In his description of his "flesh and blood" amp Herb Reichert
advocates silver wire but then says:
"Go without food or clothes, but buy lots of records and wire your hi-fi in silver. Audio Note or Kimber silver wire are my first choices for internal wiring of this amp. If you can't afford this stuff, just use Carol PVC hook up wire. Nothing is worse than silver-plated copper. Stay away from all Teflon coated wire if you are looking for relaxed natural sound. Believe me the Carol PVC stuff is good for everything in your system from the tonearm to the speaker. If you can't afford silver, and you trust me, try it."
anybody have any idea what he means by Carol PVC hook up wire and where to buy it and in what gauge?
EZ
full article is located here:
http://www.audiodesignguide.com/se/fleshblood.html
advocates silver wire but then says:
"Go without food or clothes, but buy lots of records and wire your hi-fi in silver. Audio Note or Kimber silver wire are my first choices for internal wiring of this amp. If you can't afford this stuff, just use Carol PVC hook up wire. Nothing is worse than silver-plated copper. Stay away from all Teflon coated wire if you are looking for relaxed natural sound. Believe me the Carol PVC stuff is good for everything in your system from the tonearm to the speaker. If you can't afford silver, and you trust me, try it."
anybody have any idea what he means by Carol PVC hook up wire and where to buy it and in what gauge?
EZ
full article is located here:
http://www.audiodesignguide.com/se/fleshblood.html
Actually Carol is a cable company, aptly called Carol Cable. You can buy thier products almost anywhere, including here.
http://www.partsexpress.com/webpage.cfm?&DID=7&WebPage_ID=230
Anthony
http://www.partsexpress.com/webpage.cfm?&DID=7&WebPage_ID=230
Anthony
Two pieces of advice.
1) PVC is not to be used anywhere if its possible to avoid it. Especially in an amplifier where things tends to get hot....its downright toxic at elevated temperatures and to some extend even at room temp.
2) Ive recently made a bunch of blind tests of pretty much any material you could ever imagine using for wire. Prior to the test I thought I could easily tell the difference between silver and copper cables (I made the tests cause Steve basicly told me I was full of crap...a most reasonable attitude
).
Now after making hundreds of attempts to prove Steve wrong, I have to face the fact, that he is right. For a single wire its exclusively a matter of resistance, and resistance cant possibly become an issue for internal wireing.
For speaker cables we have a few more strings to play on. By twisting severel wires and changing the gauge of the wire, we can play with reisitance, capacitance and inductance. So to make a long story short....Steve was right.
The same goes for the choice of insulator and plated or not.
For insulation purposes there are other factors to take into account though, that makes either fibreglass or teflon the material of choice, and thats first and foremost safety and versatility. I personally hate to work with fibreglass insulation, so I went for teflon.
The second factor thats worth taking into consideration is corrosion...hence the use of silver plated wire. Silver is great for protecting the copper against corrosion.
Silver plated wire have gotten a bad name in audio, partly with reason cause there have been a lot of cheap crap out there that wasnt plated adequately well. If you stay clear of such (simply stick to Habia), silver plated is the way to go, as its relatively cheap and very reliable. It comes in both teflon and fibreglass insulated versions.
Magura
1) PVC is not to be used anywhere if its possible to avoid it. Especially in an amplifier where things tends to get hot....its downright toxic at elevated temperatures and to some extend even at room temp.
2) Ive recently made a bunch of blind tests of pretty much any material you could ever imagine using for wire. Prior to the test I thought I could easily tell the difference between silver and copper cables (I made the tests cause Steve basicly told me I was full of crap...a most reasonable attitude
).Now after making hundreds of attempts to prove Steve wrong, I have to face the fact, that he is right. For a single wire its exclusively a matter of resistance, and resistance cant possibly become an issue for internal wireing.
For speaker cables we have a few more strings to play on. By twisting severel wires and changing the gauge of the wire, we can play with reisitance, capacitance and inductance. So to make a long story short....Steve was right.
The same goes for the choice of insulator and plated or not.
For insulation purposes there are other factors to take into account though, that makes either fibreglass or teflon the material of choice, and thats first and foremost safety and versatility. I personally hate to work with fibreglass insulation, so I went for teflon.
The second factor thats worth taking into consideration is corrosion...hence the use of silver plated wire. Silver is great for protecting the copper against corrosion.
