Can I use Cat 5 wire for Home theatre setup?

Question

Ok, I know that Cat 5 Is very small but what If I combine all the colors to make a positive and negative side. Im Trying to find a low cost solution and I have about 500ft of cat 5 lying around.

Answer 1

There are formulas you can find to strip and braid 8 runs of Cat 5 to make your own speaker wires.  But it takes hours to do and unless you have a highly sensitive music system  (Meaning electrostatic panel speakers, 300 watts per channel amp, $1,500 CD transport) - you wont notice much change in the sound over decent oxygen free 12 ga.

You could usually work 1-2 hours of overtime and buy a spool of speaker wire from places like www.partsexpress.com instead of spending 6-8 hours brading cat 5 wires.

Answer 2

There's no harm in trying it out. I have done so earlier with good results.

However I recommend proper cables.

Answer 3

There is more to hook ups than just a positive side and a negative side. For low frequency such as analog audio it doesn't much matter other than cat-5 will pick up all kinds of hum and other interference. But as the frequency gets higher such as video and digital, it is normally transmitted over coax which has a characteristic impedance, usually 75 ohms. The impedance has to be matched on both ends or you get major signal loss. In other words it won't work.

There are adapters you can buy but I fear the cost of them would be far more expensive than just buying cables. Also don't spend your cash on premium cables (like Monster) they are not even close to worth the money. I only had to get 6 foot cables but I managed to get a component cable for $5, a fiber cable for $7.50 and an HDMI cable for $10at Newegg.com. If you are paying more than that you are getting ripped off. If you have to run longer cables then I would look into moderately priced cables, but in no way would I spend hundreds of dollars for some hunks of wire.

Answer 4

I do not reccomend it.

The cables connecting your components will be shielded.  Cat5 is not shielded.  This will result in quite a bit of interfearance (depending on local AM frequencies, presance of flourecent lights, dimmer switches, household wiring, cordless telephones, etc).

For video, it won't work at all in most cases because of impedance issues.

For speakers, it is too small of a gauge to work well, and can actually be a fire hazard if you're running too much power through the cable.  The insulation on the individual wires is also too thin.

Spend the extra bucks to buy some real cables, and you'll be glad you did.