Tweakers' Asylum: REVIEW: DIY by Chris VenHaus Cat5 Speaker Cable Cable by BrittneySpears

Crossposted to avsforum
TIMESAVERS on CAT5 DIY cables:
Here's what I did -- HUGE TIMESAVER 1: Not sure if it makes an impact on sound quality since I don'thave the patience or focus (and no Ritalin prescription): On A/B tests it sounds (to me) the same as same length (10ft) Audioquest CV-4 cables on my Martin Logan Acents driven by a Denon 4800. I used Belden 1585 which has teflon FEP insulation, supposedly better than PVC which is found on cheapie Cat5. (I bought 1000 feet of this at a local wire supply shop for $150 -- less than 1/2 the per foot price at Radio Shack)

This is based upon the technique described by Chris VenHaus at
http://www.geocities.com/venhaus1/diycatfivecables.html

Step A: Strip the outer PVC jacket from 2 lengths of CAT5 cable -- make this ~130% (not sure of this -- err to the side of longer) of your final spkr cable length. The "string" within the cable helps you strip the PVC outer jacket. Grab onto it with some players and pull perpendicular to the Cat5. Crimp the ends of the 2 lengths (8 twisted pairs, 16 wires total) in a vise, fit the other end into a the chuck of a drill. Run the drill at slow speed and holding moderate tension until the wire wraps around itself into a decent wrap, approx 1 wrap of a twisted pairs per 3 inches or so of cable length (use your best judgement). Carefully remove the chuck. the wire will unwrap a bit, but should remain a tight twist -- if it unravels with space between the wires put it back in the chuck and twist it a bit more.

Repeat Step A 2 more times to yield 3 twisted bundles. For 3 20 foot sections this took about 1 hour.

Step B: Braid the 3 twisted bundles together with a tight braid. BIG TIMESAVER 2: Make, find, buy, beg, steal whatever 3 friends, (2 worked) and have them stand at the other end of each twisted bundle and follow the braid as you make braid it tightly at the "leading edge" of the braid. This prevents you having to untangle the wires as you braid, which is a huge hassle. For a 20 foot total braid this took 30 minutes vs many hours if doing alone.

Step C+: I then continued w/ Chris's recipe of isolating each twisted pair, stripping them and binding them together. AVERAGE SIZED TIMESAVER 3: Get a torch -- I used a small butane jobby and heat up the insulation on the wire by quickly passing each strand thru the flame and then striping with pliers or your fingernails. This is easier than using wire strippers and prevents nicks in the solid copper which can cause a break. WARNING: I've heard burngin Teflon smoke is toxic (especially to Parrots and other birds...) Dunno if that's true for peeps, but it's wise to do this outdoors -- (then again I did this indoors and I can still type and use this internet thing). This all takes approx 30 minutes to an hour for 2 ends.

Connect spade/banana plugs (or leave bare), whatever, insulate the extra bare copper with electrical tape or shrink wrap. Wrap the length of wires with Techflex if you are wanky or embarrassed about your colorful speaker cable. (DIY!)

That's it -- This yields a speaker wire with the equivelent gauge of 10 to 11 gauge speaker wire. Total of 4 hours or so, the beer for the friends cost more than the raw materials...Sounds the same to me as $200 Audioquest CV4s and definitely superior to some old Monster spkr cable I had lying around.

So I took some shortcuts vs Chris's original recipe. It took me 4 hours vs an entire weekend. I'm in the Seattle area, and would love to hear from any other local DIYers who may have followed Chris's original DIY recipe to do A/B tests (or any other spkr/interconnect recipes).

-Wes wesc@technosis.com

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