Why not use, for example, blue and brown and leave the other 6 wires disconnected?
Cat 6 has that little plastic cross extrusion in the middle, it should work nearly as well as completely untwisted wires secured with packing tape. Blue and brown pairs are opposite each other in the lay of the cable.
I mean no disrespect to Chris Venhaus personally but those cables look like an awful lot of work. It makes french polishing look quick and easy.
Cat 6 has that little plastic cross extrusion in the middle, it should work nearly as well as completely untwisted wires secured with packing tape. Blue and brown pairs are opposite each other in the lay of the cable.
I mean no disrespect to Chris Venhaus personally but those cables look like an awful lot of work. It makes french polishing look quick and easy.
I've been using a kind of very thin wire for internal wirings. Recently I tried it on full range speakers. 
http://www.jonard.com/jonard-ecommerce/control/product/~category_id=WIRE/~product_id=11016
Kind of interesting, you may give it a try.
http://www.jonard.com/jonard-ecommerce/control/product/~category_id=WIRE/~product_id=11016
Kind of interesting, you may give it a try.
Hello Gang,
Somewhere in my many travels I came across the Venhous site. This is his way to do it (notice, the experimentation was done in the mid 90s). He also has a retail site and this is not what he is marketing, he sells other wire for his premium DIY cables.
Me, I am not an advocate for Cat-X cables, especially speaker cables. Capacitance gets high and lowers inductance and there are too many variables and factors for me.
But if you are really into this idea, there are recipes all over the Internet.
Funny, in all these sites, nobody ever brings up that Cat-5e is significantly better than Cat-5 and Cat-6 is even better than Cat-5e. The physics have been refined. Why? because Cat-5 was used for 10 Base-T and could guarantee if installed correctly, that you can use it with high reliability for up to 100 meters for 10 Mb networking. They would not guarantee that 100 Base-T would work on Cat-5. They improved the cable to Cat-5e and hence, it could handle the 10x increase in speed reliably.
Now 1000 Base-T is becoming more mainstream and Cat-5e gets less reliable the longer the run. To make longer runs more reliable Cat-6 was introduced and even though it won't go 100 meters it is the best choice for high speed networking (fibre is best).
Now I would think if the better wire is more responsive and reliable moving huge amounts of data, it should be better with audio too. So if you insist on doing this, use the better wire.
BTW, my DIY speaker cables are 12 AWG solid strand oxygen free copper, enamel coated Magnet (motor winding) Wire with Eichmann Bayonet (banana) Plugs soldered with silver solder and 3 1/2 twists per foot. Low Capacitance, High Inductance and Low Resistance.
They sound amazing and the plugs are what were the major expense. I'd put these up against any cables regardless of price and if I could here a difference, it wouldn't be much and the price would close the case for me.
Hope this info is helpful to someone!
Regards//Keith
Somewhere in my many travels I came across the Venhous site. This is his way to do it (notice, the experimentation was done in the mid 90s). He also has a retail site and this is not what he is marketing, he sells other wire for his premium DIY cables.
Me, I am not an advocate for Cat-X cables, especially speaker cables. Capacitance gets high and lowers inductance and there are too many variables and factors for me.
But if you are really into this idea, there are recipes all over the Internet.
Funny, in all these sites, nobody ever brings up that Cat-5e is significantly better than Cat-5 and Cat-6 is even better than Cat-5e. The physics have been refined. Why? because Cat-5 was used for 10 Base-T and could guarantee if installed correctly, that you can use it with high reliability for up to 100 meters for 10 Mb networking. They would not guarantee that 100 Base-T would work on Cat-5. They improved the cable to Cat-5e and hence, it could handle the 10x increase in speed reliably.
Now 1000 Base-T is becoming more mainstream and Cat-5e gets less reliable the longer the run. To make longer runs more reliable Cat-6 was introduced and even though it won't go 100 meters it is the best choice for high speed networking (fibre is best).
Now I would think if the better wire is more responsive and reliable moving huge amounts of data, it should be better with audio too. So if you insist on doing this, use the better wire.
BTW, my DIY speaker cables are 12 AWG solid strand oxygen free copper, enamel coated Magnet (motor winding) Wire with Eichmann Bayonet (banana) Plugs soldered with silver solder and 3 1/2 twists per foot. Low Capacitance, High Inductance and Low Resistance.
