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Thread ID: 75358 2006-12-25 23:13:00 Further abuse of Cat5 cable personthingy (1670) Press F1
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509653 2006-12-25 23:13:00 Having realized that the blue and brown pair in standard cat5 cable don't actually do anything under normal use, i some time ago found a use for some of them, and started using them for phones.

Then, faced with the prospect of buying 2 lengths of balanced audio cable, and threading them through where cat5 should be anyway, i found myself thinking "Why not use the 2 redundant twisted pairs for audio?"

So here's a pic:
something.orcon.net.nz

Can anyone throw a spanner in the works, and tell me what, if anything is wrong with this idea?
personthingy (1670)
509654 2006-12-25 23:19:00 Cool setup. I take it you like to make your own music @ home. winmacguy (3367)
509655 2006-12-25 23:27:00 Cool setup. I take it you like to make your own music @ home. Not quite. I help other people inflict their musical offerings on others in public places. The home stereo is the minimal version of my concert PA system. The music that i'm running into it when it's back in the cave is simply my music collection, which these days lives purely on HDD.

Ta for the compliment tho :D
personthingy (1670)
509656 2006-12-25 23:35:00 Your welcome. Although I am more of a creative ideas person than a technical one I still like the look of the set up. I am still hanging out to get into DV editing.

Have you ever heard of or tried Logic Pro?
winmacguy (3367)
509657 2006-12-25 23:39:00 While I don't know the exact physics involved, I recall either Godfather or GrahamL mentioning in response to another post that sending another signal (be it audio or whatever) down those pairs of wire will interfere with data which is sent through the (used) pairs of the CAT5 cable. You'd be best to wait for one of them to reply for an accurate answer to the question.

In the meantime, it's worth a shot I suppose - it shouldn't break anything.
somebody (208)
509658 2006-12-26 01:10:00 Well good luck personthingy I hope you get it sorted out. winmacguy (3367)
509659 2006-12-26 01:13:00 Normally would not be a problem as long as the audio line is low-level audio.
If it is of too higher level, it will induce into other pairs and cause either the data to be corrupted. Definitely NO speaker level audio.
That principle has been used before in businesses of using the spare pair/s as the telephone extension connection, along with the computer data connection without problems.
pheonix (36)
509660 2006-12-26 01:41:00 I'd not be running speaker level signals. Apart from anything else, with a 3,500wRMS system it would melt the cable. :D
I use spare pairs in other Cat5 cables for phone purposes. That works well.

I suppose what i'm worried about is if i am going to get noise induced on the audio, all though, seeing many microphone cables are an untwisted pair running along side an earth for the body of the mic, i hope i'll be alright so long as i keep the pairs truly balanced.
personthingy (1670)
509661 2006-12-26 03:47:00 Having realized that the blue and brown pair in standard cat5 cable don't actually do anything under normal use, i some time ago found a use for some of them, and started using them for phones.

Then, faced with the prospect of buying 2 lengths of balanced audio cable, and threading them through where cat5 should be anyway, i found myself thinking "Why not use the 2 redundant twisted pairs for audio?"

So here's a pic:
something.orcon.net.nz

Can anyone throw a spanner in the works, and tell me what, if anything is wrong with this idea?
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The requested URL /abuse_of_cat5.jpg was not found on this server.
Renmoo (66)
509662 2006-12-26 04:27:00 Use of the extra pair in this way will generate additional noise, slowing the possible transmission speed of the ethernet link. If this is not a problem, go ahead. If it could be a problem, extra cable would be much better. TGoddard (7263)
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