Cable Asylum: REVIEW: DIY by Chris VenHaus Cat5 Speaker Cable Cable by Joe Tham

Well, I recently posted to this board on the Cat 5 wire speaker cables and got a few good tips and links on making this stuff. Finally after a few hours of labour, managed to scrounge around the materials and made the cables yesterday. I used a different topology than Chris VenHaus' (I didn't feel like peeling off the nice looking baby-blue outer jacket) and saved alot of braiding time as well... Okay, here goes my thoughts:

A. Materials:
- Cat 5 cable from Home Depot, about 40m of the stuff which goes for $1.28CAN/m... This is the solid core copper, teflon coated, plenum version.
- compression/screw-on type banana plugs, gold plated, by Acoustic Research... I gave up with the spades due to troubles soldering silver solder to these babies. In total, had 6 pairs of these since I made biwire cables.
- Total cost ~$90CAN (most of the cost was in the AR terminators).

B. Construction method:
I used a method similar to that of the TNT article rather than Chris VenHaus' recipe. For each cable, I used 6 lengths of Cat5, 3 for each + and -. This totals 24 (8 wires in each length, or 2 twisted pairs) solid core "wires" for each + and -. 8 of them dedicated to the tweeter, 16 to the woofer.

I took 3 Cat5's and braided them, then combined 2 braids into a fat twisted pair. Termination was simple with the compression banana plugs although some elbow grease was needed to stuff 24 wires into the connectors (on the amplifier end).

For each twisted pair in the Cat5, I made sure that the one strand carried + and the other strand the complimentary - (for the woofer / tweeter). This is in accordance to Chris V's recipe.

C. Listening station...
Although I'm eyeing the expensive electronics, I have no money for the high end stuff (and honestly cannot justify spending > $1000 for components). As such, my comparisons are on lowly equipment... The following:
- Amplifier: Kenwood VR-309
- CD source: Teac PD-D2700 connected to VR-309 by a homebuilt Ultralink coaxial cable :-)
- Speakers: Tannoy MX2, 1 pair on Premium (Paradigm) 26" S-Series stands (although I also have a subwoofer, decided to turn this baby off for the evaluation)
- Recoton (actually Acoustic Research) 12AWG "figure 8" type braided OFC - 6.5', terminated with same AR compression-style bananas as my new cables, well broken in x1.5 yrs vs. new unbroken in Cat5 9'!

D. Results...
Well, last night got my dad to come over and warmed up the unit a bit to give 'er a try... I did an A-B-A-B comparison with the two cables hooked up to easily switch between them.

Here's what I thought. The Cat5 was superior overall, here are a few differences I noticed:

1. Diana Krall - When I Look In Your Eyes - "Let's Face The Music And Dance" - the percussion in this tune took on a much lively presence... This was the first tune we listened to and it was immediately noticeable. The instrument placement was also easier to locate in "space" compared to the Recoton. This effect was also seen in Rebecca Pidgeon's "Spanish Harlem"... The "shakers" (or whatever they are - sorry my terminology is a bit weak :-)) near the latter half of the song could be localized much better as being in the distant from the vocalist and seemed to loom beyond the confines of my living room.

2. Charlotte Church - "Pie Jesu" - With the Recoton/AR's, her voice tended to wander laterally as the pitch increased... This was especially noticeable at the start of the song when she terminated her consonants (like terminal 's'). Likewise, the male soloist was rather hazily imaged on the soundstage. With the Cat5, this was distinctly improved. Charlotte was accurately imaged center-left, the boy center-right. No tonal wandering. I found the vocals also more "up-front" with the Cat5, not a bad thing in this case.

3. Nasty pop CD's that I hated before :-). I recently went to the local used store and picked up Duran Duran's "Greatest" hits CD. I detested the sound as it was shrill and obnoxious, leading to listener fatigue within 5 minutes... I think the tunes must have either been re-EQ'ed with treble way up or the boys in the band are losing their high freq. hearing... In anycase, although the nasty EQ remained, I found the songs more listenable through the Cat5's. I think this may have had to do with some smoothing of the high end overall. In fact, I was able to listen to 3 or 4 songs all the way through without... :-)

All 3 of the above were heard by my dad as well (he used to build his own amps and speakers at one time, but has since put that aside to raise a family...).

Okay, those were the most blatant differences I could detect last night. I'm convinced that the cable has improved the sound of my system. Honestly, before the tests, I was very sceptical that cables made any significant difference (so long as they were good enough guage and conducted well right?). In fact, I was regularly scoffing at friends who spent $500+ on these things. I'm still not convinced that cables should cost in the realm of hundreds or thousands, but there's no doubt in my mind that 12G Recoton/AR will not bring forth the absolute best sound from the system (notice I even used longer Cat5 cables).

Hats off to Chris V., J. Risch, TNT-Audio and all the other cable experimenters for their informative sites and continued work... You've certainly made a believer out of this low-end cheap tweak, budget audiophile :-).

Regards,
Joe Tham
Calgary, Canada

REVIEW: DIY by Chris VenHaus Cat5 Speaker Cable Cable Review by Joe Tham at Audio Asylum