Amp Internal Wire

Interesting side part of the story, I noticed a main filter cap leg not soldered on the main board - totally missed by the assembly! I’ve seen a lot, that was a first for me. The leg was snipped, but no solder.

@rickysnit Oops! Something like that may well have blown your comments out of the water! Power supply bypass (filter capacitors) are far more important than internal wire; if one was not hooked up right there is no way the amp was sounding right.

To test this the cap would have to be disconnected and the amp played again...

Ralph, I didn't understand that statement. Are you talking about frequency of mechanical vibration, and what aspect is the comparison about?

Not vibration- dielectric constant, which affects the quality of the capacitor that is formed between the wire and anything else its around (stray capacitance).

So wiring everything with silver is not necessarily but Teflon insulator  over copper is ok.

Teflon does not seal the wire. So you can expect copper in Teflon to be corroded. Add a bit of heat to the mix and the corrosion happens faster. So if using uninsulated copper, Teflon should be avoided.

I’m not getting into the debate over conductor material but would recommend Teflon for the insulator. Why? High melting temperature so less likely to damage it while soldering and then there is the whole low dielectric absorption thing.

Teflon is usually reserved for silver or silver plated wire. The reason is the extrusion temperature is too high for copper- if it was OFC before, it won’t be after.

If you are using copper wire, you are better off with a polyethylene insulation. The reason is it will melt and seal the wire, thus preventing oxidation. FWIW, Teflon typically does not seal the wire, so the wire beneath can be considered oxidized. Fun fact: polyethylene easily rivals or surpasses Teflon at certain frequencies.

Here’s another interesting tidbit: OFC was originally created for things like generators, where the wire had to survive vibration without failure. Its about 99.99% pure; there is no such thing (except in marketing) as ’6 nines’ copper due to oxidation issues.

Bryston was one of the few amp vendors also to state that aftermarket power cords are a total waste or money, so take that what you will.

Apparently they have not caused their hand to move to make the measurements if what you say here is true. To make the measurements simply run the amp to full power and measure the voltage drop across the power cord. Then adjust the AC line voltage (you do have a variac, right?) to compensate and measure full power again. For fun you can also measure distortion and output impedance...

In tube power amplifiers in particular, because of their filament circuits being unregulated, the seemingly small voltage drops you see on power cords can cause a lot of changes in the amplifier since the filament temperature is affected along with the operating voltages (and currents).

Even in a class D amp (if it makes any substantial power) you can measure changes in the output power by simply changing power cords. Its less profound than in other amplifier topologies because class D is so much more efficient. But at higher power levels that sort of thing shows up. In the face of it, probably not a big deal but it is measurable and easily so.

As to whether that’s a waste of money is an entirely different topic; I have friends and relatives that think I’ve wasted a lot of money on my stereo and I do this for a living, ’so take that what you will.’ 🤣