Piers1989
05-01-2017, 03:02 AM
Earlier in the year I put a new sound system in my VR4 to replace the dying speakers from the factory audio upgrade.
I made a thread at the time, but it consisted of:
Pumpkin Android KitKat head unit
Focal 6.5" Component fronts
Focal 6.5" coaxial rears
Alpine Multi-Channel Amp
JL Cleansweep (EQ flattener)
Custom enclosure 12" Sub
Due to my lack of time and patience (plus my tendency to break trim panel clips) I asked the garage to run all the wiring - they are a body shop so capable of this.
Again due to lack of time and patience I had them run the main power cable down the passenger side under the carpet / door trim.
I also ran standard cheap-o b&q speaker wire down the side, 4 times over (for each channel) from the stereo's pre-outs to the Cleansweep.
Obviously I now have a significant "hum/whir" with the car running, and even a whine with it off.
Both the CleanSweep and the Alpine are grounded together firmly to the chassis.
I know I need to replace the cable with better quality and ideally not run it parallel with the power, but I had an idea with my IT background - Shielded CAT7 cable.
I could run a single CAT7 cable from the head unit to the boot, 4 pairs, 23AWG, individually shielded and then with aluminium braid before the sheath too. See here https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ethernet-Streaming-Satellite-Receivers-Desktops/dp/B01L4664N0/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&qid=1483580639&sr=8-10&keywords=cat7
CAT7 also includes a ground wire to earth the braid. I was thinking I could actually tie the head unit ground to the ground in the rear with this too.
This connection would only take the low power pre-out signals, but as it is designed to take 10Gb Ethernet up to 100m the whole design is designed to remove Electro Magnetic Interference and signal degradation - sounds like what I want!
Depending on the results, some of my cars pre existing speaker wiring is starting to fail (drivers door cuts in and out which is very annoying), I was considering replacing some of the speaker wire with CAT7 too. Obviously not for the sub, but again the shielding sounds like it would be great. I could double up (as in like 2 pairs) the connections so run 1 CAT7 for the fronts and 1 for the back to double their current load rating, just to be on the safe side, but I can't imagine door speakers consuming enough current to heat up the wires anyway.
I can't find much info on doing this and when people proposed it with Cat5 on other forums (after a google search) it was generally frowned upon but not really for any good reasons I could see other than low quality cable, CAT7 doesn't have this problem!
Anyone with a background in this stuff have any input?
I made a thread at the time, but it consisted of:
Pumpkin Android KitKat head unit
Focal 6.5" Component fronts
Focal 6.5" coaxial rears
Alpine Multi-Channel Amp
JL Cleansweep (EQ flattener)
Custom enclosure 12" Sub
Due to my lack of time and patience (plus my tendency to break trim panel clips) I asked the garage to run all the wiring - they are a body shop so capable of this.
Again due to lack of time and patience I had them run the main power cable down the passenger side under the carpet / door trim.
I also ran standard cheap-o b&q speaker wire down the side, 4 times over (for each channel) from the stereo's pre-outs to the Cleansweep.
Obviously I now have a significant "hum/whir" with the car running, and even a whine with it off.
Both the CleanSweep and the Alpine are grounded together firmly to the chassis.
I know I need to replace the cable with better quality and ideally not run it parallel with the power, but I had an idea with my IT background - Shielded CAT7 cable.
I could run a single CAT7 cable from the head unit to the boot, 4 pairs, 23AWG, individually shielded and then with aluminium braid before the sheath too. See here https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ethernet-Streaming-Satellite-Receivers-Desktops/dp/B01L4664N0/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&qid=1483580639&sr=8-10&keywords=cat7
CAT7 also includes a ground wire to earth the braid. I was thinking I could actually tie the head unit ground to the ground in the rear with this too.
This connection would only take the low power pre-out signals, but as it is designed to take 10Gb Ethernet up to 100m the whole design is designed to remove Electro Magnetic Interference and signal degradation - sounds like what I want!
Depending on the results, some of my cars pre existing speaker wiring is starting to fail (drivers door cuts in and out which is very annoying), I was considering replacing some of the speaker wire with CAT7 too. Obviously not for the sub, but again the shielding sounds like it would be great. I could double up (as in like 2 pairs) the connections so run 1 CAT7 for the fronts and 1 for the back to double their current load rating, just to be on the safe side, but I can't imagine door speakers consuming enough current to heat up the wires anyway.
I can't find much info on doing this and when people proposed it with Cat5 on other forums (after a google search) it was generally frowned upon but not really for any good reasons I could see other than low quality cable, CAT7 doesn't have this problem!
Anyone with a background in this stuff have any input?