I didn't realize arcing could be a problem! Otherwise I would've banished the notion as soon as I'd thought of it.
The issue for me isn't so much cost or quality, but what I have available. I've been waiting a month for my 12-guage OFC speaker wire to get here and in the meantime, I need a longer cable to run things than I have available. We've got 2 boxes of Cat5 sitting here idle, so I thought, what the heck, I'll give it a try.
That's where all the questions came from; I just wanted to know if I was making the right choice.
Thanks for all the help!
The issue for me isn't so much cost or quality, but what I have available. I've been waiting a month for my 12-guage OFC speaker wire to get here and in the meantime, I need a longer cable to run things than I have available. We've got 2 boxes of Cat5 sitting here idle, so I thought, what the heck, I'll give it a try.
That's where all the questions came from; I just wanted to know if I was making the right choice.
Thanks for all the help!
Big points
I too am always thrilled by "creative use of existing resources". For example I was delighted when I found out in another thread that roofing felt is great as a box damper for low frequencies and I have a leftover roll of felt in the garage.
Cooking contests often have a segment where the contending chefs get a list of ingredients, and a time limit, and then get judged on what they make of it. Sounds like a great DIY audio contest. (Flight of fancy here). You get a 6" blown woofer, four feet of #20 wire, 4 caps, two 4x8 sheets of mdf, a bottle of vodka, and a small amount of money. Who can design the best system from these parts? The Mcguyver project, or something....
I too am always thrilled by "creative use of existing resources". For example I was delighted when I found out in another thread that roofing felt is great as a box damper for low frequencies and I have a leftover roll of felt in the garage.
Cooking contests often have a segment where the contending chefs get a list of ingredients, and a time limit, and then get judged on what they make of it. Sounds like a great DIY audio contest. (Flight of fancy here). You get a 6" blown woofer, four feet of #20 wire, 4 caps, two 4x8 sheets of mdf, a bottle of vodka, and a small amount of money. Who can design the best system from these parts? The Mcguyver project, or something....
One Cat5 cable, as I am running now, is rougly equivelant to 18-guage wire.
Two cat-5's run side by side are equivelant to 15-guage.
There's a link in this thread to a neat how-to about it, and that makes equivelant 10-guage wire. I like that, I just don't have that much time to invest in it.
Two cat-5's run side by side are equivelant to 15-guage.
There's a link in this thread to a neat how-to about it, and that makes equivelant 10-guage wire. I like that, I just don't have that much time to invest in it.
I use just one pair of the CAT5 cable! I undid the twisting to decrease the cable capacitance. So I just use two 0.4 mm solid core cables per speaker. I like the sound! Very open and dynamic. This configuration is quite similar to the $$$ 47 Labs OTA cable
Too bad I can't get plenum rated in Holland!!! If anyone has 2m of spare Belden 1585A teflon cable or so you can make me very happy...
So I have to do it with standard PVC junk. At least it's solid core... (some CAT5 cables have stranded cables)...
Fedde
Too bad I can't get plenum rated in Holland!!! If anyone has 2m of spare Belden 1585A teflon cable or so you can make me very happy...
So I have to do it with standard PVC junk. At least it's solid core... (some CAT5 cables have stranded cables)...
Fedde
Solid core should be better. It's used on most or all CAT5 recipes on the net. I just realized what the effect is of a single wire pair using on my gainclone. It will reduce the damping factor. This results in less feedback in the highs, this makes them more dynamic and lively sounding. The bass is maybe a little less controlled, but I like that. (still quite tight). Makes the sound warmer, more 'tube-like' if I may say so...
Fedde
Fedde
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