[pne]

I've read that long interconnects are preferrd over long speaker cables, and now that I've aqquired monoblocks this is actually a possibility. I am planning to run a single twisted pair of Cat 5 wire, (just two strands, not two cables), most likely terminated with neutriks. My question is how long can they be without affecting the sound too much?

Right now I have two choices,

1) run aprox. 10 foot length underneath a rug on the floor to the monoblocks.

2) run a 20 foot length going straight up from the preamp, to be hung along the ceiling, and following the wall down to the monoblocks.

I can't run them along the walls because of a doorway. I've heard elevating cables off the ground benefits the sound because of the carpets dielectric properties. Is this the same for interconnects? If it is not, should I be looking at a different construction for the IC's? IE the flat ribbon type or multiple twisted/braided pairs?

 

[Wodgy]

The "long interconnects are better" theory is not true in my experience. You get fairly serious signal degredation running long lengths of unbalanced line-level interconnects. I tried a run of 30 ft and was not at all happy with it. 10 ft line-level is probably acceptable, but I wouldn't use unshielded cable like Cat 5 (despite the twisted pair configuration) in this application. For long cable runs, go with a microphone cable like Canare Star Quad that's both twisted pair and shielded. In my experience, speaker cable is less sensative to distance. My 30 ft run was acceptable with 11 awg cable, giving a damping factor of about 40.

Personally I'd run speaker cable under your carpet. The carpet dielectric theory seems a little like audiophile obsessionalism, and if it has any effect, it's almost certainly less of an effect than doubling the total cable length.

 

[J@ck]

Length aside, I feel the most challenging task is how to place the unshielded bare CAT5 wires without introducing any noise into your music. Hanging in the air away from anything might be a good idea.
Since it is a fairly cheap experiment, I would say go for it and try if you are happy with the result. If not, try to get something with some shielding, like the Belden 89259.

 

[TheSloth]

I had great experience running Cat 5E cables as DIY speaker cables. I was using three complete cables, with live and ground making up either side of each twisted pair. The three cables were then braided and covered in flexible sleeving, and simple put directly into the speaker terminals. Though, this was only run over 2M.