Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Technical Questions 4X's 24 AWG =????

There was a mention on these boards not long ago (maybe 3 weeks?) that Radio Shack was getting out of the bulk wire biz and, among others, had their 12 gauge speaker wire at 50% off.

I called my local stores and although some only had small amounts, one store had 150' left that I purchased. I think it ended up at fifty cents a foot....

Jag, when you got to Home Depot (or a similar store), don't buy the pre-cut, prepackaged wire in 50' or 100' packs. Be sure to get to the bulk area, where they have the wire rolled up on big honkin' wheels and they cut to the length you want. MUCH less expensive. The quote at around $.22/foot sounds about right. If you are in Canada, it will be a bit more expensive, but should not even be close to $1/foot.

Nah, they're moving close to lightspeed, and an inch or two, or more, at those velocities shouldn't make a difference.

Ya I thought it was weird too. That should work out to around 30 cents CDN. I'll look around again but I've asked a couple home depot reps in the bulk wire section on different occasions and they've always only shown me more expensive stuff.

Thanks, Jag

My understanding is that "Twisted Pair" cabling contains the same length cables, and the occurence of the twists is done per an industry standard defining the different Categories. The difference in classifications of the cables is mainly through electrical performance criteria. The electrical performance of these cable can be found in document "TIA/EIA 568-A: Commercial Building Telecommunications Cabling Standard", often referred to as just 568-A.

The twisting is done to increase the cables rejection of noise and interference.

I guess the BICSI course and RCDD designation paid off....I remember stuff!!!

Ya they did that to me too. But I told them I wasn't interested in anything else but the wire I wanted and cut to specific lengths. The guy didn't seem to want to cut the wire (it's not even that hard), but I wasn't going anywhere so he did it.

It's been awhile for me too! I barely remember the specs myself.
I just did a quick run through in my Avaya structured wiring text book. And found that the white/orange pair is 1/4" per foot longer than say the white/green pair after the winding is removed. However, this is for CAT 5E.

For speaker wires I use 2 runs for each speaker of 24 awg CAT5 solid core (twisted insulated 8 tips) patch network cables ~ $22 cdn for 100 feet (the ones used for long runs between hub rooms and/or backbone switches and are Solid Core not stranded) And they sound no different than my old Kimber 4TC which were 20 feet and cost $225. Kimbers are also solid core and twisted 8 pairs.

the white cables are solid core CAT5

Uh oh. We've got a phone geek on our hands!

I'm afraid so