In-wall cable question

[b345t]

I've been thinking of upgrading the in-wall cable I am running to my system. I read a lot of people use about Oyaide. Are they mainly talking about the Oyaide EE F-S 2.0 V2? What about Furutech bulk cable like the FP-S55N or DPS 4.1 ? Are they not well suited for in-wall applications? Cheers

 

[Kingrex]

Non of those cable are legal. If you have a fire, you might not have insurance coverage.

I was taught by some well know power conditioner/cable designers that cable has a grain from production. You can hear the grain. Others have verified this is true and those people orient their wire spools before making their cables. I built a tool to test this and can hear it too. Its fairly obvious, but I still perform multiple blind test over a weeks time to verify I have the orientation correct.

I use THHN/THWN Southwire/Cero wire. Slow drawn 10 AWG solid wire made in the USA. I listen to the grain and orient all my wire spools the same direction. I then built another tool and twist the wire. It is 100% NEC/UL legal to be pulled in ENT, PVC or Steel. ENT is very fast to install and pull through.

I sell the wire for $5 a foot.

I have Oyaide 10 gauge wire in my system. It took me 4 days of concentrated listening to hear the difference between Oyaide and twisted 10. That was before I was grain orienting. Oyaide is about $65 a foot. Its nice wire but the shield drain is too small so it will never pass UL. The drain may not reliably pass a fault. It might burn away. And it would have to be bonded on both ends. Thats a parallel ground path and all the shiled noise is in the signal path.

I am in the process of trying to grain orient stranded. I had to modify my tool to do this. Mostly to handle large gauges (Feeder Wire). Oddly I found I had to remove the tin coating from the new bus bar I was using to more clearly distinguish what I was hearing. This somewhat validated a belief I have in just copper. No plating. This is causing me to make some minor modifications to the panels I modify.

You don't need expensive esoteric wire for behind the wall. Slow drawn, grain oriented, twisted wire is as good as it gets. Some here will tell you you don't need crazy expensive power cords either. But that is another can of worms.
Rex

 

[joaovieira]

I've been thinking of upgrading the in-wall cable I am running to my system. I read a lot of people use about Oyaide. Are they mainly talking about the Oyaide EE F-S 2.0 V2? What about Furutech bulk cable like the FP-S55N or DPS 4.1 ? Are they not well suited for in-wall applications? Cheers

I use Furutech FP-S55N. It is very good combined with NCF outlets. I run 2 cables each one with a different phase to my room.
I highly recommend.

 

[MarkusBarkus]

...it probably does sound good, but it's power cable stock... that is, for making power cables for component terminations, based on their info sheet.

So, that would be analogous to taking an extension cord and running it from your panel, through your joists, walls, etc. and to an outlet. Sure, it's an excellent extension cord, but it's not rated for use in wall, as far as I can see.

Many things *can* be done, and if nothing goes wrong, it seems like a good idea. But, wow if something does go wrong...

 

[joaovieira]

I run the cables all outside the house, under the garden.
They just penetrate the wall and connect to the outlets of my listening room.
So the cables are not in-wall

 

[b345t]

Interesting, so it is in the shielding that the safety issue comes into play?

 

[bazelio]

Non of those cable are legal. If you have a fire, you might not have insurance coverage.

I was taught by some well know power conditioner/cable designers that cable has a grain from production. You can hear the grain. Others have verified this is true and those people orient their wire spools before making their cables. I built a tool to test this and can hear it too. Its fairly obvious, but I still perform multiple blind test over a weeks time to verify I have the orientation correct.

I use THHN/THWN Southwire/Cero wire. Slow drawn 10 AWG solid wire made in the USA. I listen to the grain and orient all my wire spools the same direction. I then built another tool and twist the wire. It is 100% NEC/UL legal to be pulled in ENT, PVC or Steel. ENT is very fast to install and pull through.

I sell the wire for $5 a foot.

I have Oyaide 10 gauge wire in my system. It took me 4 days of concentrated listening to hear the difference between Oyaide and twisted 10. That was before I was grain orienting. Oyaide is about $65 a foot. Its nice wire but the shield drain is too small so it will never pass UL. The drain may not reliably pass a fault. It might burn away. And it would have to be bonded on both ends. Thats a parallel ground path and all the shiled noise is in the signal path.

