cat5 speaker wires (1 Viewer)

[Nick L]

I am going to make a set of cat5 speaker wires. I was wondering if using one cable for each positive and negative connector would be enough? that would be 4 twisted pairs per connection. Can anyone break that into a wire gauge for me?

Thanks

Nick L

 

[TimForman]

You may want to move your question to the Tweaks and Connections forum. There's been alot of discussion on this. My understanding is that just one cable is far to small. Another is the whole concept elludes me. The apparent goal is to reduce attenuation by having twisted pairs. I've been told the "magic" number is 27 pairs. The thing that boggles my mind is that the amount of attenuation in a typical run of 12 gauge speaker wire is so minimal I can't imagine any benefit from creating this "magic" cable. It borders the realm of mysticism.

 

[Rob Formica]

The apparent goal is to reduce attenuation by having twisted pairs.

I was under the impression it was more of a RFI noise reduction thing... but you may be right.

Rob

 

[Michael R Price]

Well, the reason 27 pairs are recommended is because that's the amount you need for a triple braided setup. See http://www.venhaus1.com/diycatfivecables.html

I did a smaller 9-pair version and it sounds a little better than normal copper wires, but I'm at a loss to explain why.

One cable for positive and one for negative will give you about 16 awg, but it may not sound as good as (time consuming) braided wires. Can't hurt to try it since it definitely isn't worse than normal wires.

 

[TimForman]

Yeah, could be RFI or attenuation. Being a 'puter guy my brain defaults to Cat5 solving attenuation problems over long runs. In either case, it's hard for me to believe that either problem is of consequence in the typically short runs of home speaker wire. Perhaps if someone actually lives next to a radio tower and has 100 foot runs of speaker wire this would be the solution. Sure is a hot topic on the Tweaks forum though.

 

[Dennis XYZ]

Roughly speaking, doubling the number of wires is the same as going 3 gauges bigger. So....

1 pair (+ and -): 24 ga
2 pair: 21 ga
4 pair: 18 ga
8 pair: 15 ga
16 pair: 12 ga
32 pair: 9 ga

27 pair: maybe 10 ga

 

[Wayne A. Pflughaupt]

I was under the impression it was more of a RFI noise reduction thing.

This is correct. However, all that is needed for RF rejection is for the two leads to repeatedly turn over. Thus the same thing could be accomplished by twisting standard speaker wire with a drill.

That said, I have to wonder why anyone would feel the need to do this unless they were picking up radio stations through their speaker wire. While it is true that parallel flat wire can act as an antenna, it’s also true that an antenna is worthless without an appropriate receiver or tuner. For instance, connect your satellite dish to your FM tuner and you will get zilch. Likewise, the output stages of an amplifier are not going to make a good tuner.

Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt