i've done the soldered end route a few times before.... it works, but when you can, spend the ~$9 or so on a 12-pin end and life gets so much easier. then, depending on how rough you are on the wires, i would enclose the soldered connections and for less than $20, you have a pretty solid product on your hands. the time to get it all looking (relatively) nice and having tight connections is all i'm really charging for when i build them.