Audio over Cat5 ???

Shouldn't really be a problem unless you are pumping lots of watts ... there will always be some loss due to the resistance of the cable. However, for that short a run, at speaker level and impedance (8 ohms), the loss will be very small. You could double up pairs, i.e. 2 pairs for each speaker, to even have less loss.

Reply to
Art Todesco
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What if any problems will I run int if I run audio over Cat5? What I would like to do is run Cat5 from an stereo amplifier to a stepped volume control and from there run speaker wire to two speakers on my deck. Not looking for high quality audio at the speaker location but would not want it to be distorted. The length of Cat5 would be about 25 feet and from the volume control to the speakers another 25 feet. The Cat5 is already in place in the wall and I'd just have to run the speaker wire.

If it would work, would I be better off using one complete pair for left and right or use ie. bl/w for left+ and or/w for left- and the same for the right using pair 3&4? I'm new at this so I hope those of you that are a lot smarter than I can give me some expertise.

Thanks

Reply to
Ray

snipped-for-privacy@atfar.com (Ray) wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@anonymous.poster:

Easiest solution would be to run line level audio via Cat 5. Have a second amp on the other end of the run to power the speakers.

I heard you could get upto 5 - 10W via Cat 5 with proprietary Cat5 audio systems, but I don't know if it's safe for regular home equipment to do so.

Reply to
Lucas Tam

Art Todesco wrote in news:svKdneprTut8Jf snipped-for-privacy@comcast.com:

True, but don't amplifers pump out 100W per channel these days? So if someone cranks up the amp by accident... it might fry the wires (or the amp!).

Reply to
Lucas Tam

A SS amp's power capability is limited by resistance in the speaker wiring -- more resistance, less power. You might wind up with less volume than you wanted, but I don't think there'd be any other problem. Since the OP said he was going to put a volume control in those wires, he's already adding more resistance than the wires are likely to have.

Isaac

Reply to
Isaac Wingfield

A 100 W amp is running at about 3W for basic listening, and maybe 25W peak for some pretty loud stuff. Of course, turning it up all the way is going to cause trouble, but for a basic system Cat5 would be "OK" for speakers. I think Art is right. Even then, you could double up on the Cat 5, and give four conductors for ground and signal for both L and R. (you have lots of extra UTP, right?)

As for line-level, A-Bus does that for unspecified distances. I dug around a lot of places looking for details about this, including here, and best I can tell is that line-level audio is good for 50-100 feet on UTP Cat5. Any longer than that and you really need to convert the signal to balanced with baluns. Then, you can go a thousand feet or more.

-John O

Reply to
John O

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