Cat 5 cable for audio?

I replaced AudioQuest Midnights with Cat 5.I used 4 runs of it 2 pos 2 neg. I use it in MY HT set up.
Economy of Scale. If I where to sell this CAT 5 Commercially, it would sell for over 300.00 Very labour intensive to make and I used Cardas Spades.

If you are a DIY and have 5/10 hours to kill go for it.

Single runs are better than average cables but if you double up twist them shrink wrap and use good connectors they are very good..
Plenum grade as a Minimum.

Check this address - many of your questions should be answered:http://www.venhaus1.com/diycatfivecables.html

Yes, Chris VenHaus is very knowledgeable on the CAT 5.

Thanks everyone for the input! I can always rely AGoners. Probably will give it a try. As a network admin guy, I have a couple of 1000 ft spools of Belden Datatwist 1585A verified Cat 5 in my office. I've been staring at it for a couple of days saying "Hmmm, I wonder...."

Those thinking about using Chris VH's 27 pair braided CAT 5 speaker wire design should be made aware that this is a high capacitance design. As such, it can send some amps into oscillation. If using anything more than just a very few feet of cable from amp to speaker, you need to take the same precautions with this design that you would with Goertz cables i.e. use a zobel network. Sean
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Chris's design is not as effective as a 16 Pair design.
Chris design is not the measure by which CAT 5 should be judged. Just my 2 cents.

Natalie, two questions for you regarding cables:

1) Since you've commented that you liked Listener magazine as a general rule and do not like Nordost products, what did you think of Editor Art Dudley drooling all over Nordost products in his review of them ?

2) What design / geometry of Cat 5 cables do you prefer over Chris' 27 pair design ? Is there some place on the net that has these for sale or tells one how to make them ?

Sean
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He wrote one puff piece. Felt so awfull for selling out to the Cable Barones that he quit rather than publish rubish.

As for the wire. No ,its just after building many pairs with different condctor counts that the 16 pair allways sounded the best. Chris design is good but overkill.

I don't think that Art "quit" the magazine. Not anymore so than someone running into you full steam, knocking you over and then explaining that you "fell down". I used that analogy as i think that such a situation is what it felt like to Art i.e. he was probably both bowled over and unaware that such an event was going to take place right then and there.

Personally, i've built a few sets of Cat 5 cables. 12 pair versions ( 24 conductors ) sound fast and lean. 27 pair ( Chris' design ) sounds very powerful on the bottom end. I think that somewhere in between those two figures probably offers a good balance. The cool thing about this design is that one can literally pick and choose what tonal balance they want by adding / subtracting conductors.

I do have one question for you though: How did you evenly braid 16 pairs of wires ? One can't do that and have an even amount of conductors in each bundle. Sean
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8 pairs per side.

Natalie, your last post contradicts your previous post and makes this even harder to understand. You stated "16 pairs" previously, which to me equates to 32 conductors total for each speaker run. Now you state 8 pairs per side, which equates to 16 conductors per speaker run. Which one is it and how did you configure the cables that you did use ?

Were they two runs of Cat 5 simply twisted around each other ?

Did you run them side by side in parallel using one leg of the run for positive and one for negative or did you take one conductor out of each twisted pair for each polarity ?

When making this cable, did you leave the outer jacket on or remove it ?

Are the wires that you are using Teflon jacketed or standard commercial grade PVC ?

There are SO many variables to this type of project that you can't really make "blind" statements such as you did in terms of declaring one design superior to the other without clarifying exactly what design you are talking about. Sean
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Sean remidial math is availble or anal retentive coures also are available at your loval community college.

Sir, your last response and the manner that it was delivered in says more about you than i ever could. As such, i'll let you be your own worst enemy and leave it at that. Sean
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