Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Technical Questions DIY cables

Speaker cables seem to be a hot topic on this board right now so i'm jumping on the band wagon.

has anyone here ever made their own speaker cables?

the most popular way is using Cat5 network cables. I work with computers sometimes, so I have been thinking about trying this, but i'd need several hours to sit down, learn it, then do it. has anyon here ever tried this? i'm curious to know how good they are, and how easy they are to make.


my second question is this. I have just been given about 12 feet of a very good microphone cable at work. I'm going to try to make speaker cable out of this. has anyone tried this? i have heard it is good because they are well insulated against noise. and if this is a BAD idea, please let me know! i wouldn't want to damage my speakers!

thanks guys!

CAt5 cables are on the rather small side I would think for decent speaker wire. There are 4 pairs of very small wires inside. Not sure if there would be more copper in those 8 wires that in a 12 guage wire though.....

I would doubt you will damage your speakers using either method. However, what you would gain, or limit yourself by doing so is another matter.

There was a post on the board with a URL that provided direction on using Cat 5 cable for speaker wire. In looking at this website, I could not help but think of how much time a person would have to invest. The cable is not designed for this purpose, but inventive minds, and spirit will prevail!

Technically speaking, the Cat 5 cable would be of less size than a 12 gauge cable. This would increase different components of the cables load as presented to the amplifier and speaker.

My thoughts are to purchase a good cable, and spend the time in other ways.

Save big on interconnects by DIY

http://www.bus.ucf.edu/cwhite/theater/diycable.htm

I recently tried the TNT Star configuration (as shown here:http://www.tnt-audio.com/clinica/star.html). And it worked great. It's also very easy to build, and I was able to have a good sound after about 20 hours of break-in. The best part was that I had the cable for free!

Male RCA Shoot Out

http://www.enjoythemusic.com/magazine/equipment/0901/rcashootout.htm

DIY Interconnect For Dummies

http://www.kenefick.net/jim/hometheater/cables.htm

I'm using TNT Triple T ( http://www.tnt-audio.com/clinica/triple_t_e.html ) and they are very very good. Much better than Monster and close to Kimber. The wire is between 12 and 10 gauge and I terminated it with banana plugs for the reciever side. Be sure to use solid copper CAT5 wire (the blue one).