Speaker Hook-up Wire

[Noskipallwd]

Grainger, I like the cotton insulated wire, it holds it's shape well. One problem I ran into with it was making twisted pairs. When I used my drill to twist them the insulation started bunching up, made a mess. Twisting by hand was fine though.

Cheers,
Shawn

[Grainger49]

I'm imagining Paully will mostly make short signal path runs inside his amp.  The only twisted pair in there are power wires like incoming AC and heaters.  I'm not sure if the inputs are twisted, maybe?

[Paully]

I doubt I will ever actually go to the trouble to replace the PVC wire in my amps.  I will just worry about it forever.

Is there any concern with cotton insulated wire that the copper will tarnish over time being exposed to the air?  Maybe we can give YOU something to obsess over!

[Grainger49]

The copper will tarnish on the surface, but the signal will pass through well soldered ends that can't tarnish.  It also goes through the wire center as well as the surface for very high frequencies.

I don't think it matters.

[Paully]

You're no fun.

[Jim R.]

I am a really big fan of cotton insulatiohn and can easily hear the difference between two identical interconnects -- one with (pick your plastic) insulation, and unbleached cotton.

I'm going to be rewiring my Nagas and subs -- both captively on the speaker side, with the same 10 gauge stranded belden wire that Clark uses, but I will strip allthe plastic off the conductors and re-sleeve them with cotton tube, then retwist thepair and put a larger diameter cotton jacket over them, and may even "worm" them some cotton twine before the jacket.

I've also been slowly collecting NOS western electric vintage cloth covered wire and just yesterday got a brand new roll of what appears to be 30 or maybe even 33 gauge -- superb in bundles for interconnects, and I may even rewire my tonearm with this stuff.

As to the corrosion problem -- I have some cloth insulated wire from the 1930s (old telegraph wire, 15 gauge, solid core) and when you slide the the insulation back, it's clean, bright copper -- no green anywhere (and these are unwaxed cotton), same with this fine gauge stuff I just got, and hundreds of feet of 22 gauge and 17 gauge are all the same.

If I have to use teflon, I also prefer the vh audio foam/fep stuff as it is mostly air.

Jupiter makes some nice cotton insulated copper wire and vh audio has some super nice cotton/silver (hold onto your checkbooks), but I've never found the stuff from HGA to be very good -- not sure why -- the cotton is ok, but the silver is probably the most etched and edgy sounding silver I've tried.

Anyway, just my opinion and worth every penny you paid for it .

-- Jim

[Paully]

I was talking to the Jupiter guy about his cotton insulated wire.  He said to be careful of shorts.  I am going to order some regardless and see what I think.  From what I have been reading here that doesn't seem to be a concern of people posting thus far (twisting it together, etc...).  I know you wouldn't use it in a power supply but signal path can sometimes have decent voltage can't it?

[earwaxxer]

Hey Jim - Interesting analysis on wire! You definitely take the wire prize! ("collecting NOS western electric vintage cloth") - it doesnt get any more hard core than that - assuming its solid core wire - otherwise never-mind - pun intended. I will have to add above observations to the 'data base'.

Interesting thing on silver - I have experienced the 'edgy, etched' phenomenon. It was with my Silver Audio Silver Bullets 4's. It took me awhile to find a good replacement for them, and it didnt end up being copper. Silver seemed like a double edged sword for me. Kind of like good SS vs. tubes. Or a P/O cap vs. a high end metalized poly. I like resolution and definition. I dont like fatigue and pain. I wouldnt use silver for a home made interconnect or speaker wire because I dont think its worth the price, unless its a 'perfect' match for your system. Not sure what that would be. IMO silver may need very good shielding (especially in interconnects). I may be wrong on that. Other interesting observation is that since I am now usin JPS Labs on my front end, I'm using my Silver Audio interconnect on my sub-woofer. They sound really good there. Nice 'definition' compared with a good silver over copper Better Cables Silver Serpent.

My last comment on wires is that anyone who is even 'thinking' about shelling out their hard earned cash on silver speaker wire, of any brand, should first try the JPS Labs stuff. A whole 'different' animal. IMO as far as different sounding wire there are three main camps: copper, silver and the JPS aluminum alloy, with huge variability within those technologies. For those who havent read the review by Don Shaulis its a must read for the audiophile mental library - It on Stereo Times site - Aluminata Reference Series Cables.

Peace - Eric

[John Roman]

Grainger,
I have some of that "trendy" cotton wire. Silver in this case but only 26 awg. I thought to do a braided configuration to increase the current handling capability (a la Homegrown Audio) but just decided to go with the Auric stranded copper. I have to say though the large size conductors mentioned have me thinking. At this point I've maintained 16 awg through out, driver hook up as well as crossover wiring. I was really frozen by the choices and the only thing that decided it was I'm using 95% Auricaps which use that specific wire for their lead outs. Many times I've wanted to rewire my Paramount's and EFP 3 but I'm just to picky. I'd have to tear it down completely.... well good luck Paully!
John

Here's a pic of the current state of affairs

[HF9]

Very nice looking crossovers there John!

Over many years of experiments, I find that different cable gets along better with different drivers. That's not what anyone wants to hear as you have to experiment and there's no real magic bullet, but I like Cardas with some things as it can potentially roll off bright treble and Neotech UP-OCC in Teflon as it can bring out detail in more mellow sounding setups. I also like Cardas silver for it's smooth sound, although silver is too pricey to use now-a-days. If I'm not sure or feeling cheap, I generally use 14-16 gauge silver plated copper in PTFE (Teflon), It's low-cost, plentiful and has lots of great uses like power wiring and makes nice sounding speaker cables.

[Grainger49]

John,

I liked the interconnects I heard in cotton.  And nice tidy work on the crossover, really square corners, I do that myself.

If you have 20WPC across 4 ohms that is a constant 2.236 amps of current.  That is if you keep the output at 20 watts.  A #36 wire will probably carry 2A without heating.  I am saying that you can't warm the #26 with your Paramounts.  The tubes and cathode resistors will warm the wire but not the current.

[4krow]

yah, but what about rectangular wire?

[Grainger49]

I was just looking at AWG, maybe you can get an equivalent AWG for the rectangular wire?  Then I can look it up in the NEC.  It doesn't get much smaller than #14.  That is the reason for my conjecture above.

[earwaxxer]

Greg just because your head is shaped like a rectangle doesnt mean its a good thing!

peace, love, dope - Eric

[4krow]

Ok Eric, just for that, tell me the internal impedance of hollow rectangular wire insulated with cotton strand on the INSIDE? Per meter, at absolute zero, in space, cuz thats what they use on the 'curiosity' and no one can hear your THD in space.