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Question about connections within amp//dac

post #1 of 4
1/21/10 at 7:56pm
Thread Starter 
I've been reading forum posts for quite awhile, as I am trying to work on my first audio project (M^3). It seems that people spend quite a budget on making sure their connectors and connections from the amp to the headphones or dac to amp are of high quality. However, I did not really read anything on quality wires within the amp and dac. I would assume quality wires would be needed for connection to the RCA jacks and the headphone jack. I was wondering if anyone knew if this made a significant difference and was able to recommend connectors for them. Thanks.
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post #2 of 4
1/21/10 at 8:44pm
You would typically solder wires to the RCA and headphone jacks. Personally, I don't think there's a significant difference in the wire itself... (there are lots of opinions on this). More important is to make sure the routing is as short as possible and that you keep the signal wires as far away from the power wires as you can. You can also play with braiding which some people say makes a difference. As for the wire itself, just get something in the 22-20 AWG range or so. Stranded would be easier to work with. Teflon is nice too. But I wouldn't spend a ton of money on silver this copper that.

Ebay has some decent stuff. Just search for teflon stranded wire.
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post #3 of 4
1/21/10 at 8:54pm
Like oneplustwo said, there is a variety of opinions on the wire matter, but certainly using the shortest runs you can, keeping signal wires away from power, etc. will go a long way to preventing signal degradation. That being said I am a wire moderate. I like to use the highest quality wire I can within my budget to make sure it isn't the weak link. If wire materials can make a difference in interconnects why couldn't it inside an amp? I do know that wires are the last thing to make a difference, as a better dac, amp, etc. will give you much greater gains than switching to a new wire IMHO.

One economical suggestion is to strip the wires out of Mogami cable. They use a very nice, stranded, oxygen free copper with a cross linked polyethelene dialectric that is almost as resistant to melting as teflon. You can get up to 22awg (largest you could reliable use with through hole stuff), in a couple different colors. You can get two conductor Mogami for like $0.50 a foot which is pretty darn good for some very good wire.

Definitely search the forums, though. This has come up a couple times before and there are a lot of good opinions out there already.
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post #4 of 4
1/22/10 at 12:10am
Thread Starter 
Thanks for the feedback. I will do a little searching, I will probably end up simply buying high gauge Cu wire. From what I have read, it seems that people buy wires because of their low resistances (and most of you use Ag wires to further lower those resistances), but a higher gauge will do more good than something like an Ag coated Cu wire (which only lowers the resistance a minimal amount R = l/A*conductivity.
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