Wiring DB25? Plus Canaire 8 Channel Cable for Snake?

[Barry Johns]

So i recently purchased some raw GEPCO 6608HS 8 Pair balanced audio snake cable. Each pair has an outer cellophane type wrap, that is a pain to remove. Once removed, the unshielded wire (ground) is fully exposed, the hot/cold wires are covered with a clear plastic covering, that is also a pain to remove.

I am wiring the cable to a DB25 Connector:

Question 1: If you have any advice on how best to remove the various coverings, I am all ears.....

Question 2: Since the ground wire is fully exposed on each of the 8 pairs, is there any reason why there would be a problem if ground wires touched other ground wires from other pairs/channels? I'm not talking about touching at the DB24 connector, but before that....

I also have a separate 16 channel snake cable, that is much, much easier to work with that I plan to solder (2) DB25 cables on each end to go between a 192 I/O 8 Channel Out to DB25 Patchbay, then another one to connect the 192 I/O Inputs to the same patchbay. The challenge with this one,the outer coating on each pair is much thicker, so once the soldering has been done, all the 8 pairs will not fit inside the opening on the DB25 connector housing. So I'm thinking about using separate thinner wires to make jumpers from the original pairs to the solder points on the DB25 connector. I would heat-shrink each pair, as well as place layers of heat shrink around the connections points from the original 8 pairs to the smaller wire 8 pairs?

Question 3: Any reason not do do this?

Question 4: Would you simply wrap the strands from each of the joining cables, and then solder and then heat shrink or would you make crimp connectors and then heat shrink?

Question 5: If crimping, any recommendations?

If I've done a terrible job explaining myself, let me know that too!!!!