Using CAT5 as speaker wire

[Brett]

Originally posted by Luke G
Does any of the commercially available speaker wire use cat5?

No, mainly Mumbojumbo (TM) and Pixiedust (TM) internal wires.

[planet10]

Originally posted by KP11520
Chris Venhaus has a website about this:

Note that Venhaus is advocating 14 pieces of Cat 5 -- 112 strands. What i was advocating -- and what dj_oatmeal just tried & liked -- was to use 2 strands.

Less is More.

dave

[MJL21193]

Originally posted by planet10


What i was advocating -- and what dj_oatmeal just tried & liked -- was to use 2 strands.

Less is More.

Good enough if the length is relatively short and there isn't much power involved.

[OzMikeH]

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.

[CLS]

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-ecommer...oduct_id=11016

Kind of interesting, you may give it a try.

[KP11520]

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

[MJL21193]

Originally posted by KP11520

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.

Ain't they a little stiff? I use 18 gauge zip cord. Zounds vunderfull.

PS. The White is better for midrange clarity, while the black excels in the bass region. The brown is to be avoided

[Brett]

Originally posted by MJL21193
Ain't they a little stiff? I use 18 gauge zip cord. Zounds vunderfull.

PS. The White is better for midrange clarity, while the black excels in the bass region. The brown is to be avoided

I use the clear one. I find it most transparent.

[planet10]

Originally posted by MJL21193
Good enough if the length is relatively short and there isn't much power involved.

John... the case most of the time when you are talking full range drivers. But you should try it too. Please report back.

dave

[planet10]

Originally posted by OzMikeH
Why not use, for example, blue and brown and leave the other 6 wires disconnected?

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