Re: Audio over Cat5 ???

["John O" <johno@#no^spam&heathkit.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!).

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