# Cat5e as speaker wire?



## Illah

I've always heard that 10 or 12 awg speaker wire would be best, but I keep hearing about Cat5e networking cable. Does one use all the wires of the cat5 cable as one speaker cable, or just one of the internal wires? Does the fact that it's multiple 24 awg wires impede performace vs. a decent 12 awg run?

 --Illah


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## eyeteeth

Would that be related to the same cable coming out on top of this cable face-off? CAT 5 

http://www.audioholics.com/techtips/...rCablesp1.html


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## mojoman

I use cat5e for the rear speakers in my 5.1 system because I had to run about 75 feet of cable for each side after snaking down walls, into my crawl space and back to the speakers. The way I used it was to seperate the solids and stripes wires and twist them together and terminate with rca plugs from RatShack. It works just fine for my purposes although there may be something better out there. It was cheap, (think I paid .06 per foot for the cable) which was my first criteria, and the surround speakers sound just fine.


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## mojoman

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *eyeteeth* 
_Would that be related to the same cable coming out on top of this cable face-off? CAT 5 

http://www.audioholics.com/techtips/...rCablesp1.html_

 

That's an interesting article. I did not do any braiding of the cables, I just used a single cable and connected the wire.


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## jboehle

This is one of the most popular designs out there utilizing Cat5 cable. Lots of work, though.

http://www.venhaus1.com/diycatfivecables.html

 -Jason


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## 00940

http://www.mejiatryti.com/SpeakerCable/

 An illustrated guide to braided cat5 wires. I'm using a 15pairs cable for the lows and a 9 pairs cable for the highs in a passive biamp setup. Works well.


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