Ribbon cable inside amplifiers

@daledeee1 yup about an hour to come to temperature and start to really sing but even cold my X260.8 monos sound great.

If you look at the inside of any piece of audiophile electronics it will not have the same kind of expensive wiring most people use for AC cables or speaker cables. Why?

Not so with Pass Labs or Audio Research Gear.  My Pass Labs X350 Amp that I bought in 2002 was wired internally with Monster Cable.  I’m sure their newer amps have equivalent or better.

ARC started using Litz wire internally decades ago.  I rewired my ARC SP-6b with Litz wire back in the late 1980s along with better caps, resistors and a volume pot comparable to the newer ARC gear at the time.

@donavabdear  not true even my 30 year old krell amp has beryllium copper buss bars for the output stage.

The fact that high quality manufacturers don’t use "audiophile grade" cabling internally is not a definitive answer. I once got involved in a "speaker geek" conversation with the owner of one of the most successful speaker companies in recent decades. After a nice exchange of thoughts on speaker design he said (referring to cabling, connection methods, etc): "I get all of that. I just don’t want to argue with my engineers over it."

There are legit SQ design elements that go into equipment that may align with production efficiencies. Most often, they do not. There are also considerations service. In-field service board swap via detaching ribbon cables beats desoldering or sending a beefy chassis in 2 directions (including the risk of freight damage).

As others have stated, ribbon cables are often used for sending data, control, and lighting up the front panel. Sometimes low current power is sent to energize circuit boards. In the case of a streamer we "hacked" a while back, we eliminated the ribbon cable and direct silver soldered good cabling directly to the circuit board. Not an easy task. It got a little crowed in there. The SQ improvement was significant.

So, it depends on the use of the ribbon. Power delivery matters. Even if current demands are small.

I think A tube preamp does not go through tubes like an amp.  

There are lots of nice tube preamps.  The Pass would be nice.

I am using a passive so the idea is no change to the signal.