Shielded Cat5 for audio cables?

[Wingman0121 10+ year member]

At work we use 3 wires within a cat5 cable to transmit analog audio signal, the length is 35 feet and surprisingly it sounds pretty clean, we called the cable tech support and they say it's because it's twisted like all cat5 cables and it cancels out something or another so it's as good as it gets blah blah blaah. Now a cat5 has 4 pairs of twisted wires so that means it can support 4 channels and I think some are 28awg or 24awg.

Make my own patch cable using old ethernet cables?

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[Rich B 5,000+ posts]

Cat5 cable VS RCA cable

for car stereo use.

 

Cat5 cables vs RCA cables in car stereo

 

[Wingman0121 10+ year member]

That review is for unshielded cat5, he's only able to induce noise when he put the cat5 next to a high-voltage source(neon lights), no one in their right mind would run any wire next to a few thousand volts.

Not all cat5s are made equal either... some have thicker cable jackets, some shields are thicker and some have a draining or "ground" wire bundled with it. The typical cat5 that you see in schools and dorms are usually the cheap stuff.