They sound amazing and the plugs are what were the major expense. I'd put these up against any cables regardless of price and if I could here a difference, it wouldn't be much and the price would close the case for me.
Hope this info is helpful to someone!
Regards//Keith
OzMikeH said:
Part of why the scheme works is that the conductors are separated and away from any other conductor.
Keep in mind that the signal does not actually travel in the wire but in a field on around the wire. You need to keep that "part of the wire" as free from interference as possible as the dielectric of what ever the field is passing thru will affect things. Air or vacuum would be even better than teflon or enamel.
dave
KP11520 said:
Certainly for data transmission. If you look at the specification, the differences lie mostly in the geometry of how the wire is laid up, not in the actual wire itself. And for audio, we are primamrily just interested in the high purity copper and the fact that billions of miles of networks has pushed the cost down to close to nothing.
dave
Hi Dave,
You are right about minimal differences. The majority of the differences between them are mostly twists, insulation and termination. But Cat-6, most of the time, is 23 ga and not 24 ga. Also, and maybe this is just marketing, Cat-6 is supposed to be more uniform (less fluctuation in thickness and quality). This I don't know if it is true. But one thing is interesting, there is no standard of construction of the wire, only how it tests after installation. Either way, I prefer my STIFF wire! When you test on the measurements that matter, it has all the numbers you want.
Another advantage of STIFF wire is that it stays where you put it, away from as much as possible. The minimal enamel is like almost having no insulation and keeping it away minimizes other influences.
Mine is red, it makes your system more alive and sometimes angry! (great for headbanging rock).
It sounds different when twisted vs not twisted, believe it or not, better twisted.
Regards//Keith
You are right about minimal differences. The majority of the differences between them are mostly twists, insulation and termination. But Cat-6, most of the time, is 23 ga and not 24 ga. Also, and maybe this is just marketing, Cat-6 is supposed to be more uniform (less fluctuation in thickness and quality). This I don't know if it is true. But one thing is interesting, there is no standard of construction of the wire, only how it tests after installation. Either way, I prefer my STIFF wire! When you test on the measurements that matter, it has all the numbers you want.
Another advantage of STIFF wire is that it stays where you put it, away from as much as possible. The minimal enamel is like almost having no insulation and keeping it away minimizes other influences.
Mine is red, it makes your system more alive and sometimes angry! (great for headbanging rock).
It sounds different when twisted vs not twisted, believe it or not, better twisted.
Regards//Keith
planet10 said:
I've used it for that but, to be honest, Cat 5e has better tying down characteristics.
I have a 100 metre box of 5e that accidentally got thrown in the back of my truck with the tools one day.
I may give that a try for the new active speakers. Should I use three separate runs of full cable (using just two conductors) or use three pairs of conductors in one cable?
Using one cable to carry the three frequency bands is appealing for compactness.
Hi,MJL21193 said:
I've used it for that but, to be honest, Cat 5e has better tying down characteristics.
I have a 100 metre box of 5e that accidentally got thrown in the back of my truck with the tools one day.
I may give that a try for the new active speakers. Should I use three separate runs of full cable (using just two conductors) or use three pairs of conductors in one cable?
Using one cable to carry the three frequency bands is appealing for compactness.
how short are the cable runs?
Try all three signals through the one length of CAT5. Keep the spare fourth pair for an extra bass driver signal.
OzMikeH said:
Mike, you got that right; my first experiment with CAT5 was about 5 years ago, when I braided up a 15ft set of 2+1x4pairs (for biwiring a pair of Linn Khelidh) - brutal on the fingers, but it still outperformed the Linn K-400 monster hose biwire cabling that cost over $200 for the same length of wire.
The biggest pain in the butt-ocks with any of the CAT rated cabling is stripping the outer jacket when there's no rip thread.
I have tried some of the interconnect cable projects posted on Chris' site, and have found them quite satisfactory - it's particularly satisfying if you use the super cheapy plastic RCA plugs from RadioShack, and can build a complete set of interconnects for under $5. material cost.
What goes around comes around. About 6 years back, there was an interesting discussion on the old Full Range Forum about the merits of 30ga (ceramic coated) magnet wire. Even more extreme than Cat5. I can vouch for the fact that it can work (in specific circumstances). The old forum posts are archived here: http://gainclone.com/FullRangeArchive/fr2/14095.htm Makes a very good read. There are some brilliant posts by GM too.
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