I just stripped some two pair cat5e and one twisted pair is solid blue and striped white/blue, the other pair is solid green and striped white/green. It would seem that using blue twisted pair for positive and green twisted pair for negative would maintain the advantage of twisted cables.
To maintain the twisted pairs put the solids together and the stripes together. The solid with the corresponding white stripe are twisted together. Two colors are not twisted together.
I'm not an electronics expert but it just seemed like connecting wires from one twisted pair to wires from the other twisted pair is like splitting the twisted pair.
You have two pairs of conductors? To make interconnects, I would use only one of the solid colored wires for 'plus' and the other three for 'ground.'
The characteristic impedance of cable has no effect at all until the cable is long enough to behave as a transmission line. In other words, at 20KHz, about 8 miles. There will be no loss at all in audio applications due to the characteristic cable impedance not matching the source. In a proper transmission line the source, cable and load must all be the same impedance, or signal reflections return to the source. That won't happen in this application.
UTP stands for Unshielded Twisted Pair. You're looking at a reference that is incorrect. Cat5 is 8 conductors in 4 pairs. It can be shielded or unshielded. If unshielded, it's UTP. If shielded, it's FTP (Foil Twisted Pair)
If anyone wants to use Cat5 for any audio application, and is concerned about the lack of a shield, get some sheilded Cat5. Amazon, etc.
Remember, the shield on any cable is effective only against capacitive coupling and electromagnetic coupling. Magnetic/inductive coupling goes right through it. Using a precision twisted pair (like Cat5) cable and a balanced driver and receiver result in excellent common mode rejection of all 3 kinds of coupling.
In professional broadcast facilities there is no longer much "audio cable" used at all. It's all Cat5 in one form or other, and mostly not shielded, because it's all well balanced lines. The bridge between RJ45 and audio connectors is handled easily with these. "StudioHub" is an industry-wide accepted standard, and most major broadcast audio equipment manufacturers are now using RJ45 jacks for audio connections.
Cat6 also comes shielded and unshielded. Cat6 is of no advantages for audio use over Cat5, and is more expensive and more difficult to terminate.
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Thanks for the StudioHub info. I went on their site and found the attached pdf file. I have 2pr UTP CAT5e so, based on their wiring guide I'll be connecting two solid colored wires for positive and two striped wires for negative. And, that connection scheme matches what mdpaudio said in post #20. Thanks mdpaudio.
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I highly recommend you consider terminating the Cat5 with RJ45 (or buy pre made) and use the Studiohub adapters. The time and frustration they save is well worth the expense, particularly if you're doing more than one.
I need RCAs on both ends so I would have to buy four adapters plus two patch cords. That would cost more than $100. And, it is very easy to solder RCAs to wires. I have the cat5e cable and RCAs so the cost is 0 and about ten minuets of my time.
Then there's really no advantage to using Cat5, unless its just the wire you have on hand. Remember, unbalanced ICs have no common mode rejection of noise and hum fields, so shielding becomes important. Unless you're using shielded Cat5, you may not like the results. Then again, it could be just fine. If the output of your device is very low Z it will tend to sink coupled noise because the coupling impedance is much higher.
The output impedance of my Aragon 18k mkll is 10 ohms. Would that be considered very low?
Thanks
Thanks
Reading the thread II have to ask why? Why use network ethernet cable, I mean it can work, but what is value? Do you have a lot of laying around or do you need cheap cable? If cost is the issue, buying decent solid core cat5e or even 6 and beyond is not cheap. Maybe less expensive if you buy 1000ft at time, but again why? It would be cheaper to go to harbor freight and buy some cheap electrical wire. I don't get it.
I have about six Cat5e cables siting in the cellar and was planning to put them in the trash. But then I thought, why not use some of it for RCA interconnects for my old subwoofer. The original RCAS are way too short for its new location.
Yes, that's very low. A little hard to believe, actually. But that will work fine.
The Cat5 arguments are:
1. You have it already. If not, and you have a large project like a studio, it is much cheaper than multi-core audio wire. It doesn't make sense to buy Cat5 for one or two short cables.
2. If you're making cables to carry more than one signal, like stereo or up to 4 channels, you can get it done with a single run of Cat5. Unless each channel starts and ends at a different location.
3. The precision twist of the pairs results in extremely well balanced common mode signals that are easily cancelled by a balanced line receiver or transformer. If you have an unbalanced IC, none of that works.
4. If you have a large number of ICs to make, and some or all directly interface with RJ45, installation is much faster. Even if some runs don't terminate in Rj45 and you have to buy a $20 adapter, the time savings (in pro installations) is worth the cost. If you have to terminate RCAs on each IC, and you only have a couple in a home installation, this is not true.
5. If you have a large installation that includes networks or Audio over IP networks, you don't have to keep multiple cable types in inventory.
Obviously the one or two-off ICs make no sense with Cat5 unless it's all you have and you have no value on your time. Even though I advocate Cat5 for audio, I don't use it for single ICs with RCAs on them. For those I buy pre-made cables via Amazon. Yes, I can put connectors on cables, I have made thousands of them. But my time is worth something, and Amazon cables are cheaper than the connectors + cable + my time. I don't even keep single conductor shielded wire in stock at home anymore. I do have single pair shielded wire because I do a lot of balanced interconnects.
Most likely a 10 ohm output impedance that won't actually drive 10 ohms. It's not a big deal, anything 100 ohms or so is fine as long as it will drive a slightly capacitive load and remain stable.
I need two 10foot ICs to connect my subwoofer to my Aragon 18k mkll, so I bought 40 feet of Cat5e CMX FTP cable for less than $9 and have the RCA plugs. I'm a happy camper.
A 'bonded pair' UTP or STP, CAT cable will make 4 nice line level XLR interconnects. Although a phantom powered mic cable is more complicated. It doesn't matter much which CAT number, it's the bonded pair that's important.
But while it probably will work as an RCA interconnect, there is no reason for making it.
It will also work as a reasonable length AES/EBU digital cable.
But while it probably will work as an RCA interconnect, there is no reason for making it.
It will also work as a reasonable length AES/EBU digital cable.