Hookup wire for tube amplifier?

I have been voicing my homebrew 91a 300b amp for the past 10 months. I built the initial breadboard with Radio Shack 18 gauge solid core "mystery" wire and the amp sounded just fine. Now that the amp is kinda of finished I am still voicing it. The most influential change was the wire from the attenuator to the 6C6 grid which is now 22 gauge silver. Unisulated. Very open and airy. After much trial this is where I have landed. In the places where higher voltage is being carried, I use 16 gauge copper or silver. The ground bus is also solid core thick copper. I tried 22 gauge silver in the bypass circuits and the sound lost body and low end power. My silver wire is Cardas from Percy and OCC copper from Partsconnexion.

Wire and joints require burn in time. When I make a change I live with it for a month or so and sometimes longer, listening to my music collection and appreciating the good and not so good. I built a cap wire burner with a 12v filament tranny and put wire, resistors, or caps on this burner for a week before putting it in the amp.

When soldering use a good Wellar gun. When you heat the connection do it very quickly use a minimum amount of solder and once the connection is soldered none of the connections should move. They need to stay perfectly still to avoid a cold joint.

The biggest change I made in this amp had nothing to do with wire. I pulled the 6C6 coupling cap and this decreased gain and greatly decreased distortion. The sound opened up in the mids and in the frequency extremes. If you are building your own, try different things and live with them and enjoy the journey.

Jetrepro, I'm very impressed with your work, and thanks for the advice on soldering and hookup wire. I like your choice of the Goldpoint stepped attenuator for volume control at the input of the amp. I use the same for my amp, and it is better than any preamp I have tried. I'm not surprised you got a big jump in sound quality by removing the coupling cap (input coupling cap correct?). Less caps in the signal path the better the sound, IMO. My amp only has one set of cap in the signal path (2 caps because it is a PP amp).

Your experience with copper and silver wire is same as mine. I think overall copper is the better way to go, and a small amount of silver wire can be used to "voice" an amp if needed.

Dracule,

Would love to see pictures of your amp and system. Bet is sounds wonderful. That Goldpoint attenuator was a good move. Nice that copper is working for you. I dont think there is a one way. I am conituing to add silver little by little. The reason silver is starting to work in my system may be because of my Audio Note speakers which are known to be a little dark it the mid range.

The cap I removed is the one that is working with the resistor that is biasing the 6C6 driver tube. C-5. It actually may not be called the coupling cap. I may have miss spoke. In my amp there are only two stages the input/driver tube which is coupled to the 300b. I used a V-cap to couple the driver to the output tube. To see the schematic, you can search for Joe Roberts we91a.

If you read sound practices, Herbert Reichert recommends silver hook up wire. His "Flesh and Blood" 300b is searchable online. My point is to try things and hear what works. 3 ft of silver wire is pretty inexpensive even large gauge silver from Percy is pretty cheap and enjoy the journey.

Thanks for the explanation about the cap position. You're right. I don't think you can call it a coupling cap unless it is directly in the signal path. I've used Vcaps as output coupling caps and like them. I'm trying out Duelund CAST caps in this position. I will experiment with a little silver wire in my amp. As for my system, it is a work in progress. I will send you some pics when its finished.

How do you like the Duelands? The TFTF V-caps sound good but sometimes I think I hear the teflon. (might be my imagination :)) May try AN copper caps.