Hi Guys, I getting ready for my next Golden Email and I'm wiring up my Room for the surrounds.

I have some Cat3 24/4pr wire left over from a telephone wiring job I did some time ago in my house. I hope to use this wire for wiring the surrounds.

So the plan is to pair up 4 wires for each polarity. The question is I don't know what resultant gauge I would have?

I'm trying to wire about a distance of atleast 30' so I'd need atleast the equivalent of a 16 gauge wire for the 6 ohm QS8's.

Can anyone tell me if there's a formula for figuring this out or what the resultant gauge of 4, 24 gauge wires together would work out to?

Thanks a bunch, Jag

Well, a pair of 14s comes to around 11 gauge, but what formula that uses, I couldn't tell you...

Michael, AWG numbers and sizes are arranged so that doubling wires results in a wire having a cross sectional area and gauge equivalent to one three gauges lower. So doubling the 24ga wires gives a 21ga wire and if you combine two of those you get a 18ga wire; 4x24ga=18ga.

In English: pair up two wires of the same gauge, subtract three and that's your new gauge.

Would it be easier to run down to Home Depot and get some of their 14 ga wire cut to length in the bulk wire department? It's dirt cheap and performs well.

Just a thought here and it’s a half baked theory.

Since both CAT 3 and CAT 5 utilize different lengths of paired wire within its own sheath. Would it be logical to think that the electrons would have a timing issue or some sort of anomaly? If so would it be measurable? I know if you remove all of the conductors from a CAT 5 cable (say a 12" piece) and then unwind them individually you should have a few conductors that are longer because of the twists. The same with a cat 3 just not as much of a twist.

Again, it’s just a thought

Hmmm. Interesting postulation. At the very least, the whole break-in thing is going to be very complex.

At 18ga with a 6 ohm load,recommened length is only 23 feet max.I would agree with Ray and look at some 14ga.

Thanks folks, yes I think the equivalent gauge wont do for this 30' length. I guess I'll have to take a trip to Home Depot. Its odd but I haven't found any "cheap" speaker wire at Home Depot as all you folks South of the border talk about. The cheapest I've seen at Home Depot is $1/foot which isn't much less than Axioms bulk cable which is far nicer. Anyways I'm going to see if I can find some cheaper lamp wire.

The CAT wire was neat in that it is all shealthed and easily pulled through walls.

Thanks all very much again, Jag

Thats weird. I think I paid 22 cents a foot for 14 gauge that was cut to specific lengths for me.

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