DIY Speaker Cable Face Off!

[Mudcat]

First off, I just wanted to say that your article was excellent!

Thanks

Anyways, I had a few questions for you:

1. The "test" cables were made with regular blue sheathed CAT 5 cable (not CAT 5 e or CAT 6). Now for the "finished" cables, my friend and I bought some gray sheathed CAT 5 e cable (it is marked as suitable for risers, were the blue sheathed CAT 5 e is marked for ducts, etc.. and the gray stuff was half the price). Would there be any measureable benefits of getting CAT 6 cable or the blue sheathed CAT 5 e cable?

I used CAT 5E cable. I am not sure if there would be any benefits or degradation between using CAT 6 or CAT 5 vs CAT 5e

2. I am still a little confused as to which configuration the twisted pairs should be in. I have them like this right now:

++ +- --
++ +- --
++ +- --
++ +- --

twisted pairs and then braided together. But how did you have them? Did you do it like this:

+- +- +-
+- +- +-
+- +- +-
+- +- +-

and then twist the pairs and braid them?

Why the four rows? Each cable only has 6 CAT 5e individual cables

+- +- +-


Anyway, I'm using the V3 variant because it is easier to cover in TechFlex braid and the difference in performance is nill and they take less time to make.

 

[Almage]

Hey Mudcat -

Thanks for all the work examining cables! You have put numbers to what I have long been suspicious of - that Monster cables (for example) are mostly hype and market share, and not necessarily more performance and higher quality for the $.

I have to say that I'm probably an 'Audio-idiot', with a rather uneducated ear or two, and may not be able to differentiate between a fine Mozart concerto and a tub of cream cheese... well, maybe - I like cream cheese with olives!

But, I digress.

My immediate goal is to set up a small listening environment for DVDs - from Disney for my kids to Star Wars and the Matrix for my wife and I. I've finally bought a set of (medium-level?) Polk speakers, and wish to hook them up. Having already far exceeded my meager budget for the speakers, I'm loath to spend another several hundred dollars on cables - especially of the Monster variety.

If I understand you tables and results, the Sound King 10-gauge wire, off the shelf (V1) performed reasonably well. Again with the budget in mind, would you expect the 12-gauge wire to perform reasonably, for an uneducated ear or two?

The rear speakers will probably take a full run of 30 feet, after routing under the floor, etc. The front and center are on the order of 12 to 15 feet each.

A second question is (and now I show my ignorance), in the V3 Sound King braid, how do one connect the ends to the speakers? Plus, minus, and neuter? Is it that one should run two braids to each speaker, connecting all the wires in one braid to the speaker Positive terminal, and all those of the other to the Negative terminal?

color me confused!?*

Regards from a Mage of another sort,
Almage

 

[Thucydes]

Thanks for the help again Mudcat (and all), and sorry for the confusion. I just put 4 rows in to demonstrate a length of cable... I am definately only using 6 individual lengths of wires in my configuration.

I did end up getting some General Cable CAT 6 wire from my buddy who works in an electrical warehouse for a steal of a deal.

I just finished making 3 cables at 6 feet each (FL C FR) in the +- +- +- and am going to be doing my rears as well (around 25 feet each) which should be fun... or not (my poor thumbs!).

Anyway, the last thing I was going to bug you about was stripping the individual strands of copper. Did you devise a faster method than using 24 gauge wire strippers (i.e. heat or something like that)? This is the part that seems to take forever for me and I wouldn't mind speeding it up if possible (after seeing and hearing the cables, all my friends are bugging me to make them some - my wife even liked them better than my old cables).

Thanks again,

Kyle T

 

[Mudcat]

Did you devise a faster method than using 24 gauge wire strippers (i.e. heat or something like that)?

Use your teeth.

 

[Thucydes]

LOL ! You might be on to something.... although then the cost saved on fancy wires would be forced to be spent at the dentist.

And FYI, I guess my rears were actually 40 feet each, so I decided to run a V1 for the rears. After getting out DVE and the radio shack SPL meter I got everything dialed in and sat down to watch some SpiderMan 1 & 2.... good times, good sound!

 

[Mudcat]

LOL ! You might be on to something.... although then the cost saved on fancy wires would be forced to be spent at the dentist.

There's an old guy here at the Coast Guard Yard in Baltimore who installs cables and does hook up of communication cables. I've never met or seen him, but the electrical engineers here say that he has a groove in both incisors from stripping wires.

 

[Mega2000]

great article, it has got me in the mood to make some speaker cables for my fronts.

