wire conductivity

The page would not load for me, but I got this to say. I don't buy this sna ke oil shit. As long as the gauge is thick enough to allow good damping and not lose signal you are good to go.

As far as I can tell, the best speaker wire would be solid, like Rpmex that is in a casing which will force the two leads to run parallel.

Nelson Pass designs little three watt amplifiers n shit like that, there is no appreciable magnetic field. Audiophiles swear by them though. They also like single ended triode tube amps. This is where you take a 6L6 or 1 6550 per channel and rock the house with five watts. They replace perfectly goo d capacitors with super expensive ones which supposedly sound better.

He is obviously pandering to those who do not know electronics. Float your scope and the DUT, put the scope probe across any coupling cap in there and if all you see is DC it is good enough for the job. Same with filters, if all you see is DC it is good enough. I mean they do the cap job on single e nded amps.

In some cases you might get a little more oomph out of a class AB amp uppin g the value of the main filters but you are not getting more power. All you get is more time at your dynamic headroom point before the voltages drop t o the steady state power point. Same shit a few milliseconds later.

I have indeed heard the difference when speaker wires are of insufficient g auge, but it was an extreme demonstration.. fifty feet of zip cord that was maybe 28 gauge or something. Not much fatter than telephone wire.

When they can sell about 6 feet of wire to go from the equipment to a wall socket for over $ 100 , it proves they will buy most anything.

That wire must be some oxygen free, special insulated wire or some such snake oil coated. There is no way the wire of the same gauge is going to be noticed when there is probaly over 50 feet of cheep wire from the socket to the breaker box of the house and hard telling how many miles of even cheaper made wire to the power company.

Yes, that is definitely one place where it makes sense! The wire in my Magneplanar speakers is made that way, although it isn't a coil.

Jon

If the wrong wire terminal combination is installed, then your house WILL burn down, guaranteed! If you use the right CO/ALR fittings EVERYWHERE, then over time you will STILL develop poor connections. You can go around and tighten all the terminals in your breaker box and outlets and switches every ten years or so. But, it is STILL a risk, even with all the right parts, as the wire just keeps creeping out from under the terminals. And, of course, some people wired up their houses with those incredibly awful poke the wire in the hole switches and outlets, which even with all copper wire make poor connections after a few years.

Jon

[about aluminum house wiring]

I've seen poor connections with copper wire, too; many industrial plants are wired with heavy aluminum (I've done some of it). I don't know about CO/ALR specifically, but there ARE effective ways to use aluminum wiring.

I don't know about all large plants, but the one I worked at would go around every year to all the motor control centers and run an scan with an infered camera to check for hot spots.

CATV coax (RG-59, RG-6, RG-11) uses a STEEL center conductor for strength, not aluminum. The figure eight version for drops hs an added stainless steel messenger wire. .500", .750" and larger trunk cables use aluminum to reduce the weight, but the .750" and larger trunk lines have to be able to handle 30A on the center conductor. .500" is only used to feed line extenders or line taps, and needs to be able to carry 15A. CATV line equipment is typically powered by 60 VAC modified sine wave from a large pole or pad mounted CVT, but some early 12 channel hardware was powered by 30VAC modified sine wave power supplies. This was mostly obsolete by the '70s.

--
Never piss off an Engineer! 

They don't get mad. 

They don't get even. 

They go for over unity! ;-)

More likely to be coated with silver, particularly if mil spec.

RL

AlSi coatings are used for environmental protection. They will not improve surface conductivity directly, but can preserve conductivity of the coated material and assist to reduce corrosion.

I've never seen it offered for copper. Perhaps you can offer a reference or link to the material you're refering to?

Aluminum is more resistive by volume than copper (less resistive by weight).....so is unlikely to be used to reduce skin resistance of a copper conductor directly, in the short term.

RL

For the definitive answer from an electrical engineer, see the answer by Bill Shymanski

The problem is only for 15 and 20 amp branch circuits. Larger wire is used often without problems.

Around 1965 the price of copper went through the roof and aluminum started to be used on 15 and 20A circuits. Failed connections and fires resulted, and in 1971 UL pulled the listing on that aluminum wire and the aluminum rating for devices like switches and receptacles. New standards soon followed. The new aluminum wire was harder, and devices had a CO/ALR (Revised) rating.

The CPSC had extensive testing done on aluminum connections. That testing found that the aluminum oxide surface insulating layer caused much of the problem - the actual metal-metal contact could be quite small. Installations done "properly" could still fail. The probability of a failure was just higher for aluminum than copper. Even though there is a new alloy, most of the wire actually installed is the "old technology" stuff. "Backstab" device connections were never listed for use with aluminum.

If someone is working with this 15 & 20A wire there is a good paper on connections at:

It is written by the engineer that supervised the testing for the CPSC. Use of antioxide pastes is generally recommended.

The best connectors are

They have a screw connection that likely breaks through surface oxides. (Connections for large wires also deform the wire.)

AND THE WIRE IS...

Consolidated

14(41)UL 1007/1569 105C CSA TR64 30C FT1 BLUE

for example, other spools state differently but same batch MO

[about aluminum house wiring]

Covering the aluminum leads with anti-corrosive material (noalox) before attaching to copper or brass terminals helps.

PLL lock just out of reach ?

jamie

? Phase loop lock ? no bolt n chain .....then figure. is this ur answer ?

a poster asked what wire ....took a while to get to it.

I'm trying to supply 12VDC over a few feet without loss. The new wire was unknown but not yielding what I wanted at the end, a halogen bulb. I'm increasing Gauge.