I am in the process of trying to grain orient stranded. I had to modify my tool to do this. Mostly to handle large gauges (Feeder Wire). Oddly I found I had to remove the tin coating from the new bus bar I was using to more clearly distinguish what I was hearing. This somewhat validated a belief I have in just copper. No plating. This is causing me to make some minor modifications to the panels I modify.

You don't need expensive esoteric wire for behind the wall. Slow drawn, grain oriented, twisted wire is as good as it gets. Some here will tell you you don't need crazy expensive power cords either. But that is another can of worms.
Rex

I recently rewired the electrical to one of my systems. Going back and double checking, it was in fact Southwire brand THHN that I used as well. Mine came pretwisted and I didn't pay attention to grain. But whatever the case may be there, thumbs up from me!

 

[Kingrex]

Interesting, so it is in the shielding that the safety issue comes into play?

A shield for a 20A circuit would have to be #12. The copper foil might be large enough. The drain wire that is what you terminate on the ground is probably a 14 or smaller with Oyaide.
I looked long and hard into could I make a shield over my wire for pulling into a pipe. I have used mylar and silver wire as the drain on cords in my house. They work very well. But no inspector would ever accept it in the field. I then looked a copper braid. I could actually get away with that. But trusted engineer I consulted with started delving into what frequencies braid works at and where it does not. And other potential issues. If noise is that much of an issue, steel pipe can always be used. But now your looking at around $45 to $65 a foot in installation cost.


There is also the insulation to consider. The NEC is very strict about what is acceptable. Have you ever seen an audiophile power cord with a UL stamp on it. There are compliance agencies that spell out how many strands a cord can have and of what size. Most audiophile cords do not fit into the formula. Its a small enough market no one is looking to enforce it. Technically, most all companies could be told to cease and desist.

 

[Kingrex]

I run the cables all outside the house, under the garden.
They just penetrate the wall and connect to the outlets of my listening room.
So the cables are not in-wall

Flexible cords and flexible cables
400.12 Uses Not Permitted
(1) as a substitute for the fixed wiring of a structure.
(2) Where run through holes in walls, ceilings, or floors

I use to use cord in my system. It was Cullen OFC Cord. I ran it directly into a power strip. No receptacle at the wall. Just up and out of a hole and into the strip. Pretty illegal. This was years ago when I started trying to figure out how best to power a stereo system. I figured the power cords from the power strip to equipment were the disconnect if an issue occurred. It worked really well. Better than plugged into a wall outlet fed by 12 AWG Romex. This is when I discovered, every time you have a termination, you introduce dissimilar metals as well as noise and additionally block RF from being drained from the system. And vibration control is critical. Any old box in the wall will not do.

A friend then got a pile of Furutech #10 cord and he powered his system the same way. It also worked very well. We then installed #4 NM-B to a new subpanel at his house. From the subpanel, Oyaide direct wired from the panel and out to the gear with a Bochino on the end. That was pretty amazing. Again, not legal. But way better than most any $3000 power cord to a receptacle in the wall in his system.

Since his cord was out of the system, we took it to another project where I installed a new subpanel and new branches circuits to the room. We wanted to play around so we took the Furutech cord and direct wired it to the panel, put a nice Furutech end on it and plugged it into the customers amp. Something was not so good. A bit flat. We unplugged it and put an AQ Hurricane cord into an AQ outlet that was fed by one of the new branch circuit, then plugged that into the amp. Holly crap that kicked the crap out of the Furutech. It was one of the most dramatic difference I have ever heard.

At that point I was moving away from stranded wire to solid.

Its highly unlikely you will have fire. But the installation is not to code and highly irregular. And I really think you will get better performance removing the cord and going with twisted #10 THHN. Of course, that is only the tip of the power supply. Its the visible part of upgrading power performance. There is a lot of hidden work in panels and grounding as well as vibration dampening that influence electron flow and harmonic/RF disturbances as much or more than upsizing wire and using dedicated circuits.

 

[b345t]

Flexible cords and flexible cables
400.12 Uses Not Permitted
(1) as a substitute for the fixed wiring of a structure.
(2) Where run through holes in walls, ceilings, or floors

I use to use cord in my system. It was Cullen OFC Cord. I ran it directly into a power strip. No receptacle at the wall. Just up and out of a hole and into the strip. Pretty illegal. This was years ago when I started trying to figure out how best to power a stereo system. I figured the power cords from the power strip to equipment were the disconnect if an issue occurred. It worked really well. Better than plugged into a wall outlet fed by 12 AWG Romex. This is when I discovered, every time you have a termination, you introduce dissimilar metals as well as noise and additionally block RF from being drained from the system. And vibration control is critical. Any old box in the wall will not do.

