Comments on: Cat-5 Speaker Cables

By: Casey

Casey — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 20:09:36 +0000

obviously, the mention of cables that are $20/ea is meant as an estimated average.

also, a studio would probably be an audiophiles worst nightmare. there are so many bundled wires, shared power sources, and cable junctions to make one’s head spin!

By: Casey

Casey — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 20:03:09 +0000

All bashing aside, if expensive cables allow you to hear more clearly, then use those cables. The probability that what you are listening to was actually recorded in a studio that paid as much attention to cabling as some audiophiles out there is pretty slim.

The signal path runs from the instrument/vocalist through a ton of cables (that can be purchased for around $20/ea) to a console. Most of those cables are pretty standard in the recording industry.

The song is then mixed down and shipped off to someone else to master it. They may have an expensive, well thought out studio with runs of very expensive and important cable OR they may have more of those standard cables that can be bought from music and pro-audio stores.

Almost everyone listens to their music through equipment that colors the sound in one way or another. How much do you want to pay for it?

By: Butch Katooris

Butch Katooris — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 14:35:29 +0000

I am sick of hearing people say insulting things about Best Buy employees. I have worked part-time for Best Buy for five years. Our store is staffed with knowledgeable salesmen. There may or may not be a difference between the cheap audio cable and the higher priced stuff when used on the average home system. Sometimes the cheap stuff will suffice. Best buy employees, unlike those at H.H. Gregg, DO NOT work on commission. The store wants a salesman to add accessories to a sale of equipment but a simple purchase of cable will not encourage a Best Buy employee to sell you a higher priced item for the sake of store profit. Just the opposite is the case. I discourage shoppers from the buying higher priced cable if it will do their system no good. You have been watching too many episodes of “Chuck”. Don’t confuse “Buy More” with BEST BUY. Go aheads and diss us but with Circuit City gone, where are you going to buy your cables and widgets? Radio Shack? There is a fine example of unqualified sales people. If it isn’t on there computer then no one makes it!
If you are using audio equipment that is higher end than what they are selling in Best Buy, why are you buying cable there?

By: Arthur Wong

Arthur Wong — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 15:57:09 +0000

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By: ben

ben — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 16:09:28 +0000

I wonder if these cables would be suitable for car audio. I have looked all over the website and even asked the webmaster.

By: LoopyMind

LoopyMind — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 16:59:31 +0000

Came across this little clip... doesn't look like it's fast or that it makes a tight braid, but then again, it's LEGO

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZW15Uc-00U

By: Jeremy

Jeremy — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 17:31:50 +0000

Also, I totally agree with ee’s post above. Coming from my electrical engineering degrees, he is basically giving you all the simple textbook answer. I’m with you ee.

By: Jeremy

Jeremy — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 17:28:12 +0000

So, I don’t consider myself an audiophile or your average Joe, but I’m getting rather tired of hearing the same old comments whenever there is some post on speaker cable or high end audio equipment. One side says, “rar, rar, rar, there isn’t a cable great enough to let me listen to my music on my quadruple high definition audio system.” And the other side says, “rar,rar,rar, I usually just use whatever metal I can find as long as sound comes out.” You know what, you both are probably right. The reason for that is that each of us isn’t the same in that we hear differently. Some people can hear (or at least think they can hear) all the way down to 4Hz and all the way up to 35KHz. My point in this post is, lets leave the bashing of either side out of this and just admire this guy that braids his cables better than a lot of woman can braid their hair. -flaming commence-

By: richard rowell

richard rowell — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 10:40:55 +0000

“Capacitance” in a wire? Well all those EE classes were a long time ago, but I don’t ever remember hearing about the magical “capacitance” of large stringy pieces of copper. Resistance yeah, capacitance? Sounds like a duck to me…

By: Andy

Andy — Sat, 07 Jan 2006 19:54:02 +0000

http://www.schachtspindle.com/help/rope_machine.htm

example of an age old device used to make rope. While not a true braid the end product works great (atleast with hemp roap, CAT-5 cableing might be a bit different)

