EXPERIENCE CAT 5 CABLES/ ROTEL AMP/RF 7's

[zman]

Anyone try CAT 5 braided cables or other high capacitance speaker cable with Rotel power amps or RF 7's or both Rotel and RF 7's? With or without a Zobel network?

[Duke Spinner]

why would you want a "high capacitance" speaker cable ....??

esp. with an "audio file" .. amplifier, no doubt with low negative feedback ...

oscillation can't be far away ...

[JJkizak]

They probably would produce a lot of heat when running flat out.

JJK

[dbflash]

I have not tried it myself. have only read good things about the idea.

I believe the high capacitance does not come into play as long as the wires are 6 feet or less.

It seems every picture I have seen the user is using long IC's and then short speaker wire.

Good Luck,

Danny

[formica]

I use them with great success as interconnects between my Dlink and Netgear components.

[Dave_H]

I made up a pair of CAT5 speaker cables one weekend when the mother in law was visiting and I needed an excuse to be elsewhere. I think the guage ended up at 11. HATED then on my electrostatics. No mystery there - amp + big capacitance wire + big stepup transformers. Gave them to a friend to try with his RF3's. He liked them OK but eventually replaced them with Kimber Cable and returned them to me. I may try them on my Forte II's but I still don't like my power amp feeding a capacitor.

Dave_H

[zman]

Dave, before you connect them, I strongly suggest you put a Zobel at each speaker. Two at each speaker if you bi-wired. No matter what speakers or amp you have!!! What Belden cable # did you use and what connectors?

[Speedball]

High capacitance....? Running hot flat out...?

I dont understand this. Does it mean when a cable is made up of much smaller individual cables inside it may restrict the flow?

Really, I would like to hear from someone....I'm not too electronically minded.

Thank You!

[Dave_H]

ZMAN;

Sorry for the delay - my system is in a state of flux.

I will get back to you this weekend with the Belden#, capacitance of the cable and a listening evaluation on the Fortes. I built them using ChrisVH's specs on Audioasylum. I braided the individual twisted pairs as opposed to alternative method of braiding entire cables. Another friend used this method on his B&W's and found them to be OK but now uses Audience sp? on his Dynaudios. Could you explain the purpose of a Zobel network on the speaker terminals? I have only used them on driver terminals to counter rising impedance.

Dave H

[dragonfyr]

Well you won't have to worry about the low frequencies! And I guess it means you can avoid a DC coupled amp!

But I see no advantage to them, and in some cases a few disadvantages.

As the primary concern is the resistance and to a lower degree, the inductance of the cable; and unless you a dog, or driving one of several exceptional loads, you needn't spend alot of time worrying about the impedance.

(Although, if you are running speaker cables that are much too long, and have far too much spare time on your hands, it is fun to experiment with coiling your speaker wire and seeing what audible effects you can create with the giant inductor you build!)

[zman]

I a novice, understand it this way. The braided cat 5's are high in capacitance. This can cause some amps to ossilate at around 30 kilohertz which is inaudable.The amp gets hot and self-distructs in time. The ossilation is sort of like shrill feedback build up on a microphone. The Zobel goes from + to - at the speaker, and dampens this ossilation. Do a search on Zobel on audio asylum "cable Forum". I have recently learned a lot there.

[Speedball]

Thanks Zman....