My subwoofer cable - can I use it as a coaxial cable? (1 Viewer)

[Chris_House]

I am planning to use the coaxial connection on my new receiver, and I am looking for the right cable. But today, I noticed that the cable I am currently using for my sub's "line" output is actually two cables, one of which is just dangling there. I bought the cable a year or so ago, so I don't know much about it. On the cable itself it reads "MONSTER STANDARD Interlink Junior - standard high performance audio interconnect cable by Monster".
I have two main questions:
1. Is this the right type of cable to use as a digital coaxial connection from my DVD player to my receiver? If so, could I simply pull the cables apart and use the extra one for my coaxial connection? The two cables are easily seperated.
2. Sandwiched between the two cables is a thin, speaker-type wire. (again, currently just dangling there) What is this wire for? Does it serve some purpose that I am unaware of?
Thanks for any help.
EDIT: They look very similar tothese cables, only mine have that thin wire inbetween.

 

[Marc Rochkind]

Here's a thread that addresses exactly the same issue:
http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htfo...threadid=69091

 

[Chris_House]

So the cable needs to be 75 ohms to be used as coaxial, but I don't know if the cables in question are 75 ohms or not. It doesn't say on them. I also don't know if they are specifically subwoofer cables or not.

 

[Mike Matheson]

Chris,
There's a good chance the cable isn't 75 ohms.
But you can always try it and see if it works?

 

[Bob McElfresh]

Chris: Video cables are 75 ohm, so are Coaxial Digital cables.

But audio cables can be made with 50/75/110/300 ohm coax, and this includes subwoofer cables.

If you used a wrong-impedence audio cable for the coaxial-digital connection - it will appear to work. But people who have done this by accident have noticed audio drop-outs every few minutes.

My advice: go to Best Buy and buy a AR brand Video cable and use it for the Coaxial Digital connection. The people who designed that connection had a Video cable in mind. They wanted you to be able to just go out and buy a common-as-dirt cable for this. It should run you $15-$25 - one of the cheaper cables in your system.

 

[Marvin]

I've found that accessories-for-less (www.ac4l.com) is a good source for AR (also IXOS) cables. They have AR subwoofer cables.