By: Terry Kull

Terry Kull — Wed, 12 Oct 2005 19:07:45 +0000

http://www.texturatrading.com/leonardo.jpg

By: Italian stallion AKA master of the universe

Italian stallion AKA master of the universe — Fri, 16 Sep 2005 04:31:11 +0000

to all of you morons and douch suckers out there who thinks that they are the gods of all things audio Im going to have to knock you down to the level that you should be looked at

now for the guy who actually did this props to you for actually being a nut and trying something and for going through all the trouble of braiding it by hand

and for all you other “people” (i use that term loosely)you really are just spewing useless info and rumors you pulled out of your stretched out non-virgin anus’ (YES IM CALLING YOU GAY!)

length, gauge, and etc. of speaker cables all dependes on how much power you have being pushed out of your amp. because if you have alot of power e.g. 1000w then it is recomended that you have something pretty hefty to handle the wattage but on the other hand if you have some pansy little amp that is say 5w then you probably need something small say under 20gauge

Oh and for the IDIOT that said to keep your + and – wires far apart due to electro-magnetism whatever your an idiot because the so called magnetic field that is supposedly created is not even enough to do anything and even if it was thats why you have insulated and shielded wires so that doesnt happen.

so my final thought on this is it was a noble effort but pointless, sorry

oh and most of you people just need to go out and take a class or read a book(or 10) on basic electronics and audio systems before you go and blab your mouth like you re the MASTER OF THE UNIVERSE (there is only one and its ME not YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!)

By: ben

ben — Sun, 17 Jul 2005 23:33:05 +0000

To anyone who is interested in the technical specifications of different wire and why the braided cat5 works noticeably better than others, and wants numbers and not just opinions, go here: http://www.audioholics.com/techtips/setup/interconnects/DIYSpeakerCablesp1.html . To the rest of you, shut up. Please and thank you. Your unfounded or loosely founded arguments are trite and irrelevant, especially if this is not in your realm of knowledge and you just read something on the internet, or can’t notice a difference when you hook up your $30 dollar loudspeakers to your radioshack amplifier with lamp wire and braided cat5. Thank you and goodnight
-ben

By: tweekgeek

tweekgeek — Mon, 20 Jun 2005 23:19:09 +0000

It depends in what you listen to every day. If you listen to lamp cord day in day out the ability hear the frequencies will decries. It will take a lot of intense listening to even be back to the way you were before the lamp cord. Your question about the twisted wire vs. the braded I

By: jesseg2

jesseg2 — Sun, 19 Jun 2005 08:57:52 +0000

Thinkgeek,

Thanks! Exactly the info I wanted.

In short, your ohm meter tells you the difference, and your sound pressure level meter tells you the difference. And you can even hear the difference!

By double-blind, you mean that somebody other then yourself was switching between the two cables, and you were listening — but neither of you knew which cable was switched in at any given moment, but you could still determine by listening which cable was being used at any given moment. Right? How many “tests” did you perform, and how many times were you correct? (This info is what gives real meaning to the issue.)

Of course, since one cable had more resistance, it may have been easy to determine which cable was being used based just on the loudness — which would sort of spoil any efforts to have the test blind.

I don’t think any of us would dispute the fact that a wire with less resistance has less resistance and less loss of power. But loss of power really isn’t the issue here. If you want less power loss and less resistance, get fatter wires, do shorter runs, or super cool your wires.

The real question is “Can anyone hear the difference between your acoustic zen cables and the cat5, even if they were of equal resistance.”

Now I _know_ that there IS a difference in the sound based on whether you use cat5 or a zen, which could be detected with the correct instruments. But whether anyone can actually hear the difference in _quality_ (with no difference in quantity) between cat-5 and a zen
in a true double-blind study would be of quite some interest to me. (And a few others, I suspect!)

When you said “300mz” you must have meant 300hz ?

Also, you mentenioned the audio cables for reference as ($400ft) — $400 a foot?

From what I can tell, the picture and text above show/describe more of a litz wire scheme.

Why would it not be better to use the natively twisted cat5 pairs as the speaker + and -?
The pairs are already twisted, which cancels out interference, and allows for very high frequencies (Ghz!) to travel down the wire.

That might sound even better. Since the twisted wires are so close together, the magnetic field would be much smaller and much less, and the cables would have much less inductance as a result.

Thanks again!

-Jesse