DIY Cat 5 speaker cables....

You might want to try this with Cat5E plenum rated cable as it is lower capacitance than Cat5. (Always use plenum rated cable if you are running through walls...it is a safety issue regarding the flammability of the insulation.)

George, what is the difference between the 5E and standard CAT5 ? I know that the plenum uses a different insulation on the wires themselves. As to using these cables, most of the "DIY" designs suggest removing the outer jacket and simply twisting or braiding multiple runs of this together. As such, the capacitance comes from having SO many braided & twisted wire pairs running in parallel. It is not necessarily the single runs of cable that are causing this. Sean
>

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

I use CAT5 cables in my sytem and am very happy with the results with my 802 series 3's. I used the Chris VenHaus design and Belden 1585a cable that he recommends. I run my speakers bi-amped and used 9 twisted pairs for the mid/tweet and 27 for the lows.