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DIY cat 6 FEP "TEFLON"

I have made a 8ft pair of speaker cables using Chris of VH Audio's method. I used Teflon insulated cat 6 which has a solid copper conductor that is a little thicker 23awg than cat 5(24awg). What I did different was use only one color for all 27 pairs on both speakers. I chose the brown pair because it has the tighter twist(more copper). I did not want there to be any issues about "Time Smearing" using cable that has different twist in them. Has anyone else done there DIY cat 5 or 6 cables this way? I believe this my be the best way to get the most out of DIY Teflon cat 5 or cat 6 speaker cable. BTW I did separate the other 3 pairs in the cable. I just have not started any more braiding.
jejaudio

Showing 2 responses by spatialking

spatialking's avatar
spatialking
613 posts
 
You might try using one half of each twisted pair for the hot signal and the other half for the ground. This will increase capacitance a bit but it will lower inductance, which is the real problem at these currents and impedances.

Note that a tighter twist means more copper in series with the speaker, not more copper in thickness. This will increase the series resistance a tad, which will not be a problem if you are using all 27 pairs. The best benefit of the tighter twist is less inductance, which is a very big plus.

Don't worry about time smear; you can measure this and you will need to have 100 feet of speaker cable to have 1/4 inch of time smear. With the twisted pairs you are using, I doubt you would even have that.
spatialking's avatar
spatialking
613 posts
 
JeAudio: You certainly put some serious effort into this! I am glad you had good results.

A couple of questions for you: Did you have any amplifier problems driving the capacitive load? Did you build a Zorbel network on one or both ends? and, Is your amplifier a tube unit with a transformer output stage or a solid state unit?

Thanks!
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