Internal chip amp wires

[Dominick22]

In building my next LM4780, I was wondering what the best wire I could be using for the internals was. I am talking about connect the power board to the amp board and all the other interconnects that need to take place.

I am currently using solid core copper from radio shack. I am thinking that this probably isnt the best sonically.

Suggestions/prices/links??

Thanks,
Dominick

[Peter Daniel]

I like to use Cardas chassis wire (19.5 ga) for power connections and solid core copper (26ga) for signal. Both available from Percy Audio.

[peranders]

I'd say avoid solid copper only for practical reasons. Flexible normal wires are OK, 0.75- 1 square millimeters (= AWG 18-14).

If you want to use exoctic wires, go ahead if you feel better by that. I for instance used sheilded wire with silver on copper, teflon + glass fibre insulation. The cable was aimed for military used and it looked real cool.

(AWG is wonderful but how do I measure the AWG really? How can you confirm that you have a special AWG number, a table or what? It seems extremely unpractical to me.)

[phn]

http://www.molex.com/product/images/wiregaug.html

[lineup]

I most often use copper wire, with some sort of plastic cover on.
I think it is called PVC.
Polyvinyl Chloride Insulated Copper Wire.
I have many different colours and thickness of these at home.
And current will flow pretty good in them.

[peranders]

Originally posted by phn
http://www.molex.com/product/images/wiregaug.html

I have a conversion table but my question was how to measure the AWG, tools? You are in the lab and pick up a wire, how do you measure the AWG?

[phn]

My bad. Maybe this is more what you look for.

"Wire gauge is a measure of its size. The AWG measure is what you will find most often used. In this measure, a change in three sizes changes the wire resistance per length by a factor of two. A convenient rule of thumb is that a ten gauge wire will cause a voltage drop of a millivolt for each amp going through it for each foot of wire (this is the definition of 10 AWG wire: 1 ohm resistance per thousand feet). In AWG terms, a change of three AWG will change resistance by two. Lower AWG means less resistance."

[Nordic]

I have recently switched over to 1mm solid copper cable... as I wa just having too many issues with thin wire strands breaking loose etc... takes some getting used to but with the right pliers you can build solid as rocks, sadly the stuff I use is quite cheap, with PVC etc.... the trick is to push the PVC up the lead, away from the solder spot, usualy works for me, but not 100% success yet, although, I'm much more happy with the mechanical soundness, the only thin stranded wire I use lately is some 22awg wire to connect the input earth the the ground star, I find I almost never have to make any further adjustments for hum, when using the thin wire there... admittedly, I normally only build GCs, but hey, since I joined here I have also completed a phono amp, and my dac will be done tommorrow morning... the PSU is giving me some hassles this evening... first need to sort that out.... only got to solder 2 caps and 4 resistors in to finish the DAC.

[Dave Cigna]

For grounds I always use the biggest fattest hunk of solid copper that I can work with no matter what I'm building. In the one GC that I built I used 12GA solid wire from a scrap of romex house wiring. I used the same for the supply rails with the chip pins soldered directly to the wire and a cap from each rail to ground also right at the pins. The input signal wires are smaller solid copper, probably 23GA magnet wire because I have a ton of it.

I don't use stranded wire for much of anything anymore except power cords from the wall and test leads.

-- Dave

[I_Forgot]

I like teflon insulated stranded wire because the insulation doesn't melt when you solder it. Stranded wire can usually be repositioned multiple times without breaking. Stripping teflon can be a pain without a thermal stripper. Most of the blade-type strippers don't work well on teflon.

Anyone who thinks they can hear a difference between 3" long pieces of wire is delusional.

I_F