[Zenja]

I'm about to make some speaker cable according to this design: http://www.venhaus1.com/diycatfivecables.html

My (and probably all?) cat5e cable has two twisted pairs that are twisted tightly, and the other two are twisted more loosely. I seem to recall briefly seeing somewhere that this is to reduce signal cross-talk and is done on purpose. Is this type of cable fine for making speaker cable as outlined in the link above? Am I supposed to use cat5 with equally twisted pairs (if such a thing exists?) or will this be fine? I measured the the resistance of both the tighter and looser pairs over 75ft cable and my multimeter didn't even pick up a difference so it seems like it should be fine.

Also, I can't find any teflon insulated conductor cat5 cable around here and am not willing to spend a bunch of money on this. I know that opinions are going to disagree on this question, but will it really make a big difference in the sound quality of the cable?

Thanks.

 

[00940]

http://www.mejiatryti.com/SpeakerCable/fivebraid.html

 

[Zenja]

I came across that article before but I didn't have time to really read it carefully. I'll try doing the extra twisting by drill thing.

I was deciding between this method or the VH one I originally posted and I was under the impression that the VH one is better because it gets mentioned much more often, it seems. Now I'm reconsidering again. It would be more sane to do this other version, and less risky in terms of capacitance probably. I don't know how the receiver will handle high capacitance.

Thanks for reminding me about this article. I would have forgotten about it

I'm pretty sure I'll do this 15-pair version.

 

[GregVDS]

tnt-audio had a dIY cable based on cat-5 cable:

http://www.tnt-audio.com/clinica/ffrc_e.html

I made it with 4 cat-5 cables in parallel, just twisted and techflex finished.

At the beginning, highs were a little bit too bright, and lows were gone, then things bettered, give them a normal listening week or two to settle.

I went in my usual Hi-end shop to have them auditioned. They were equivalent to some 2x3m flat Nordost costing around 500 euros, don't remember the name.

I found just a little bit difficult to finish these cleanly, for the amount of wires to twist and fix in a plug connector.

So 4 cables = 32 pairs, 16 whites for ground and 16 colors for signal

All the best,

GregVDS