CAT 5 Cable for interconnects or Speaker wire?

[Dylanl]

Has anyone used this by braiding the 5 or 6 wires together? Is it any good? Lots of articles on it. I just need to know how to braid it.

[Dylanl]

Someone here has had to have used this?

[mbajner]

a guy at worked did this for his whloe house speaker set up

never heard the set up so not sure how it worked

I guess for small speakers that would not get a lot of power should be OK

[leerocker]

Neat, never thought of that one. I know they are starting to put power over ethernet wiring so i imagine the cables can handle it.

[WopOnTour]

I'm using some DIY braided "Triple T" CAT5 cables and REALLY like the sound, (compared to lamp cord or regular Monster cable anyways)

The "tricks" are:

a) identifying the 2 "loose" and 2 "tight" twisted pairs within the CAT5 and splitting them between + and -

connecting only ONE strand from each of the 4 UTP twisted pairs in each CAT5 bundle to the + and -

c) making sure all of the CAT 5 is exactly the same length (even if it one ends up a bit short due to the braids DO NOT trim the others to match! - go back and "adjust the braids) You might want check/confirm with at least a decent DVOM if available down to 0.01 ohm. You should check with an ohmeter to make sure you didnt get something crossed before soldering anyways.

d) NOT to braid the CAT5 segments too tightly so as not to result in excessive capacitance.(some air-gap in the braid is good- I used some felt pens as air-gap gage pins during braiding process which took about an hour/cable for a 10 footer )

I'd post some pics but I covered mine in TechFlex before I terminated them, so you really cant see much.

You can find more cable DIY info here: http://www.tnt-audio.com/clinica/tweaks.html

HTH WOT

[Guest " "]

Do we have an understanding of what the theroy of operation is?

[PrestonTom]

Let see ....

CAT 5 cable in the same sentence with "interconnects": Suspicious idea

CAT 5 cable in the same sentence with "speaker wire": Bad idea

-Tom

[justin_tx_16]

Someone here has had to have used this?

I did it first for my ProMedia's since they are low power, low impedance. Worked fabulously well. I loved using one cable to handle two speakers, kept things really nice and clean.

I have some MonsterCable for the Heresys and didn't notice any difference with the Ethernet cables except how much cheaper it was and I didn't have to feel so bad cutting the cables to fit because I paid for more cable.

I once saw a guy who modded his speakers to have ethernet jacks in them, it was ingenious or at least really cool looking. Just plug in your ethernet cable and call it good. Definitely wouldn't pull out or mess up phase since you can't get it wrong!

[WopOnTour]

Do we have an understanding of what the theroy of operation is?

Let see ....

CAT 5 cable in the same sentence with "speaker wire": Bad idea

-Tom

Well there has been a fair amount of seemingly "decent" research and testing on the subject, most notably from Thomas Goldworthy (aka Mudcat) on the old Audioholics BBS

http://www.audioholics.com/techtips/setup/interconnects/DIYSpeakerCablesp1.html

I like what I hear anyways...

WOT

[Dylanl]

Here is a good read and most agree this is a very good setup

http://www.audioholics.com/techtips/setup/interconnects/DIYSpeakerCablesp1.html

and this one

http://www.venhaus1.com/diycatfivecables.html

and this one

http://www.tnt-audio.com/clinica/cat5questions_e.html

[Guest " "]

I was just curious what the theroy of operation was. I heard of the cables, and I think I have some interconnects made with cat5 that came with a pair of amps I once bught.

Since there is no amplification on the speaker side of the cat5 speaker wire....the principal of noise cancellation may not apply...which is why the wire in cat5 is braided in the first place.

I initally thought this cat5 model was a manipulation of capacitance and or inductance. The capacitance due to the finer wire with insulation. The inductance due to the way the wire intersects at 45 degrees.

In reviewing the link, the author seems to be communication ratings that imply just that.

So basiclly we have a band-pass filter. If the band begins before 20hz, and ends after 20khz, could be an intresting sounding wire.

[Z4!]

Welcome back justin; I hope things are going well for you!

[Erik Mandaville]

Sure, both.

Interconnect: a small amount of shielding provided by braiding, not enough for what we need here.

Speaker cable: Radio Shack used to sell the variety in blue outer insulation. Inner conductors were insulated with Teflon, and the several people I made full length pairs for (15 feet in one case) said they liked them, and found them to be balanced in terms of FR. Chris. V. also experimented with intensive braiding of multiple lengths, and quite liked them but found them sometimes problematic for certain amplifiers.

