[finaati]

for my distance I need 14 ga wire. I have a lot of 22ga cat 6 so 6 strands braided would approximately equal 14 ga...(right?) if so 3 sections of 8 strand ( I would twist the 3 cables and put them in a sheath) would give me 4 conductors. could I take 2 conductors from each cable braid them together to make the braided 4 conductors or would this mess up the sound entirely?

this is intended for a moderate power home theater AV setup, not driving a sub. just front mid and surrounds...

If I am being an idiot feel free to correct me as I am NOT knowledgeable in the theories involved here.

[Speedskater]

one 22AWG = one 22AWG
two 22AWG = one 19AWG
four 22AWG = one 16AWG
eight 22AWG = one 13AWG
so six 22AWG is near one 14AWG

but the pairs are already twisted so why braid?

[Folsom]

Capacitance is high... Try Belden 8412. I'm loving it. I use shield as a connector, but I may do two cables per run to mix em up a bit and add better cancellation properties.

[ZAKski288]

finaati , cool project. these are some jumpers I braided, (9 pairs) together.  Seem to work out great. Good luck with project. ZAK

[Speedskater]

Capacitance is high...

But inductance is low! It's always a trade-off (if you decrease the capacitance the inductance automatically increases) and I would go with low inductance. Amplifier design has come a long way in the last 30 some years. A little more capacitance shouldn't bother the amp.

[Speedskater]

ZAK where do the brown wires go?

[ZAKski288]

Speedskater. All the solid colors go one side (+), and all the striped colors go to the other side (-) . It may be hard to see in picture but they are twisted  all together.  ZAK

[simoon]

I made my self a set of these -


http://diyaudioprojects.com/Power/Low-Inductance-DIY-Speaker-Cables/


Although, I used better quality 16 gauge wire (OFC copper) than what the project calls for. And I didn't put the wooden cylinders on the ends.

"Four 16 gauge wires (resulting in a combined 10AWG) are used for each speaker conductor to lower the overall resistance of the speaker cable. With regards to the speaker cable geometry, the wires are twisted together in opposite directions (see photos and description for more details). This helps reduces asymmetrical field interactions since the wires are not on either the inside or outside of the cable more than any other wire. It also helps to keep the inductance of the overall speaker cable at a minimum."

[finaati]

pictures worth a thousand words...here is a mockup of what I am thinking...should I separate the strips and solids as ZAK has done? Or am I accomplishing the same thing?
this would be the pos and neg of left and right channels

this is not the actual wire I am using...it is cat 5 and just for mock-up

[ZAKski288]

Goog luck. ZAK

[dukecv]

I currently use a pair of Cat 5 cables I made myself. Each cable contains 4 cat5e cables twisted. 2 for +, and 2 for -. If I remember correctly, each Cat5 cable contains four pairs of 24ga copper. So eight strands of 24ga copper per cable. Some cat 6 is 23ga. There is also Cat 6e now. The "e" stands for enhanced. It has a different and tighter twist pattern. I do believe that "data" cable based speaker cables have a higher capacitance cable as many have said. Not sure what that's based on but they seem to work fine for me. The way I understood it was the thought that the copper wouldn't oxidize as fast since they are individually sheathed, and since several small strands are better than one solid strand due to eddy current effect, I figured I'd give it a go. How does the high capacitance affect the output? I am not a speaker cable or interconnect wiz.