CAT 5 cable as speaker wire......

 

chestkicktest
http://www.venhaus1.com/diycatfivecables.html


anyone ever tried it?...looks interesting, and for about $34, I'd give it a try, maybe. :)
 

timn8ter
Well hey, if you want to give it a shot why not? For $34 and some blisters it could be worse. My concern is the high capacitance load that it will introduce to your amp. Some amps have trouble with that. Also, the 24 AWG of the conductor is a little low. I prefer using the two 20 AWG conductors found in coax cable. The thicker conductor reduces "skin-effect" better than the thinner conductor. Did you see the link I posted in another thread? If not, here it is again. http://www.tnt-audio.com/clinica/ubyte2e.html
 

Derek
Just want to let you guys know that there is no difference between Cat 5 (or 6) wire and architectural telephone cables or simple doorbell wire for connecting speakers to an amp. Cat 5 cable is a certification for noise rejection and bandwidth (in the the 250 MHz range). This is mostly done with a certain number of twists per inch and high quality insulators. Most have fire-resistent jackets and are designed to resist kinks to make pulling through walls and conduit easier.

Though the wire is high quality, none of these will have a positive effect in the audio bandwidth over simple 14G zip cord, especially the twists. The twists make the wire electrically longer than physically wasting a small amount of your amps power as heat. Cat 5 is specificly designed to reduce insertion loss, reflections and inductance between pairs at very high frequencies

See http://bwccat.belden.com/ecat/jsp/Index.jsp?&P1=null&P2=null&P3=null&P4=null&P5=null&P6=null or http://www.panduitncg.com/white_papers/cat_6_white_paper.pdf or http://www.panduitncg.com/whatsnew/cat6_standard.asp or http://www.tiaonline.org/standards/search_n_order.cfm.

I seam to remember Skin Effect having a similar effect [on speakers] and realy reaking havock at microwave frequencies. See http://www.dartmouth.edu/~sullivan/litzwire/skin.html or http://www.audioholics.com/techtips/audioprinciples/interconnects/SkinEffect_Cables.htm or http://fermi.la.asu.edu/w9cf/skin/.

Hope this helps.
 

timn8ter
Having worked in the industry for a while now I'm very familiar with Cat5 and Cat6 cable. I disagree with the assertion that the twists in the cable somehow have an audible effect when used as speaker cable. As you say Derek, indiviually insulated twisted pair cabling is used to reduce attenuation and crosstalk when tranmitting data at high speed over a network. The one thing that I do agree on is that an insulated solid core conductor may improve the sound over a multi-stranded conductor. Of course, there is always the possibility that more distortion is caused by the amp and speakers than can be overcome by simply changing speaker cable.
 

Derek
I too have been in the industry. 20 years now. I think we agree. When I said "none of these will have a positive effect in the audio bandwidth", I didn't mean that Cat 5 was bad. I simply meant that its advantages are nothing special below 20KHz.
 

chestkicktest
Well it 'seems' like a low cost alternative to some ridiculously priced cables I've seen. Imo, anyone who spends anywhere near $100 for speaker wire is nutz....I'd bet ya in a blind test , most hi fi gurus couldn't distinguish between $100 wire and radio shack wire lol...actually, I've heard stories of that very thing happening...
 

Anonymous
$100 for speaker wire is nothing. I saw a pair for $4000 the other day!!!! If someone is paying $1000 for a pair of speakers then 10% of that sould go to speaker wires. If you bought a $40,000 pair of speakers then the $4000 speaker wire dosen't sound like much.

A fool and their money.
 

chestkicktest
>$100 for speaker wire is nothing. I saw a pair for $4000 the other day!!!! If someone is paying $1000 for a pair of speakers then 10% of that sould go to speaker wires. If you bought a $40,000 pair of speakers then the $4000 speaker wire dosen't sound like much.

A fool and their money.


See, I never have bought into that "10%" rule that somebody decided on and everyone followed...I think it's people who spend big bucks for stuff 'want' to believe they need to spend 10% on speaker wire....It would probably crush them to learn in a blind test, there laughably overpiced speaker wire is no better than good quality stuff that's available for pennies on the foot lol.
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