Yep, done it quite a few times. the real deal is, what Chris tells you to do is braid MANY MANY strands together. You may feel this is insanity, but it works very well. Best if you already to network installs and keep a big fat 1000' reel around ;) like I do. Cat5 is cheap, even the good stuff, per foot compared to most cable. Not sure if a Home Depot is in your area, but they have the BICC General in boxes with a wooden roll in-a-box for close to $50 for 1000'. It's "outdoor use" approved, easier to work with, soft outside casing (that in this instance gets thrown out anyway) that's easy to split by pulling the polystrand drawstring down the cable. The casing is easilly removed.
I've used it several places... mostly hookup or "jumper" cable between my preamp and amp. I did braids of 3X3 for each channel, one end a gold RCA to a 1/4" jack to the amp. Used another 3X3 for video from the preamp to the television monitor (great!) and then I just used one twisted pair for the sub (not braided).
I did try for speaker cable as per Chris, but I found that you'd have to pull, seperate and braid for almost a week (or 3 days if you wanna rip your fingers to death and get madly into it) and the way it braids by 3 twisted pairs at a time, you end up with cumbersome "flat" braids that you braid and braid again. If you pull 14 cables at 10', you end up with just over 5', so make sure you pull tons, almost twice the ammount. So, 6" means I would take 14' or 15' to make sure. You also realize you have to seperate the + from - and there's trimming involved after, then stripping tons of strands at exact length. The braids don't come out even either every time. Beware.
I recommend it, but you'll put one mean blister on your fore-finger. Be prepared for the pain and the dedication, or don't.
If you just want to try it, take about 8' and do what I did, which is 3X3 in twisted pairs and use it for line level stuff. I've found it does actually use about a weeks worth of break-in time (in sparatic 3-4 hours a day of listening). I didn't believe that it does use break in time, but it's actually true.
Also true is the fact that the real high copper (good cat5) is high in capacitance. Read about that in his receipe. If you want to go for the 14 runs and braid exactly how he recommends, you'll have to really work the solid wires and the striped "white" wires seperately for a while before they'll behave, you'll need to solider it into a big globby lump, and then try your aim to get it into even the 'good' jacks.
I'd say do what I did, which is braids of 3 twisted pair, braided 3 of those together again for ease of use, soldering and working into most jacks. Use the silver bearing Radio Shack solder (not tin) of the higher width, as you're gonna sit there with an iron and soak the whole damn thing together with TONS of solider to make it all go together. Use them for either speaker cable or line cable like I did. Really nice stuff. Sounds very nice.
When Doc Bottlehead's Foreplay comes in, I have a CD player, tuner combo that's all cat5 for jumpers. I'm convinced it's the way I'm going to go for a long time. It's pretty too! Girls dig it. You may braid her hair in your sleep for nights after you go through it all! :p
Here's some pics. One of the bigger braid, that didn't get finished, as it shrunk after braiding multiple times here, (
http://people.ne.mediaone.net/seekr/unfini.jpg) then there's the small set I have in the bunker, waiting for the Foreplay and you can see both the CD line cable and the tuner (no braid) line cable here, (
http://people.ne.mediaone.net/seekr/line.jpg) and a peek-a-boo behind my electrostatic speaker, you can see one of the lines going to my Hafler below by voyering here. (
http://people.ne.mediaone.net/seekr/behind.jpg) The odd set I have is just plain RCA generic plastic solder plugs. On the Hafler/Rotel combo, it's the Rat Shack gold RCAs and gold 1/4" mono plugs, per side.
ALWAYS use a volt meter(OHms) to make sure you aren't grounding out. It's VERY easy to screw that up, especially if you go more than my 3X3. In a HQ Gold RCA, after trying to twist every one of those bastards together, you may need help or a vice to keep things steady. The high capacitence in the high-copper mix cat5 will show too. You'll test each negitive end, then positive, then find the negitive end has held a tiny charge. Spooky.
[ November 13, 2001: Message edited by: Sckott ]
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