What do you think of the DIY Cat 5 speaker cables

Technically speaking, this design has a lot going for it in certain areas and drawbacks in others. As can be expected, there are some big sonic improvements in some areas over basic cabling with some drawbacks too.

The first thing that i noticed about this cable is that it has a VERY solid and powerful bottom end. Top end is slightly "tizzy" or smeared sounding, probably due to uneven length paths from the multitudes of unevenly twisted & braided conductors and / or all of the stress that the conductors undergo when doing braiding i.e. fissures and cracks developing from metal fatigue. Tighter braiding produces a more consistent impedance ( one of the BIG problems with this design ), but also results in greater stress on the metal with increased potential for microphonics.

I'm certain that cryo'ing would help somewhat, but the problem with cryo'ing is that the cables must be moved and "bent up" when trying to re-install them. As such, "burning the cables in" installed IN the system using high powered dummy loads may work better, if one were interested in going to such lengths.

Extremely labour intensive and time consuming. If you have access to cabling at little to no cost and were going to build them in your spare time i.e. while watching TV in the background, etc..., have at it. Probably better than what you think, but how they turn out will ultimately depend on the quality of materials used and the consistency of the build. Sean
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In my experience DIY CAT 5's caused a smearing of the sound. Probably due to the different twist ratios on the strand pairs. In any case, it effected the definition and leading edge transients badly.

Enjoy,
Bob

I have done the receipe... They are okay, Lamp cord monster cable/types of copper or Home depot 12 - 10 gauge are more normal sounding, in otherwords lamp cord has basic detail, a little midrange ruff, but have better bass than the CAT 5... Now I have owned kimber stuff, and yeah the cat 5 is very similar, and I would not waste the money again on kimber in retrospect, however I don't like EITHER the CAT 5 or kimber much. Go with a better simpler Litz or stranded single wire design in my opinion. CAT 5 is great if you have 200.00 old Cerwin vega or optimus speakers sitting in the garage or basement to save a few bucks, then it is good wire.. But for a more full body and depth musical feel I find other stuff better, yeah it costs more but its only my opinion that it works better...Getting all the tiny cat 5 strands to be in perfect geometry for not causing too much resistance, inductance, capacitance whatever to carry a Hi current audio signal is not perfectly easy either. But I am no expert, just know what I felt about it in the end. For how cheap it is give it a shot, but its a real pain to make correctly is all. I have interest in hearing Mapleshades wire, it is something very similar and is suppose to sound very warm in comparison to Kimber and cat 5.

Some of the best cables I have ever heard.

Cat6 with FEP insulation has been a long decade favorite of mine.
With cat5 another major breakthrough is realized in sound quality even with a non superior jacket material.

Recording a live event can be very demanding on a speaker cable and if the Board man is unfamiliar with the speaker cable and speakers used, the sound can be altered from one recording to another with the same material. Especially with non powered speakers "which I build and Prefer" to powered speakers that use Class D amplifier designs. Without throwing everything into a tizzy, most studio monitors in recording studio's are now powered and most use class D. The reason, cheaper more power less weight, and in my opinion weaker, dirtier and uninvolving , and the loss of warmth even in the new digital era.
I consider this a lost art.

Lets go back to when say Barbra Streisand recorded in the studio with a amplifier SPEAKER WIRE set up. Say SSL board Studer A820 Crown amps JBL L300's
or Altec's and high end lamp cord. The sound was simply mind blowing, alive and full of emotion.
This is the feeling I get today with properly designed speaker cables and Cat5 and Cat6 definitely take the cake for price versus performance without getting into the exotics that cost more than the equipment!

Cat5 and Cat6 all the way if you want the best sound versus cost. Been making silver plated hyper pure solid silver/copper interconnects and x-overs for 20 years now and have found Cat5 and Cat6 speaker cable to simply sine brighter in the sky with a purity that is simply worth an ear in the High End.

Oh yeah, I make my own, you can too.

I don't take credit, but I may have been the Cat 5 speaker cable pioneer before anyone offered them. Newer Cat 6 cables have higher specs WAY out of audio signals, improved crosstalk, BUT, are less flexible. If making more, I would stick with the flexibility of Cat 5.

"Cat5E and Cat6 cables both typically use 4 twisted pairs in each cable, and incorporate copper wires.  Cat6 cables have more stringent specifications for reduced crosstalk and system noise.  Cat6 cables provide performance speeds up to 250MHz.  Cat5 cables in contrast, only provide speeds up to 100 MHz.  A longitudinal separator (or spline) was incorporated into the Cat6 design, isolating each of the four pairs of twisted wire.  This made Cat6 cables more rigid."

I borrowed/tried so many fancy expensive cables/wires, that my wealthy audiophile friend bought/went thru.

After much reading, I decided multi-strand, small diameter, solid strand, individually insulated, made the most logic to me. Hey, cat 5? Off to radio shack. That's it, done!

Twist a few feet, tape it, twist it other direction, tape it, keeps you from needing to keep on flipping the whole length over and over.

I put colored tape on the positive cable at the ends. I have 3 sets, red, blue, green, one end with right angle spades the width that fit either Fisher or McIntosh speaker terminals; other end WBT tighten/locking high contact banana plugs, to switch from SS to tube system.

https://www.don-audio.com/WBT-0765-pole-terminals-classic-isolated-4-pieces-boxed-edition

Get some nice gold plated connectors

https://www.google.com/search?q=gold+plated+speaker+connectors&source=univ&tbm=shop&tbo=u&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiEpMrmqf3iAhWsxFkKHa_mDcIQ1TUIkQI&biw=1447&bih=732

I've never been tempted to try anything else. I made a set for my audiophile friend, all his pricey stuff in a box somewhere.

You want to twist the bare ends ONCE, connect solidly, leave them alone. IF you change them, say shorten them, or new connector type, clip some off, strip fresh ends, make proper connector.