Hafler DH-500 amp rewire


Can anyone please comment on what wire I should use to re-wire my Hafler DH-500?

The amp sounds great, but with the original wires at 18ga, and some frayed, I would think it's an obvious and cheap tweak.

Does anyone know what the original wire was, manufacturer / type.

Another obvious question is whether going a little thicker, like 16ga or 14ga, would improve the audio. Funny how the Canare 4S11 speaker cables are fed by an 18ga wire inside the amp.

I've also read of undesirable results when changing the wires, even when going to expensive options such as silver.

Cheers,
alex333
I myself and a friend of mine who has been doing wireing for quite some time has found that Belden 19364 power cord wire works fantastic in rewireing...It is 14ga copper which from what I see in equiptment that I open up is used in amps often.I used the belden in my Hafler 120se with great results.Also keep the wire neat and bundled together straight ,don't twist them together you can create a choking effect.
You just have to strip off the outside casing to get to the 3 wires inside..When you rewire make sure you keep the wire in the right direction..all wire has a flow direction.if cable is not marked by an arrow showing direction rule of thumb is to follow the lettering direction.
You can get this wire from www.dedicatedaudio.com they carry it in bulk..around 3.50 a foot..
Also as a power cord it is a real sleeper and beats many of the hyped up priced power cords on the market.
If you are rewireing also change out that stock hardwired power cord with the Belden wire..
I like to use the Wattgate 5266I and 320I connectors when I build a power cord...also if you are handy you can add an IEC socket to the back of the amp in place of the hardwired power cord..this way you can try different pwr cords if you like.
Dgordonl,
Are you saying to use the wires inside the Belden 19364 power cord for the audio path?

Also, just to make 100% sure, the above has 3 wires of 14 ga each, so I would take it apart and use each wire separately, yes?

BTW already doing the IEC socket, plus thinking of bypassing the power switch completely (unit is always on anyways, plus more points of failure).

Looking for good fuse blocks for the audio path, inline, so they can hang on the wire instead of mounting on the floor.

Thanks so much, Alex
I will like to to replace DH silver wire. (from speaker relay to connector).original is solid 18 g copper wire.
Thanks.
Alex,
Yes.. use the wires inside the Belden.and use them seperate as needed inside the amp...if you were to buy a 5ft piece after opening up the outside black case you would have 3 five foot pieces totaling 15ft of wire...probally more than enough to do the job..and like I said make a 2meter power cord out of the Belden using Wattgate connectors...its a good starting point...for a power cord..Right now I am using the Belden thruout my system instead of my super DYI 9ga.silver over copper power cords.
have fun
i tried silver and the sound is very bright.. the sound it is better with the original wire thanks
Oil the fan while you are in there.

Clean the ground contact point.
Tighten the speaker terminals if needed.

May want to replace relay, those are the contact points
that the single passes thru.

Re grease the TO3 output transistors, and clean the contacts while you are doing this.

New bridge rectifier soft recovery type.

Bypass the big caps with 5uf poly pro or oil.
(make sure they are not leaking and are still good probably are but just check around the screw terminals)

The internal wire change will not make that much difference sonically.The power cord will, esp if you can
fit a 20 amp IEC in there.

Bypass the input coupling capacitor, if your pre already has an output cap.

Change out the electic caps on each driver board
Cerafines or equivalent.

Put volt regulation on the pre driver stage, do not do it
on the driver stage it restricts the sound.

Change the driver tranistors from bypolar to mosfets
and put low capacitance bypolars inplace of the old predriver tranistors.

If you want a DH500 already done to this level email me
I have afew done already.