Using CAT 6 for speakers in a patch panel

I have wired my newly built house with cat 6 cable; several in each main room for AV and data. However, I was reading on one of these forums some months ago that cat5 or 6 could be used, fairly succesfully, as speaker wire - quality isn't too much of an issue, as long as it sounds ok. So, I decided to also mount Cat6 sockets on the walls ready to install speakers to. I've joined my cat cabling all to a central patch panel in my garage and would like to be able to have any device playing on speakers in any room.

My Dilemma

Now I'm trying to send a basic sound signal down them and I get no joy, (I've played about swapping wires). Am I doing something wrong, is there a wiring technique you should use for getting sound over cat5/6? Can sound run from one device to another via a patch panel? Is it just that I'm not kicking out enough power at one end?

Can anyone help?

Reply to
simon
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Anyway. Wire is wire is wire, at some level. Speaker-level audio will go from place to place on Cat 5 with no trouble as long as you don't need big sound.

On the other hand, the number of speakers you place on the output of an amp IS a big deal, and you must know how you're doing that. I suspect you need to look at basic series/parallel circuits, AKA Ohm's Law. Here's a great place to start:

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If that's interesting, then go here:
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Good Luck!

-John O

Reply to
John O

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