I want to make ones similar to the ones you got from lowes because I actually have some spare cable that is similar to the 12/4. My question is do you use a cable for the negative and one for the positive or do you use one cable per speaker and split the 4 wires inside the cable.

thanks

 

[jaguars_fan]

Great article! Now I don't feel so bad! I started using CAT 5e cabling long ago for my modest system! I was too cheap (not paid enough is what it really amounts to) to go out and spend large sums of money on what I was getting for free anyway! I used to be a structured cabling installer for a few interconnect companies in FL and we were always installing new cable plants and would have several boxes of CAT 5 and 5e each with anywhere from 20 to 150 left over that was usually destined for the dumpster.

My boss, who was also an audiophile, showed me the Kimber cables he purchased for his system. Once I was done urinating on myself over the price, I commented on how they reminded me of CAT 5 (black and blue colors I suppose). I copied the braiding as best I could, stuck some banana plugs on and decided that was what I was going to use from now on! They sounded great!

When I was able to upgrade my entire system I got back to it again only this time I covered the wiring with a couple of spools braided sleeving to help increase the WAF. The cable I used was Mohawk's M58103 PlenumPlus with FEP Teflon. I used this because it was what we were installing at that time and it has been great!

I did choose the Teflon (plenum rated) versus PVC (non-plenum rated) because of the toxic fumes emitted by non-plenum cables in the event of fire.

By the way, call around to some of the computer cabling companies in you area and they will probably be glad to let you haul off excess/left overs!

 

[WopOnTour]

Hi there
Great cable analysis!
Can you tell me did you terminate each individual twisted pair withing each run of CAT 5 as - and + OR did you just make the entire 4-pair bundle within the CAT 5 a single polarity (+ or -)
OR (to say it differently)
Are all of the copper conductors within a single CAT5 going to a single termination OR is it 4 to + 4 to - (1 conductor from each twisted pair)
Hope this makes sense

Again thanks for the great article
Regards
WopOnTour

 

[jneutron]

First off, I just wanted to say that your article was excellent!

Geeze..how can you say that. the guy's a friggen Mechanical Engineer, for goodness sake..

Hi Mud..my diy cables can toast yours.

Cheers, John

 

[RedneckHunter]

(I am a GS-14 Step 6 Mechanical Engineer for DHS)

GS-14...geez

 

[sthayashi]

Hopefully, Mudcat and/or admins are still reading comments on this. One thing I found disturbingly puzzling is that on the last page, your labels are partially wrong.

For example:
On the last page, Table 1,
CAT 5 V5 was rated 9.161 Rs, 9.162 Lc, 5.997 Cp

On the page before:
CAT 5 V5 was rated 9.736 Rs, 10.0 Lc, 1.000 Cp. Which oddly enough is the same as CAT 5 V2 on the last page.

Which is it?

 

[Mudcat]

Thanks Scott - good catch. There is a mistake - actually three, small though not necessarily inconsequential.

In table 6 of the web posting CAT 5 V2 and CAT 5 V5 should be reversed (just make the V2 a V5 and vice versa).

Do the same with the Sound King, relabel V3 to V1, and V1 to V3.

And the Carol 10/3 data was mixed up with the Parts Express 100-768 data. So in table 6, where is says Carol 10/3 relabel that Parts Express 100-768 and vice versa.

I do not know how this occured, since I thought I was rather meticulous about the whole thing. I think it was how the data was collected onto the results sheet in my original excel file. However, I plan on redoing the whole thing with a new meter and some new materials in the future.

 

[gene]

Mudcat;

Send me the updated tables and I will change them out. How are my cables coming ?

 

[Mudcat]

My wife won't let me forget. She keep nagging, when are you going to finish those cables. I reply after I finish the front drywall, paint the kids rooms, build the garden shed you want, do the taxes, let the clothes folder rest. etc..

they're in the mail

 

[mustang_steve]

cat 5 and cat5e are not very likely to have any audible difference. The difference between the two are how the twisting is done.

Regular cat5 has consistant twists at every x millimeters, while cat5e is set up to have varying distances, where no adjacent twist is identical. This is to increase noise rejection...FOR network traffic, which is up around 350mhz...20khz...350mhz...a bit close...NAH!

edit: btw, the impedance per foot between the two cat5 variants should be identical since it's cable designed around a digital signal.

 

[sthayashi]

Thanks Scott - good catch. There is a mistake - actually three, small though not necessarily inconsequential.

In table 6 of the web posting CAT 5 V2 and CAT 5 V5 should be reversed (just make the V2 a V5 and vice versa).

Do the same with the Sound King, relabel V3 to V1, and V1 to V3.

And the Carol 10/3 data was mixed up with the Parts Express 100-768 data. So in table 6, where is says Carol 10/3 relabel that Parts Express 100-768 and vice versa.

Actually, the name is Steve, not Scott.

