Amp Internal Wire


Hi Gents, has anyone have any experience with upgrading amp or preamp internal signal wire? Most older equipment seems to have thin maybe sometimes poor internal wiring. In the world of OFC/OCC/Sterling and even more exotic wire available these days, any experiments done using this internally on components swapping out the cheap?

Lots of discussion about doing this with speakers, but never with components I've seen. For instance, I am thinking about replacing copper 'appliance' wire in an old Bryston with 14awg sterling from the board to the speaker binding post board.

 

Any thoughts?

rickysnit

Well gentlemen, job complete.

What can I say, but wow. It sounds beautiful, it sounds like silver - and a good implementation of silver - crisp airy highs, spatial, separation, and a thick low frequency bass - just exactly the kind of accurate sound I was looking for. I would absolutely recommend the overpriced Mundorf SilverGold wire..

Some photos of the job:

The 4B-ST has some quirks, but generally easy to work on, I'm listening while typing, just finished screwing down the top.

To those who say cable doesn't have an impact, it is just incorrect - plain and simple, this job/mod/upgrade was a NET WIN!

 

Thumbs up, I've really appreciated everyone's great inputs to my thread and my project! It was a WIN.

I’ve had a few hours with it - occasionally I get a jazz track - what I listen to mostly - come on, and I experience an elevated level of clarity, bass and stage depth. And for those who experiment with cables might know what I am referring to by that 10-15% bump in improvement, I think that’s what I achieved here..

The old wires, I should have posted a picture of the conductor, I’ve ripped the same cable out of old kenwoods, it’s a stranded twisted and tinned conductor with a nerve core in the center - I know this wire, I’ve replaced it elsewhere too, only with OCC to get a similar improvement.

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.

The furutech connectors worked out, but if you see from my pics, it was tight. I also realized that if I continue to do this kind of thing, getting a quality desoldering solution would be so very helpful, pumps just lack.

I also wouldn’t have minded some of that deoxit gold brush on stuff for the modules - both gold plated fingers, and board pads - maybe even the faston tabs too on the binding posts.

We were kidding speaking about coat hangers, funny enough the feel of the Mundorf wire was like a silver PTFE coated coat hanger, it was easy and nice to bend into shape, the 15.5AWG/1.5mm fit perfectly into the eyelets, and finished with Mundorf Supreme solder.

A part of me wanted to do the caps too, but I’m sure they have a few more years on them..

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...

Nice Work

Great pictures , one suggestion replace the glass fuses with ceramic ones .

 

That is a great suggestion, thanks mate. I was looking at the photos more too, and wondering if I should look into replacing the power lead too - not sure of any audible impact though. Thanks for having a look!