NOS Western Electric wire used for power cables??

Is all this Western Electric NOS wire covered in cloth or silk? Does any of the wire have an alternative coating? While the manufacturer states he uses a military spec wire, I'd be concerned if it was of the cloth/silk covered variety. I have seen interconnects and speaker cables made with cloth (ex. cotton) insulation, but these wires carry very little current compared to a power cord.

Hi everyone. Benjamin from Mojo Audio (Mojo-Audio.com).

I'm actually a bit embarrassed for some of you and your fire hazard and UL listed comments.

Certainly it is your right to only purchase items with UL listings or whatever other certification you prefer.

Feel free to purchase Monster Cable from Best Buy and purchase the extended warranty along with it.

Testing, inspections, and government standards only came into existence to give consumers some confidence in the products they purchased.

Just because a person is driving a car that has been inspected and they passed a driving test doesn't mean they are not a ROAD HAZARD.

User error is the issue, not UL listing.

These listings are no substitute for INTELLIGENCE. Most electrical fires occur due to USER ERROR and UL listed products are at the center of most of them as well.

If an electrical item SHORTS OUT it will NEVER cause a fire; it will simply flip a circuit breaker or blow out a fuse. That is why electrical codes insist on these safety device in all home and commercial circuits.

If an power cord has frayed insulation it will also not catch fire. It may short out and trip the same circuit breaker and it may give you a shock but it will not catch fire.

What causes electrical items to catch fire? Excessive current draw beyond their power rating. This can occur if wire of too small a gauge is used in walls, if outlets of too low a rating are used, if extension cords of too low a rating are used, or if multi-outlet devices of too low a rating or used.

In all of these cases the wire or contacts heat up from too much electrical resistance and cause surrounding materials to burst into flame. This is similar to the way electrical heaters and ovens operate (though "resistance heating" is intentional in those cases).

There is not an amplifier that has a 15A IEC outlet on the planet that has enough current draw to make ANY of my power cords even get warm let alone hot. Most UL listed IEC type power cords only use a 16AWG wire and mine use a 10AWG wire. My power cords are SO over-rated for their intended purpose there is NO CHANCE of over-heating in any way shape or form.

I'm not worried about any of my products failing and getting sued for negligence. I have business insurance so feel free to sue me if you like.

On the other hand, I worry about shoveling snow/ice and racking leaves. I am a bit worried that my postal carrier may slip and fall when he picks up all the packages I ship out every week.

My list of satisfied customers keeps growing and growing. These audiophiles know other audiophiles and word of mouth is my best advertising.

In the past past month I've expanded my production facility by 3X and doubled my number of employees just to keep up with the OVERWHELMING demand.

This was supposed to be a part-time retirement business for me and it has grown beyond my wildest imagination.

You'll be reading about my products in reviews over the next year and I look forward to meeting some of you in person at shows like Rocky Mountain, CES, and Audio Karma.

Some companies are already using my products in their demo systems and more are being added every month.

BTW, only a SOME of my products use NOS wire...most use modern current production materials.

Fuzzbuttl7

If an electrical item SHORTS OUT it will NEVER cause a fire; it will simply flip a circuit breaker or blow out a fuse. That is why electrical codes insist on these safety device in all home and commercial circuits.

That's a rather dangerous and ill-informed assumption.

It assumes that all shorts are dead shorts and of sufficiently low resistance to so as to allow enough fault current to flow to quickly trip the breaker or blow the fuse.

Such is not always the case and when it is not the case, a high resistance short can have insufficient current to trip the breaker or blow the fuse while allowing enough current to flow through the resistance to cause enough heat to start a fire.

What concerns me is that both on your website and your eBay ads, all you talk about is the wire. Unless I'm missing something, I see no mention whatsoever as to what INSULATES the wire.

Is it cloth? Rubber? Some sort of thermoplastic?

If it's cloth, I wouldn't recommend anyone use them for power cords.

I asked a guy I know regarding the WE wire and he told me the following:

"Cnly gets hot when you have undersized it..westerns power cable has always been rubber under the cloth and not silk, from 14 gauge and up"

No sure if theis makes anyone feel better.