How much would you pay for braided cat 5 speaker cables?

[fiveliter]

Hi, I'm new to the forum, but I've been lurking for a little while.

Even though this is a DIY website, I suspect that some might find constructing braided cat 5 cables to be too time consuming.

With that said, a few questions:

Is there any market for braided cat 5 cables? (Something similar to this - http://www.venhaus1.com/diycatfivecables.html)

Suppose you were looking to purchase a pair of 6 foot cat 5 cables. What would you be willing to pay?

What do you think other, less DIY-oriented, enthusiasts would be willing to pay?

Would a 30 day money back guarantee help convince you to buy them?

What sort of termination would you like to have?

Thanks in advance!

[AndrewT]

Hi,
a stereo pair of 6feet cables will use about 60feet of CAT5 costing £2 to £4 ($4 to $8). Assuming 4sets of 4pr in each giving 3.1sqmm.
Add on labour cost, terminations and an outer sleeve. $50? $80? who knows?

[rcavictim]

Sorry, I wouldn`t shell out 2 cents for cat5 speaker cables. Why would I want to when the best speaker cables are available, in custom lengths for a few dimes a foot retail in the form of #14 AWG lamp cord?

[Original Burnedfingers]

fiveliter,

Sorry, I wouldn`t shell out 2 cents for cat5 speaker cables. Why would I want to when the best speaker cables are available, in custom lengths for a few dimes a foot retail in the form of #14 AWG lamp cord?

While I personally wouldn't use 14ga lamp cord I also wouldn't use cat 5 either.

[KP11520]

This is what I would use: http://www.anticables.com/home.html

I bought 40 feet of just the wire and cut it into 4 ten foot pieces. Then I twisted (for each speaker cable) two together 35 times and soldered my own decent quality high value ends on them.

Very reasonable AND deserving of all the hype.

I have used 10AWG stranded with cheap banana plugs and if you have a nice system you can hear the difference (the lamp cord came up way short).

There is a difference but I believe Value is key. When you find quality at a great price it is usually the the highest percentage of improvement (upto 90%) in my opinion. The rest is such diminishing returns to get such subtle difference for so much more money. It's kind of like the amplification law; 10x the watts for 3db louder on the speakers. To go 10 db louder you need 1000x the wattage you are using now.

So, unless you are rich, find the best value that gets you closest to that 100% in the first jump and stay put. Also, do a little research and listening. Hopefully you will hear the difference and agree this is not a figment of my imagination.

[KP11520]

P.S. I bought the silver solder I used from Chris VenHaus so I did my research. The ends I used are Bayonet (Banana) Plugs (Eichman). Cat 5 is for data in milliwatts. What if you have a 200 watt per channel amp? Then, why not use Cat 5e or Cat 6 if they perform better with Gig Ethernet they must perform better with audio too? But then again maybe only at a very low wattage (milliwatts). Good luck.