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This is the second Archived Forum which was active between 1st March 2012 and 23rd February 2022
Hi, I haven't posted here before but I have found some great information and inspiration here.
I made up some adapters to allow the use of banana plugs with my Beovox S75 speakers. They are a bit of a bubba / MacGyver hybrid but they work great.
The basis is a pair of 2 pin DIN jacks I ordered from an Australian ebay seller (don't get plugs, I made that mistake first). These are solder-type with a maximum wire gauge of about 18. To start I took some Cat5 Ethernet cable and twisted the wires together into two conductors. Each conductor has 4 24-gauge solid copper wires, so they are 18 gauge equivalent. I soldered the conductors to the DIN jacks, and added some tech flex and heat shrink.
Banana plugs fit very snugly in 3/16 x .014 inch brass tube. Copper would be more conductive, but I calculate the brass is at least as conductive as 16 gauge copper wire, and I already had some. I cut these to length, about 7/8 inch, and used a dremel cutoff wheel to make two slots near one end. Then I annealed the brass by heating to dull red. After it cooled I used a blunted nail to make solder cups.
I soldered my brass tubes to the free end of the cables, and prettied it up with heat shrink.
Then I made some standoffs by gluing together pieces of a bamboo chopstick. Colored the exposed ends with magic marker, filed half-rounds into the edges with a chainsaw file. It all went together with hot glue and adhesive coated heat shrink.
Here's the finished product.
I should have made them shorter. My plan was to attach the jack assembly to the speaker stands, but the heat shrink seems to be giving good strain relief and I don't want to risk shorting the banana plugs on the metal stands.
As happy as I am with the flexibility these give me, I may just go back to the straight Cat5 cables I made with the spare set of 2 pin DIN jacks I bought. They work just as well and look cleaner. I'll always have the adapters if I need to make a change.
Panasonic TCP55ST50
Panasonic DMP-BTD220
Pioneer Elite VSX-43
2X Bang & Olufsen Beovox S75
Welcome to the forum and thank you for the contribution! I really like you DIY solution but can't figure out the real advantage for the adapter. Wouldn't it be better to solder the din plugs to speaker wires or change the whole unit to a banana plug connection (what some people like to call the 'americanization' of B&O)?
Nice........................But..................
Wouldn't have been easier to get a set of DIN plugs (male or female) and fit them directly onto the new cable?? I am making up my own speaker cables using 14AWG OFC twisted pair cable and got a pair of male & a pair of female DIN plugs for the cables! These have tiny screw connectors so no soldering!
I need the male pair for the amp end and the female pair for the speaker end.
Listening to B&O since conception!
Beomaster 2000 (type 291x), Beogram 2000, Beocord 2000, BeoVox CX100, & now with added Beogram CD3500.
Other Hi-Fi is Denon & Monitor Audio, with fancy DIY cabling/bi-wiring, mains filters etc., etc.
DARoss: Nice........................But.................. Wouldn't have been easier to get a set of DIN plugs (male or female) and fit them directly onto the new cable?? I am making up my own speaker cables using 14AWG OFC twisted pair cable and got a pair of male & a pair of female DIN plugs for the cables! These have tiny screw connectors so no soldering! I need the male pair for the amp end and the female pair for the speaker end.
Where did you get screw-type DIN jacks? I got some screw-type plugs (by mistake, didn't check the speakers first) but I'm using non B&O amplifiers so banana plugs are good for the amp end.
I agree the adaptors are more elaborate than most people might need, but I sometimes do impromptu setups for entertaining, so flexibility is important to me. If I suddenly need a pair of 30 foot cables I don't want to have to get out the soldering iron and my underdeveloped soldering skills. Plus, I had to have the plugs sent halfway around the world. I would never have done this if I could pick up a pair of screw-type DIN jacks at Radio Shack.