• WARNING: Tube/Valve amplifiers use potentially LETHAL HIGH VOLTAGES.
    Building, troubleshooting and testing of these amplifiers should only be
    performed by someone who is thoroughly familiar with
    the safety precautions around high voltages.

Best signal wire ...

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Lingwendil

Lingwendil

Member
Joined 2008
I really like to use the twisted pairs from plenum rated CAT6 cable, they solder nicely and come pre-twisted.

I've used coax for some phono and high gain applications and it seems to work well, the thinner RG-174 video coax is nice and easy to use as well as route, but I'm not sure it's needed in a power amplifier.
 
D

DF96

R.I.P.
Joined 2007
myweb.tiscali.co.uk/g8hqp/
What do you mean by "signal wire"? If you mean wiring from input sockets to the circuit (or volume control etc.), then the rule is the same as for external connections: coax for unbalanced, twisted pair for balanced. However, inside a metal chassis you can often get away with twisted for unbalanced too.

Other signal wiring (e.g. from one stage to another) can be just insulated wire, as the signal will be large enough that it doesn't need protection and you don't want to add stray capacitance.
 
kodabmx

kodabmx

Member
Joined 2011
On preamps, I usually use shielded untwisted pair similar to microphone cable, but coaxial video cable works fine, too. On my power amplifiers, I use chassis as ground, and run a single #22 wire per channel to the input grids.
 
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wanders

Member
Joined 2011
Thanks for the replies. The connection is between the rca input jack and the driver board. I’ve got both shielded twisted pair and interconnect coax. I’ll probably go with the pair as that is a little easier to work with. Down the line, if I’m feeling ambitious, I might experiment trying different cables in each of the monoblocks. If so U’ll post my impressions.
 
Lingwendil

Lingwendil

Member
Joined 2008
Unless you're in a very noisy environment, or dealing with very, very low signal voltages I think that twisted pair should usually be more than adequate for most builds. The earlier mentioned trick of twisting your own in the chuck of a drill is very handy, and I use it with solid core for filament wiring, it's a great trick :)
 
Lingwendil

Lingwendil

Member
Joined 2008
Uh, why are you posting golden-ear audiophoolery here? Careful, the thread might get moved to the lounge, as religion (and politics) is prohibited from discussion on the forum...

Besides, we're discussing signal wiring inside an amplifier here, right? Silver wire is fine, if a bit unnecessarily expensive for the job.

That second link has some hilariously expensive snake-oil parts (RCA plugs for 299$ a set?!) recommendations.
 
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Blitz

Member
Joined 2002
That was not my intend...the title was "best ..."

I used all kind of wires for signal within an amp and I am not relegious about silver vs. copper. If you want to stay reasonable, you will get excellent results with Jupiter solid core copper 0,4mm in cotton. Absolutely great stuff as well...today I would always try to stay with cotton, silk etc. But I used as well all kind of teflon coated cables, copper, silver, stranded, solid. On connector, WBT AG are very good, but you can as well use the asian Eichmann plug copies for 16$ from ebay with excellent results.
 
PRR

PRR

Member
Joined 2003
Paid Member
What does the input wire GO to? Typically a PCB, open to the same EMI influences, and laid-out for the circuit's needs. Or point-to-point (to-point to-point to-point) construction. i.e. if the inside of the chassis is "clean enough" for the PCB, any sane length of any kind wire will be fine.

People have opinions on copper, silver, etc. Personally, in DIY, I think a nice color insulation affects "sound" more.
 
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Burnedfingers

Member
Joined 2002
PRR said:
What does the input wire GO to? Typically a PCB, open to the same EMI influences, and laid-out for the circuit's needs. Or point-to-point (to-point to-point to-point) construction. i.e. if the inside of the chassis is "clean enough" for the PCB, any sane length of any kind wire will be fine.

People have opinions on copper, silver, etc. Personally, in DIY, I think a nice color insulation affects "sound" more.
Click to expand...

Your absolutely right. Different insulation for each type of music you listen to. Red for rock, Yellow for Jazz and so on. So, be prepared to take the amp apart every time you change your music.
 
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