Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems What cable will you use for SpeakerLink?

We finally - but later than it should have been - know the importance of a high quality Cat5/6 cable for SpeakerLink, including that it has to be shielded twisted pair (STP), and that Meridian only just now has that cable for purchase.

We already knew that M`s brand of other cables was suitable but not the best quality available. For example, there were better and more expensive coax digital cables. However, for this special SpeakerLink purpose with their top gear I am not aware of a better cable. The problem is who has checked or can check appropriately to confirm a better than M cable for SpeakerLink. Therefore at this stage I plan to purchase M`s flat Cat5 cable.

Are you aware of any better quality cables?

What cables are you or will be using?

Has anyone done any comparisons or will be doing some comparisons?

First up here is something for the debate about the importance of the quality of cable:

http://www.avguide.com/blog/the-audioquest-boombox-demo

I believe cable quality makes a lot of difference.

Well, it's your right to believe what ever you will...

While I didn't do more that cursorily skim the link you posted, isn't that discussing speaker cables, carrying a speaker-level analog signal? Not terribly relevant when discussing Speakerlink, which is carrying a logic-level, digital audio signal and some RS-232 comms data.

Frankly, I'm a bit shocked that Meridian has concluded that there's a difference in Cat5/Cat6 cabling. At 96kHz sampling and 24-bit (roughly a 6Mbit/sec datarate), the digital audio being sent on Speakerlink just isn't all that taxing of a signal to transfer. Especially compared to, say, 100Mb/s Ethernet, which is a 125Mhz signal. These twisted pair cables are designed for bandwidths in the 100's of Megahertz.

Also, if I'm not mistaken, the digital audio is being sent as a balanced-pair, which means it has pretty darn good common-mode noise rejection as it is. Shielding will certainly help with noise, but seems like overkill to me.

Just my $0.02...

Dan W.

I have it easy at this point, as I'm not using DSP loudspeakers.

If I had the option, I'd use Cat6 STP just to be on the safe side.

This CAT7 cable looks really nice. Each twisted pair is shielded as is the cable as a whole, and it has fancy metal faced RJ-45 connectors for shielding. It comes in lengths 1ft to 25ft and in a variety of colors (high WAF)! Surely overkill for short runs, but it does look cool, and there will never be any doubt in your mind that you're not using the best. Relatively inexpensive too. I wonder if CAT7 is what the Meridian branded cables are?

http://www.meritline.com/25-feet-cat-7-600mhz-10-gbps-network-patch-cable-red.html

Hopefully we shall have a more authoritative idea about Meridian's view on which cable to use for SpeakerLink via John when he is able to report back.

I can understand why STP should be better than UTP but do not know what the differences between Cats 5, 6 & 7 are.

It really would be helpful to know more about Meridian's findings.

LOL goldplated shieldning, but it sure looks good

I havent seen RJ45 for 10Gbit before, the 10G cables I have worked with are either optical or thick, stiff heavy copper cables. This would be a nice change for the copper ones..

Wikipedia is your friend. Here's a link to CA7:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category_7_cable

Links to the other categories of cables are at the bottom of the page.

Oh, already up to CAT7...? Since CAT's only have 9 lives, I wonder what happens after CAT9?

Very helpful, thanks.

Thanks Frank for what must / should be a very high performance Sanwa cable that would "fit" with M's high end gear.

I don't think it would be "overkill for short runs". Time will indicate which is going to be the better / best Cat5/6/7 cable for SpeakerLink. Sanwa must be given consideration. I never expected shielding of each wire and the whole cable!

M's 8 Jan 2008 press release refers to their cable as Cat5.

I think each twisted pair, rather than each wire, is shielded. Still pretty good!