"James" wrote
| I want to get unamplified sound between my computer & DAB radio (in
| the kitchen) and my amplifier (in the sitting room). The cable route
| is about 10-15m and goes through the cellar, so it would be nice to
| have a socket there as well.
| I have bought a couple of double phono sockets from nexxia
| (http://www.nexxia.co.uk/) and linked them up with telephone wire
| (which was what I had to hand). Not good. There's a hum, and
| although reasonably loud music is worth listening to, speech is very
| distorted.
| Now I'm sure there are many things I have done wrong: using telephone
| wire; maybe using solder (though the sockets have solder tags); I
| should also mention that the cables connect through a telephone
| junction box.

Hopefully one not used for telephone lines!

Actually, you can shove line-level audio down phone cable quite well
provided that it's twisted-pair and you get the pairs right. You may also
have some 'dry joints', so practice your soldering. Hum is usually caused by
poor earthing and screening; distortion may be a sign of a bad joint.

| But I can't find any cable anywhere specified for this
| purpose (as opposed to speaker cable). What should I use (looking
| for something cheap, that I can buy by the metre, or in a 10 or 25m
| reel, either over the net or on the UK high street)? Also advice
| about a junction box if that's likely to make a difference.

Maplin order code XR21X at 49p/m or XS94C at 59p/m are figure-8 screened
audio cable suitable for making audio leads. Per metre or 100m reel. (Those
are last years prices, check in shops or www.maplin.co.uk ) If you want to
join two phono leads end-end QT64U is a stereo phono-phono coupler. It's not
audiophile stuff but you're only using it for DAB :-)

Maplin XS39N at £3.49/m is rather heftier but will need heftier plugs too.

Owain