And I believe it's a good deal more muddled up than you realize.
Here are is the last page w/ just resistance (I put the Inductance down for the duplicate resistance rankings) :

CAT 5 V5 - 9.161
CAT 5 V3 - 8.336
CAT 5 V1 - 9.797
CAT 5 V4 - 9.824
Sound King V3 - 9.850
CAT 5 V2 - 9.736
Sound King V1 - 9.808 4.237
Sound King V2 - 9.808 2.641
Generic (Lowes) 10/4 - 9.870
Sound King V4 - 9.884
Carol 10/3 - 8.232
Generic (Lowes) 12/4 - 5.742
Woods HD - 8.345
Carol 12/4 T1 - 8.322
Parts Express 100-768 - 10.000
Monster MCX-1S - 1.000
Alpha 85104CY - 9.858

Here's the data on resistance rankings on the page before:

Alpha 85104CY - 9.858
Carol 10/3 - 10.000
Carol 12/4 T1 - 8.322
CAT 5 V1 - 9.161
CAT 5 V2 - 8.336
CAT 5 V3 - 9.824
CAT 5 V4 - 9.797
CAT 5 V5 - 9.736
Generic (Lowes) 10/4 - 9.870
Generic (Lowes) 12/4 - 8.345
Monster MCX-1S - 1.000
Parts Express 100-768 - 5.742
Sound King V1 - 9.850
Sound King V2 - 9.808
Sound King V3 - 9.808
Sound King V4 - 9.884
Woods HD - 8.232

And of course, Inductance for the relevant info:

Sound King V2 - 4.327
Sound King V3 - 2.641

So based on all the above data, we can now say that the rankings should be labeled as follows:

CAT 5 V5 - 9.161                ==> CAT 5 V1
CAT 5 V3 - 8.336                ==> CAT 5 V2  
CAT 5 V1 - 9.797                ==> CAT 5 v4
CAT 5 V4 - 9.824                ==> CAT 5 V3
Sound King V3 - 9.850           ==> Sound King V1 (just as you said)
CAT 5 V2 - 9.736                ==> CAT 5 V5 (just as you said)
Sound King V1 - 9.808 4.237     ==> Sound King V2
Sound King V2 - 9.808 2.641     ==> Sound King V3
Generic (Lowes) 10/4 - 9.870    ==> ....(no change)
Sound King V4 - 9.884           ==> ....(no change)
Carol 10/3 - 8.232              ==> Woods HD
Generic (Lowes) 12/4 - 5.742    ==> Parts Express 100-768
Woods HD - 8.345                ==> Generic (Lowes) 12/4
Carol 12/4 T1 - 8.322           ==> ....(no change)
Parts Express 100-768 - 10.000  ==> Carol 10/3 (just as you said)
Monster MCX-1S - 1.000          ==> ....(no change)
Alpha 85104CY - 9.858           ==> ....(no change)

Now assuming I'm right (this is much more consistant with the results
I calculated based on your data from the previous page), this raises interesting questions:
-Why did the less complicated CAT 5 outperform the more complicated (and presumably thicker) ones?
-Ditto for the Sound King?
-Why does the Carol 12/4 outperform the 10/3 version?

Also, assuming I am correct in the above, I'm afraid I must call into question the accuracy of your final table. I'm sorry, but I'm not about to pull the data you received from the other tests as even this short one took me a couple hours to calculate results (my brain was too tired to operate any faster).

 

[Mudcat]

edit: btw, the impedance per foot between the two cat5 variants should be identical since it's cable designed around a digital signal.

If I used identical lengths for each. If you take two 10 foot lengths and twist them together you'll end up with a lot less than ten feet when you are done. So whether you are twisting or braiding 4 or 6 cables into one, you will have different final lengths. This final length is what I based things on, not the starting length of each individual cable.


Steve (sorry about that Scott stuff), I'd hate to think I muddled things up that badly, though I may have. I'll be rechecking and redoing everything in the future - because I got some new toys to try out and new materials to use (Cat 5e with teflon insulation and teflon jacket, and 14 awg silver plated copper with teflon insulation)

 

[mustang_steve]

very true, I was just trying to explain that the differences between those two cables would more than likely ne negligiable enough to not be worth the time to braid it. The cat6 might be another story, I'm not familiar enough with that cabling to be sure what it's gague/design is. It's not picking on actual lengths, just me being a nerd like usual

 

[sthayashi]

Steve (sorry about that Scott stuff), I'd hate to think I muddled things up that badly, though I may have. I'll be rechecking and redoing everything in the future - because I got some new toys to try out and new materials to use (Cat 5e with teflon insulation and teflon jacket, and 14 awg silver plated copper with teflon insulation)

That's alright. I was trying to see what the final tech numbers would have looked like if it were an unweighted average. But when I started plugging in numbers starting from the beginning, I noticed some serious discrepencies.

I'm looking forward to your second DIY shootout. And I'll be sure to check your numbers again for that one too .