Cable Options from Breaker to Receptacle

If stranded is deficient in some manner then the makers of the more expensive brands of cable are doing a good job of disguising it.
09-21-10: Stanwal

Stan,

You need to look at the make-up of the PCs. AudioQuest uses several separately paralleled insulated solid core conductors for the hot and neutral of their PCs. Cords are still somewhat flexible.

Others use stranded, but at least for the ones I have checked into, they build the PC with several smaller insulated stranded wire groups. (As Jon Risch talked about in his post.)

Example look how the low cost Pangea AC-9 PC is built. http://www.pangeaaudio.com/products.html

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PS Audio is another PC that uses individual insulated conductors in the make up of their PCs. From the picture most of the conductors appear to be solid core. http://www.psaudio.com/ps/products/description/perfectwave-ac-5-power-cable?cat=cables-accessories

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Quote from Jon Risch post:
"In order for stranded wires to sound worse than a solid wire of the same gauge, there must be some sort of operative effect in play.

One of the theories is that it is due to strand jumping, which in turn, would be driven by skin effect and/or self inductance."

Smaller stranded wires would be less prone to skin effect etc., and so, would have less strand jumping, and less of that stranded wire sound to be bothered by. There is even a point where the stranded wire would no longer be significantly affected by the skin effect, and so, would no longer have that reason to sound any worse than a solid wire of the same gauge."
http://db.audioasylum.com/cgi/m.mpl?forum=cables&n=100715&highlight=which+is+better+stranded+wire
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I have PS Audio, they look stranded to me. According to their web site they use "multiple gauge and shaped conductors". I take this to mean stranded as opposed to a single solid. I have had no interest in Audio Quest since the days I was a dealer for them. I intend to use stranded, what anyone else chooses to use is up to them. I could post some web sites that describe the superiority of stranded in listening tests but there are doubtless others that prefer solid; again I think it is one of those areas where personal choice rule. My original post only described what I intended to do and my general impression after looking at some forums and cable companies; it is only my opinion and nothing more.

My suspicion has been that the power cords and cables that utilize a multitude of separately insulated small gauge conductors have been inspired by Litz wire, which is a technique that has long been used in high frequency applications, transformer applications, and inductor applications, for reasons that are explained in the article.

I have seen lots of claims and "theories," to use Risch's word, alleging that similar principles to those that are behind Litz wire apply to audio power cords and speaker cables (with the novel addition of the "strand jumping" distortion theory). None of those claims that I am aware of, though, are backed up in a quantitative manner. Given that skin effect is utterly inapplicable at 60Hz, and at best very slightly applicable at 20kHz (and completely inapplicable even at 20kHz if the wires are thin), in the absence of plausible quantitative technical rationale skepticism would seem to be justified.

Which is not to deny that many of those cords and cables may provide excellent performance in many systems. However without a well established technical rationale and understanding, system dependencies figure to be unpredictable, and the correlation between price and performance figures to be loose.

IMHO.

Best regards,
-- Al

Stan,

My intent was not sway you one way or the other. Given the choice I will use solid core wire for my audio branch circuits. Stranded is a hell of lot easier to work with though.

Cheers,
Jim

Hi Al,

A lot of this hobby is based on theory. In the end it all depends on the listener.....

Maybe all the aftermarket cable designer/manufactures are reading from the same page.

Here is another one.
http://www.nordost.com/Odin-Supreme-Reference-Power-Cord-P35.asp

Jim