Not to swim against the stream, but I put together a set of the aforementioned cat5 cables, and was rather unimpressed by the results. I used 4 runs per speaker, and seperated each twisted pair into positive and negative to retain the balancing effect that cat5 is useful for. That meant stripping and twisting 16x4x2 wires --can you say bloody fingers? The 4 runs were braided together, and then heat-shrinked. Plenum grade uses a different type of insulation rated for in-wall and heating duct use--I used this grade of cat5. Not only did I find the sonic result unimpressive, because I used plenum grade I ran into problems after a short time. The insulation used in this grade cable is far stiffer and cracks easily if it is flexed. This caused mine to short out during a cross-country move. Since the total outlay on the cable and connectors was roughly $100, I didn't think it was a wise investment since that gets you a fair distance toward decent speaker cables from a number of companies. Just my $.02
DIY Cat 5 speaker cables....
Hello all you fellow audiophiles, I Want to know if you think its a good idea to make some DIY cat 5 like the chris VenHaus ones. I heard that they have a large capacitance. And can cause an amp to ru hot or oscillate. I have a NAD C-370 and i dont think that i would have any poblems, but i just want to make sure. Also what do you think of this DIY cable? I would make a 10-12' Pair and i dont wanna spend a 100 bucks and hours making these is they wont work. Thanks all