cat 5e or cat6 interconnects

[budgetaudio76]

if i were to use cat5 or cat6 for making ics. what should i expect from them. howmany strands do i soldier to each terminal considering they have a positive and negative terminal. sould more strands be more beneficial or should i use less strands. why would i do this...? i keep reading that these cables have less chance for crosstalk. i dont know how that would apply in this situation, but i want to try it. i probably will cannibalize zipcord terminal for this unless i can get good connectors cheap. any info much appreciated.

[budgetaudio76]

well i finally did it. bought a soldiering iron. some silver bearing soldier. some cheap interconnects from thrift store. chopped them up. bared out the ends. and soldiered some cat5e to the terminals on the connectors. initially they were quite revealing very bright on top end. but after playing music through the system overnight and all day the sound smoothed out. i wonder why that is.
so far what im hearing .
the sounstage has really opened up. from farr ahead of me. to sound comming from sides and from behind. speakers are sounding less closed in like they were before. and this is with the diy cables going from amp to preamp section behind the sansui. looking forward to making one for source to reciever connections. its time consuming so it may be awhile till i make them. results are worth while for the improvement in sound. it looks like the cat5e cable per connector is a larger guage than the cheapo black interconnects that came with some components. much better tonal qualities of what is fed into the speakers.

[Rich-n-Texas]

I recall your original intention was to use the existing cat5 recepticles in your apartment to get your surround speakers connected, right? But now, if I understand correctly, you bought cheap RCA cables, cut off the wire and soldered cat5 to the RCA's.

No offense, but I don't quite understand the logic behind this.

[budgetaudio76]

sorry rich but your mistaking someone elses original post regarding using the cat5 for speaker wire. but i do remember reading that post as well. not the name thogh.

what i did was cut the plastic off the cheapo interconnect...all of it. leaving no wire behind. used soldier iron to remove every last piece. then i soldiered the cat5e cable to the bare metal. it has 8 wires all color coded. i took the white wires separated them from the colored wires twisted them together. same deal on the solid color wires...twisted them together. they are twisted within the cable jacket so as to reduce or eliminate cross talk. im not certain as to how that would pertain to this application. but i do like the results. worth the effort and the smell from the soldier. it is a noticable smellthat lingers for a while. i must say that this is a very short run all of 4 inch id say. extra guage must help in signal transfer. if you wondering about the cross section get some expendable cat 5 cat5e or cat6 cable(pretty cheap at thrift stores) cut it up and or slice it open. this is a hobby isnt it. if you have better things to do. just ignore this suggestion. you dont have to do it. you wont get extra points for any thing just . so thats how it looks like. kinda thing within yourself ;)

[nightflier]

Intriguing. How many strands did you end up using? Did you ever consider using a single strand, like Pierre Sprey does at Mapleshade.com? Also, what about using solder-less RCA plugs like the WBTs?

[usbmusic]

I have tried CAT5 IC very average to say the lease. I think where small signal are concerned CAT5 copper purity is just not up to the task. Any entry level AQ will do much better job.

Just my finding. :)

[nightflier]

Interesting. Not all Cat5/6 cable is created equal of course, but that does start ratcheting up the price-point too. Other metals like silver have the same issues, apparently (http://www.venhaus1.com/diysilverinterconnects.html).

[stevenv]

I have tried both multi strain and single core type as IC. Solid core is better. Multi strain sounded just like $5 IC from Walmar but single soild core sounded a little more punch and airy.