Silver plated wire have gotten a bad name in audio, partly with reason cause there have been a lot of cheap crap out there that wasnt plated adequately well. If you stay clear of such (simply stick to Habia), silver plated is the way to go, as its relatively cheap and very reliable. It comes in both teflon and fibreglass insulated versions.
Magura
EZ_Angus said:
Or trust the rest of the world, that have more or less banned soft PVC and is trying to do the same with hard PVC.....wonder why?? Take a look at some factory producing anything made of PVC...everything inside that building is either high grade stainless steel...or very badly corroded
Magura
Hi,
Sure...I can understand him saying go for silver wire if you can afford it but PV bloody C?
First of all silver isn't half as expensive as people think it is and it sure sounds a hell of a lot better than copper to me.
The more you apply of it throughout the system the more obvious this becomes.
If your system isn't revealing enough than don't spend the money on silver wire or any other fancy stuff, it's money down the drain.
Teflon...Why people say it prohibits a relaxed rendition of music is beyond me.
Nonetheless, if you want to avoid Teflon and still want an airtight insulator that sounds good I'd recommend solderable magnet wire AKA enamelled wire.
To my ears, solid core wire invariably sounds better and gives a better focused sound. Even down to the powercord you use.
With tube amps, enamelled wire, be that copper or silver, often allows for tighter twisting of wire pairs.
This provides for better EMI shielding and hum cancellation in valve heaters, for instance.
Don't use thicker wires than strictly needed, less metal often sounds better.
Remember valves are voltage amplifiers not current amplifiers.
To give you some idea what's used by majors:
AN U.K. uses the same silver wire as I do, he prefers polyurethane coated wire, I use polyamide coated wire.
Both look like yellowish magnet wire due to the silver underneath.
Audio Synthesis U.K. uses the same silver wire but Teflon coated for their hook up wire harnesses.
Note: both use mostly solid core for all their cabling.
Try to be consistent: valve amps use solid core wire in the chokes, powerxformers, OPTs and for all I know the mains is almost always solid core wherever you go.
Filter chokes in loudspeakers also use solid magnet wire as do the voicecoils of speakers.
Don't mix solid core with multistrand within the same system, it sounds less airy and lacks focus.
Litz type wires uses multiple invidually insulated strands and can be handy if you need to use a wire loom.
Solid core can't possibly suffer from microphony and in case oxidisation should creep in, it remains on the surface of a single conductor.
It won't contaminate a multitude of fine strands where the amount of oxidation could turn all these conductors into a bunch of semi-conductors.
That about sums it up.... Hope it helps.
Cheers,
Sure...I can understand him saying go for silver wire if you can afford it but PV bloody C?
First of all silver isn't half as expensive as people think it is and it sure sounds a hell of a lot better than copper to me.
The more you apply of it throughout the system the more obvious this becomes.
If your system isn't revealing enough than don't spend the money on silver wire or any other fancy stuff, it's money down the drain.
Teflon...Why people say it prohibits a relaxed rendition of music is beyond me.
Nonetheless, if you want to avoid Teflon and still want an airtight insulator that sounds good I'd recommend solderable magnet wire AKA enamelled wire.
To my ears, solid core wire invariably sounds better and gives a better focused sound. Even down to the powercord you use.
With tube amps, enamelled wire, be that copper or silver, often allows for tighter twisting of wire pairs.
This provides for better EMI shielding and hum cancellation in valve heaters, for instance.
Don't use thicker wires than strictly needed, less metal often sounds better.
Remember valves are voltage amplifiers not current amplifiers.
To give you some idea what's used by majors:
AN U.K. uses the same silver wire as I do, he prefers polyurethane coated wire, I use polyamide coated wire.
Both look like yellowish magnet wire due to the silver underneath.
Audio Synthesis U.K. uses the same silver wire but Teflon coated for their hook up wire harnesses.
Note: both use mostly solid core for all their cabling.
Try to be consistent: valve amps use solid core wire in the chokes, powerxformers, OPTs and for all I know the mains is almost always solid core wherever you go.
Filter chokes in loudspeakers also use solid magnet wire as do the voicecoils of speakers.
Don't mix solid core with multistrand within the same system, it sounds less airy and lacks focus.
Litz type wires uses multiple invidually insulated strands and can be handy if you need to use a wire loom.
Solid core can't possibly suffer from microphony and in case oxidisation should creep in, it remains on the surface of a single conductor.
It won't contaminate a multitude of fine strands where the amount of oxidation could turn all these conductors into a bunch of semi-conductors.
That about sums it up....
Hope it helps.Cheers,
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