Speaker wire recommendations

[cohort36]

First off, feel free to tell me I'm an idiot if this topic has already been discussed, but I couldn't find anything.

Here's my situation: I need to run some speaker wire through some walls and my attic for a total distance of about 30'. Since I will be running near AC power lines and such, I'm concerned about the interference and noise the speakers wires may pick up. Is this even a valid concern? I've been looking at using twisted pair wiring to help reduce the noise, which leads to my question. Which is better, using a larger (14-16 AWG) single-pair twisted wire, or using something with several smaller twisted pairs, something like CAT5 cable with 4-pairs of 24 AWG, using one lead from each pair for each terminal?

[Nappylady]

Solid-core Category 5 cable is very easy to come by, and will serve your purposes well.

If you're running it at amplified level, I'd reccommend using it as-is, multiple runs if necessary (if your power handling is so high that you need more than one run of Cat5 will do for you).

They are already twisted together. Use a bridged amp and you will get the benefits of twisted pair/common mode noise rejection.

Don't do that silly little braided-Cat5 thing; it's silly, wastes time, and destroys the benefits of the twisted pairing. (I know I'm inviting flames by saying so!) Of course, using an un-bridged amp will do the same thing.... the CMNR suddenly doesn't work.

Properly balanced and twisted pairs at line-level can be run next to AC for feet at a time without picking up any hum. At amp level, it's probably a much larger distance that it can be run before picking up perceptible hum.

Good luck!

[cohort36]

Thanks for the reply. That leads to a couple more questions.

Would using more twisted pairs (25-pair telecom cable) be better/worth it? And if I wanted to install wallplates for the connections, since it's CAT5, would RJ45 plugs be better than other options (RCA, binding, banana, etc)?

[HDTVman]

25 pair phone cable works great, I've used it for years. It would be my choice for longer runs for sure.

If you need to put connector plates in I would use the best bananas I could find. Others may know of something better but consider how you will install the connectors. I would never use the RJ45 because it's not designed for the power.

Later BZ

[s0rce]

Im just curious but you mean for 1 banana to be connected to 1 wire from each of the 4 pairs in the cable and another to be connected to the other 1 wire from each of the 4 pairs. This is the case on both sides of the cable, right?

Thanks,
Lyle