NOS Western Electric wire used for power cables??

Fuzzbutt17

Cloth insulated WE wire was for low voltage signal, not for AC (as you probably know).

Sure.

But stuff that doesn't stop some people from doing incredibly stupid things. Look at the Mapleshade magnet wire power cords for example. ;)

IMHO it also doesn't sound as good with wide bandwidth signal since it was optimized for mid/voice transmission.

Huh?

It's a wire. How on earth do you optimize a wire for mid/voice transmission?

Sure, the electronics were optimized for the voice range in order to keep the signal to noise ratio as high as possible. But that has nothing to do with the wire itself.

On the list of "stupid" my number one is people that bundle several strands of a signal wire with improper insulation (like silk) to make a power cord.

Now THAT is a fire hazard!

If you haven't tried magnets, don't knock them. I've found they reduce noise better than anything else. Then again, you need to use the RIGHT magnet of the RIGHT polarity in the RIGHT situation (have fun experimenting).

As for band width, don't ask me...I'm not a WE engineer.

What I can say is that when we've compared the enameled WE solid core signal wire with the plated solid core signal wire and found that the plating had a bright and hard top end. The enameled sounds MUCH more organic.

We also found that compared to the best of modern cotton covered and air dielectric high purity copper signal wires of a similar gauge that both of them had among the most detail of ANY wire we ever heard in the mid band but lacked energy in the bass and were hard in the top end.

The resulting sound, though impressive at first, was on the thin side and gave me a headache in combination with some music or audio gear.

I can only GUESS that since this wire was intended for VOICE they did something that optimized it in the mids. Once again, I'm not a WE engineer.

As for the WE speaker wire...

It is all PLATED and uses a polymer insulation. The wire itself is actually the same they used for AC...they just made them in twisted pairs with marking or color to ID + from - and called it speaker wire.

Not a sin...didn't we all use the same zip cord for AC and speakers in the day? That was pro and zip cord was for home use.

All I can say is that when you compare it to the best of modern speaker wires you will find it lacking in the top end. Overall it sounds VERY warm and attractive...a great cure for "digititus."

Once again, I can only GUESS that since this was used with older tube amps on high efficiency speaker systems that utilized compression horn drivers (like the famous VOTT), that it was OPTIMIZED for that system.

I've heard VOTTs in a home with this wire. It sounded GREAT. Then again, when you are sitting less than 20' from a compression horn driver that was meant to fill a THEATER you can appreciate a bit of a rolled off top end.

BTW, the VOTTs only go up to about 12Khz...15KHz at best. Once again, they didn't need the extension in the top end.

Please keep in mind, I can only GUESS at the reasons WE did what they did.

My friend and mentor that introduced me to all of this vintage wire called himself an "audio archeologist" and was a collector. He had a ROOM filled with the "whose who" of vintage drivers and amps and would pull them out and set-up systems that we would play around with.

On the other hand, his MAIN system was all high end studio gear. Quite a contrast between the "brutally accurate" modern studio gear and the "attractive distortion" of the vintage.

Fuzzbutt17

High purity copper was DRAWN from a copper rod which results in very long crystal lengths.

Which is how most all copper wire has been made for the past century.

There is something about the plating that makes it both non-oxidizing yet conducts almost identical to copper.

The only thing that conducts almost identical to copper is copper. Or copper alloys which are nearly all copper such as tellurium copper.

The act of dipping in a molten plating bath annealed the copper. Annealing relaxes the crystalline tensions within the copper.

Virtually all copper wire sold for electrical use has been annealed.

The result is the best sounding AC wire I have heard short of the custom copper ribbon wire I'm using in my new top-of-the-line power cord.

I've always found it curious how power cords manage to effect the sound when they're not even in the circuit the majority of the time.

Well, the safety ground is always in the circuit. Though when it's not being used in its sole role of providing a return path for fault currents, all it can possibly do is create ground loop problems.

Fuzzbutt17

On the list of "stupid" my number one is people that bundle several strands of a signal wire with improper insulation (like silk) to make a power cord.

Now THAT is a fire hazard!

Could be worse. Could have been cotton.

In my experiments, silk tended to be rather self-extinguishing whereas cotton continued to smolder. Though I wouldn't recommend using either as the primary insulation on a power cord.

If you haven't tried magnets, don't knock them. I've found they reduce noise better than anything else. Then again, you need to use the RIGHT magnet of the RIGHT polarity in the RIGHT situation (have fun experimenting).

No earthly reason for a magnetic field to have any effect on noise whatsoever. Now, the material the magnet is made from could have some effect if it has a fairly high permeability.

The most common source of noise is the safety ground which can create ground loops between equipment. Unfortunately three conductor power cords are ubiquitous in high end, even when equipment chassis would otherwise meet Class II specs and not require it.

As for band width, don't ask me...I'm not a WE engineer.

Then who was the Western Electric engineer who said the wire was optimized for mid/voice?

The wire was used for telephone voice transmission.

I can only GUESS that is was optimized since it has AMAZING resolution in this area and not so good response at the extremes.

Magnets have no effect?

Tell that to the companies that are using them and the 10's of thousands of people that purchased these products.

Tell that to recording studios that purchased magnet based AC filter and grounding devices that sell for over $100K.

Then again, you may want to mail me some Q-tips since my personal testing has shown that properly implemented magnets reduce background noise SIGNIFICANTLY and in a MUCH different way than ferrite.

You could also tell the DOZENS of customers that sold their expensive digital cables and replaced them with my magnetic digital cables that they wasted their $$$ (good luck with that one).

Then again, maybe magnets cause auditory hallucinations that make all of us THINK they sound better?

I don't claim to know the WHY...once again, I'm "standing on the shoulders of giants."

I do know what I hear, I do know what my limited testing equipment reads, and I do know what my customers tell me.