground.

The cable I'm using has four things: signal 1, signal 2, ground and shielding. So may be I don't need to solder the ground cable (yellow and green) at all? Maybe the cable that works well does becouse the ground is unsoldered? This was not an audio cable so this is why it has a ground inside? Or may be all stereo cables have a ground?

I can't check connections from one side to the other since the cables run in the wall and I must solder the connectors AFTER having put them in the wall.

Anyone helping is REALLY WELCOME. Thanks!


(

Now I'm using unbalanced signal, since I didn't but a DI box yet, anyway I realize that there is NO NOISE at all (in the not noisy speaker), since the shielding is really good. There is just a really low buzzing (like pffffffff, really low), heareable only if standing under the speaker (a few meters away from the speaker is not heareable anymore) and if the organ is not playing and no one is speaking. So really less than any silent blower noise. I placed the speakers 4 meters above ground and the console is 20 meters away from the speakers. It's impossible to tell it's not a real pipe organ, the only problem is that it's too much in tune. Since now I played the organ (Willis Romantic Organ I) with a borrowed AMD 1200+ with 512MB of ram. I need to use a latency of 17ms. I could play in full organ having audio clipping if playing four notes chords at medium speed. I think that with my AMD64 3200+ I will be able to run at 5ms with no clipping at all.

As I promised in the past, as soon as the organ will be ready and 100% funcitonal I'll take some pictures to help other people to install an organ in a church as I did.

)

Hi,
sounds like an interesting setup. The "pfffft" you described seems to be normal amplifier hiss, there is most likely nothing you can do about it on the cable side. However, you may check with a good headphone wheter the hiss is produced by your computer or the external amplifiers.

Your soldering problem may be a ground loop. If you connect both the ground wire AND the shield on BOTH sides, the whole thing makes up a huge loop that picks up all kind of things. Correct wiring is to connect the ground wire on both ends and the shield only on one end, it shouldn't really matter that much on which end you connect it.

Try it and see if it works.

Greetings
Reiner

The "pfffft" you described seems to be normal amplifier hiss, there is most likely nothing you can do about it on the cable side.Your soldering problem may be a ground loop.

Hi again Reiner!

I think this is right, the noise is totally suppressed by the thick shielding, without the need of balanced signals, anyway I'm not using balanced signals just because my speakers are unbalanced. The signals are balanced indeed, since the m-audio delta 44 board I installed supports them, but they are not used since the reciever (the loudspeaker) can't handle them.

If you connect both the ground wire AND the shield on BOTH sides, the whole thing makes up a huge loop that picks up all kind of things. Correct wiring is to connect the ground wire on both ends and the shield only on one end, it shouldn't really matter that much on which end you connect it.

Try it and see if it works.

Greetings
Reiner

This is inetersting. I soldered the shield probably (=I don't remember) only on one side, but I didn't insulate it very well and so probably on the other side it's touching the ground on the bad cable, creating the ground loop. So you say that the right way is to connect the shield only at ONE END, and so totally insulating it, preventing it touches other cables, on the other side right? And is it really the same to solder it near the loudspeaker or near the pc?

I didn't know this. I had to learn millions of new things in building this organ, much more than I expected: from motherboards to RAID setups, from cables to custom made supports for loudspeakers, from MIDI custom scanrow boards to double potentiometers in expression pedals. Anyway it's really interesting! I cannot understand 100% of everything and so sometimes an information like yours "solder the shield only at one side" is ok to solve the problem.

I'll check and I'll see if it works.

Thanks!!!

Hello Anduins,
Your path of inquiry, experimentation, and discovery has been an interesting journey indeed, and many hauptwerkians are traveling the same path. You ask a lot of questions that are helpful to the rest of us, and for that thank you. It now sounds that your efforts are crowned with success. Congratulations.
G'Day

Well, thanks GDay!

I'm happy to be part of this community, really! As I said I will try to write everything I did and I'll show pictures to help other people. I'm happy to hear that my (MANY) questions helped others and not only myself.

We decided to use december the 8th for the first concert of the new hauptwerk organ. Unfortunately today I was told from my boss at work that I have to go to the Netherlands for 2 weeks just at the beginning of december... I'm sad because I won't be present at the concert, after all this work it would have been satisfing.

The good point is that the organ will still be there also after that concert!

Thanks again!

Hi Anduins,

The good point is that the organ will still be there also after that concert!

you're right about that, but it still seems unfair that after all the work you did in building it you will not be able to be there for the inauguration concert. This is pretty hard.

Greetings
Reiner

Yes, sad but true. Anyway this fact won't change my feelings about all this work. Now I'm going to solder the cables in the church... I hope it will work!