I used to take off the outer insulation, and simply braid the inner conductors into a thin but very decent cable. I have a length some place I can photograph if I find it. I did some with multiple lengths, all braided as well, and didn't find them any better than thinner overall AWG.

There's no reason it shouldn't work well. All copper conductors insulated with Teflon; works fine.

Erik

[Dylanl]

so should I take the time to use it? or stick with the 10 gauge I have?

[ben.]

My reaction would be that it depends what your time is worth. Then again we're here, right?

Cable geometry is a fun topic. I haven't read much about it, but it's interesting physics. The guy I bought my Scout from had the arm wire replaced with VDH silver and used ribbon cables to the phono stage. He was of the opinion that ribbons were the best (and therefore the only acceptable choice) for phono use, and used them for line level connections as well. I was reticent to hear a cable that cost more than upright bass, and respected my fear and didn't make me demo them. I do kind of wish that he hadn't changed the arm wire so I could hear the VPI wire with their phono cables as well. The VDH are pretty 'spensive as well.

[oldbuckster]

Many use CAT 5 cable, twist strands together, and use as speaker wire...................really cheap if you have big roll. Is it better than normal speaker wire???? I don't know.......................but it works...................

[kaiser SET say]

Not much difference in the CAT5 and what's in these:

http://www.audioadvisor.com/prodinfo.asp?number=1AQBEDNF

I was looking at my last catalogue from these guys and each speaker lead has 4 twisted wires in it

[revjac]

First off - Use Cat 5 E! If it doesn't have the "E" then it isn't plenum rated which means the insulation isn't teflon

I gave it a shot a few years back. I had a bunch lying around that I scooped from some reno construction project going on in a bar while I was doing an interactive satellite install.

I stripped out a few twisted pairs to build some interconnects to go from a QUAD pre-amp (DIN out) to a pair of RCAs. I just left the pair twisted, wrapped 'em in plumbers teflon, pushed that through some copper braid stripped from a roll of RG6 coaxial cable and I wrapped it again in more teflon. Soldered on the connectors and away I went. Worked just fine. Better than the cable that came with the pre-amp but not likely as good as some $$$$ wire.

Then I made a pair of 3m speaker cables. I didn't do much more than cut 6 lengths of (about) 3.5m. I just braided three together for the each side. Didn't strip the blue insulation off or nuttin'. Loose braid - say about a turn every 2-3" - Stripped off the ends. The solid colours went to Neg. and the others went to Pos. Put on some half decent Bananas and stuck 'em the rig.

My partner (she of the better "ears") and I both agreed that the sound was better than the DH Labs T14 I had in up to that point and I really do quite like that wire!!

I'm going to use some of the DHlabs to re-wire the Cornwalls. The woofers specifically. And then I intend to use some CAT5E to do the mids and the tweet. Likely a single pair for the top and likely two pair on the mid-horn. Just to see what happens. Anything will likely be better than what's in there now.

If I don't like it I'll pull it and try something else. Tweaking - even if it always isn't for the better - is still fun and a learning experience.

[Erik Mandaville]

"Tweaking - even if it always isn't for the better - is still fun and a learning experience."

Absolutely.

Erik

[mike stehr]

http://members.tripod.com/beyond_gomer/gomercable.html

I made CAT5 cables using the ideas from this guy's website. It shows you how to make a jig for a hand drill to string the wires on one end. Then using metal rods to stick in the ground, to attach the other end of the wires.

Then you just run the drill and twist them up. A variable speed drill is a nice option with regards to this application, though I've pulled it off without a variable speed drill. Reversible is nice as well.

It's quicker than hand braiding, life's too short for that.

I've made 10 or 12 awg speaker cable for the Yamaha MX-1 I had. It's been so long since then, I can't recall if the wire was much more improvement than the 14 awg I was using. I'm pretty sure it gave a little more bass, I dunno really.

I then start using tube amps, and the wire was too bulky. And I didn't really see the need for using a heavier awg wire with tube amplifiers. So I went back to 14 gauge.

I've made two strand twisted CAT5 wires for interconnects, I guess I noticed subtle differences, who knows....

I never used any sort of sheilding with the CAT5 interconnects, and they seemed noisy, so I went back to the usual patch cords. I made a pair out of a chunk of scope cable the other day, they are kind of overkill, but they are quiet.

The insulation on the CAT5 stuff is rather thin, so one has to be careful not to nick it. Make sure to check over the wire for shorts with a multimeter before you use it.