20AWG solid core Silver coated Teflon hookup wire

[crocket]

Hello There

After redoing a marshall style amp-clone to an express with 465 plate volts to see what they are like and being overjoyed with the amp
I am about to embark on a express and liverpool build.

I have on hand and been using exclusively in past builds
20AWG solid core Silver coated Teflon hookup wire

Im concerned I will induce brightness with the silver coated wire
as compared to plain copper.

Ken has talked about wire and he sound's so concerned about that choice to induce amp voicing.

Because the total hookup is not something i can jumper in/out to trial Im finding the decision hard.
Does anyone have experience with the 2 types of wire.
Is it worth spending $100NZ on a coil of type BU 1-mm,sq. plain copper wire?

see layout

Thank you so much to the people whom take time to keep this website going

David Watson

[Structo]

Red wire sounds better.

[stoo]

With that good south american copper!!! Oh! Baby!

[M Fowler]

Mexico and Arizona copper too such as Phillip-Dodge.

[rawnster]

I'm a total newbie at this stuff. Even so, I can share that I built an express with primarily silver coded teflon wire. But, from the recommendation of Rooster here on the forum, I replaced all wiring, expect for heaters, with PVC 99.99% solid core copper. I must say that the change warmed up the tone beautifully. I can actually use the treble pot now.

From there, I used the same copper wire on a Rocket build. I posted some clips here of that build.

Now, I'm in the build process of big bottle rocket combo with lots of tweaks to the circuit. And just got a new shipment of the holy grail copper wire, for which this build will see its full allotment thereof.

[billyz]

I have used solid Silver wire in the past and found it resulted in a Smoother, Silky sound with better detail. Not a brighter sound, but more natural, less midrange grunge. But that was Solid silver wire, not silver plated. Not sure what plated wire would sound like.

[Allynmey]

Crocket, use solid core PVC coated wire in wrecks. The Teflon (which I use in Komet style amps and most others) will sound brighter and more prone to microphonics due to the stiffness of the Teflon. Just try flicking the teflon wire in a circuit...it will oscillate like a guitar string. PVC doesn't do that.

I invite you to try both though....

[funkmeblue]

where does one get non-irradiated pvc solid core 18 guage wire?

[fishy]

1+ regarding Allynmey.

My first Liverpool used teflon wire throughout and was extremely microphonic and bright. There was a huge difference switching to PVC wire. I used 600v pvc coated wire which is quite thick (McMaster) but easy to use.

I have since built a few more TW based amps and have stuck with PVC. I did recently use stranded wire in a Liverpool and although getting the lead dress was more difficult, it came out well.

Good luck

[Jackie Treehorn]

Silver plated wire sounds kind of clangy to me. I really like Kimber TCSS. Steve at Angela sells it, it's about $1/foot, high purity copper, 19 gauge, 7 strands of varying thickness, teflon, etc. Always sounds great, not overly bright or microphonic.

[billyz]

I can second the Kimber wire. Great stuff, Teflon but strips easily and really sounds good. Not microphonic.