NOS Western Electric wire used for power cables??

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

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

The WE speaker wire is about the same. I used it for years with full range speakers but it too is not wide bandwidth and tends to sound a bit cloudy with a rolled off top end.

It can be a good cure for "digititus."

Please keep in mind that I'm speaking in ABSOLUTE terms and that both the silk/enamel covered signal wire as hook up/IC wire and the speaker wire are exceptional values if you get the right "vintage" at the right price.

Much of their popularity was originally based on them being SO inexpensive and music being narrower bandwidth than it is today.

At their current pricing there are much better options IMHO.

Now you know why my company only sells NOS wire power cords and not other products made from NOS wire. I can buy modern wire that sounds better for the same or less $$$ and I can buy all I want rather than hunting around the world for scraps.

Soon enough we'll no longer be making NOS wire power cords since I can barely find 30' of the specific wire I've been using and people that have it for sale want too much for it. I have a good inventory of AC wire but at the rate I'm selling power cords it won't last for too many years.

There are SO many variations of these NOS wires...plated with this or that....shielded with this or that...wax or enamel coated...etc, etc, etc.

I don't recommend people thinking they can simply buy something off of eBay and they are good to go. Most of the wire I've seen for sale on eBay is not the "right" vintage.

Much like with tubes, people hear about "chrome tops" or "black plates" or "halo getter" or whatever and they think they are getting the famous vintage they've read so much about and they are not.

As they say: "Let the buyer beware."

That being said, if anyone wants a "grab bag" of different gauges and types of WE solid core hook up wire I would be happy to sell it to them very cheaply. These were the wires I used for R&D but ended up going with modern wires instead.

For $50 I'll gladly give anyone that wants it a bag of coils of different "vintages" of WE solid core wires that would sell on eBay for 5X that price. You'll be saving me the trouble of listing them individually.

Ben, I think it would be redemptive to educate people on the theoretical advantages of the WE copper processing....

I know only the basics of WE wire manufacture.

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

The strands were dipped in a molten plating bath. The plating alloy was proprietary and a trade secret. Sort of like the Colonel's herbs and spices (I believe some of the ingredients are a bit different).

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

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

The strands of plated copper were twisted into different gauge bundles.

The bundles were coated with a proprietary polymer insulation. Just because you know the polymer don't believe you know the insulation. An example of this is Polyurethane. The same polymer that is used to protect furniture is used to make Spandex. Hard and clear vs. elastic and white. Both polyurethane.

For added flame retardance and abrasion resistance a cloth cover was put over the polymer insulation.

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 tried EVERY pure copper and plated copper wire I could get my hands on over the past 10+ years and have not found a better sounding copper wire for AC conduction.

Personally I compared it to power cords by companies like Sunyata, Nordost, Kimber, Straight Wire, Transparent, etc. that sold for over $1K. A simple power cord made from this wire and Wattgate basic copper connectors beat all of them by a huge margin.

When I began selling basic power cords on eBay for $100 I knew they would sound better than anything for under $1K.

I had no idea that audiophiles with $30K+ systems would be buying them to put up against $2K5+ power cords.

All my profits went into R&D. We learned that modest Chinese made pure copper plug sets sounded better than not only the Wattage we were using but the most expensive of Furutech, Oyaide, and Kimber plugs.

BTW, I am an OEM Furutech distributor.

We also learned that certain gauges of wire as well as shielding and twisting schema sounded better.

When I say "we" I refer to about half a dozen beta testers with high end systems that sold their $2K-$3K power cords and replaced them with my NOS cords.

I was disabled in 2006 as the result of a car accident. My small power cord business was supposed to be a hobby. A year later I just hired two employees to keep up with the overwhelming demand.

In my formal career I was a product development engineer, a technical consultant, and owned my own computerized embroidery company. Over the years I specialized in computer numerically controlled robotic machinery.

My hobby for over 30 years was DIY audio. I love acoustic music. I found that most "audiophile" products are "pumped up" and distort the music's flow along with the organic tones and timbers. I got into making my own cords and cables because that was the only way I could hear the music I loved.

Apparently there are many others of you out there that feel the same way about the time, tune, organic timbers, and musical flow being more important than EQ, imaging, or the other "attractive distortions" that most audiophile cable/cord companies are selling.

I would just like to close by saying I am no genius and I do nothing original. Apparently I have a good ear and I've simply combined existing technology and components that other companies manufactured to make a more musical product.

The geniuses at WE made this AC wire decades ago as well as developed most of the circuits that audio manufacturers are using to this day. We are all "standing on the shoulders of giants" as they say.

The only real advancements since then were in digital and microchips. Basic electronics hasn't changed all that much.

By all means, if you enjoy DIY, experiment like I did. You will certainly have fun and save $$$.

On the other hand if you want to benefit from my 30+ years of experience then purchase my products. You will certainly save a lot of time and $$$ as well as space in your basement where you keep your "failed experiments."

One last word of caution about NOS wire. Don't fall for the more modern A.I.W. version of the Western Electric AC and speaker wire. This is NOT the stuff that I am using. Now that the word is out, people are pulling this stuff out of the back of their warehouse and selling it all over eBay for 5X what it sold for only a few years ago.

I'm not saying this is a bad sounding AC wire, only that the REAL stuff sells for MUCH more and I haven't found more than 30' of it on eBay in a given month. The guys that have it know what it is and they sell it for much more than $1-$2 per foot like the A.I.W. wire.

Good luck with your DIY projects!

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.