A friend then got a pile of Furutech #10 cord and he powered his system the same way. It also worked very well. We then installed #4 NM-B to a new subpanel at his house. From the subpanel, Oyaide direct wired from the panel and out to the gear with a Bochino on the end. That was pretty amazing. Again, not legal. But way better than most any $3000 power cord to a receptacle in the wall in his system.

Since his cord was out of the system, we took it to another project where I installed a new subpanel and new branches circuits to the room. We wanted to play around so we took the Furutech cord and direct wired it to the panel, put a nice Furutech end on it and plugged it into the customers amp. Something was not so good. A bit flat. We unplugged it and put an AQ Hurricane cord into an AQ outlet that was fed by one of the new branch circuit, then plugged that into the amp. Holly crap that kicked the crap out of the Furutech. It was one of the most dramatic difference I have ever heard.

At that point I was moving away from stranded wire to solid.

Its highly unlikely you will have fire. But the installation is not to code and highly irregular. And I really think you will get better performance removing the cord and going with twisted #10 THHN. Of course, that is only the tip of the power supply. Its the visible part of upgrading power performance. There is a lot of hidden work in panels and grounding as well as vibration dampening that influence electron flow and harmonic/RF disturbances as much or more than upsizing wire and using dedicated circuits.

Really appreciate the detail and sharing your experience on this subject.

 

[henrich3]

I've been thinking of upgrading the in-wall cable I am running to my system.

This works well for me -
https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=2817

http://www.roger-russell.com/wire/wire.htm

I'll go crawl back under my rock now before someone hurts me...

~ W

 

[Cellcbern]

I've been thinking of upgrading the in-wall cable I am running to my system. I read a lot of people use about Oyaide. Are they mainly talking about the Oyaide EE F-S 2.0 V2? What about Furutech bulk cable like the FP-S55N or DPS 4.1 ? Are they not well suited for in-wall applications? Cheers

I used the JPS Labs In-Wall Wiring for my dedicated line. It is UL certified:

JPS Labs Power AC IN-Wall Cable

JPS Labs created the first high performance bulk power cable designed to be installed from your mains breaker panel to the outlets in your room, or from outlet to outlet. Sold by the foot, Power AC In-Wall has been the choice of audiophiles for nearly 20 years to improve clarity and reduce...

jpslabs.com

 

[Bruce B]

I used the JPS Labs In-Wall Wiring for my dedicated line. It is UL certified:

JPS Labs Power AC IN-Wall Cable

JPS Labs created the first high performance bulk power cable designed to be installed from your mains breaker panel to the outlets in your room, or from outlet to outlet. Sold by the foot, Power AC In-Wall has been the choice of audiophiles for nearly 20 years to improve clarity and reduce...

jpslabs.com

I did as well.... used about 1000' of it. Connected to the receptacles using gold spades coming from an Equi=tech wall panel. I'd do it all over again...

 

[Ron Resnick]

I used JPS in-wall, but I wish I had just used plain large gauge copper wire.

 

[BlueFox]

When I had my three 20 amp lines installed I asked that they be 10 gauge lines. The electrician installed solid gauge wire from whatever wire they used. Anyway, they sound great and I haven’t had any issue with them.

 

[mtemur]

I use 25mt of solid core OYAIDE EE / F-S2.6 V2 Power cable 102 SSC copper FEP shielded 3x5.3mm². It runs from meter to back of my audio system. A little pricey but very smooth and silky sounding cable with good dynamics.

 

[1_Ongaku]

Analysis Plus used to have an in-wall but have not checked if they still do. I ran that and Romex to compare the two of them side by side. AP was stranded and provided less hardness to sound. To me, the choice between these two are a choice of taste and the system... like everything else is in this hobby.

 

[nirodha]

I used JPS in-wall, but I wish I had just used plain large gauge copper wire.

Why, Ron?

 

[rayms]

Yes, I want

Why, Ron?

I want to know too? At $40 a foot, I guess you can get a better upgrade in another part of your system, unless your electrical panel is close to your system?

 

[Ron Resnick]

Because I didn't hear that JPS in-wall sounds better than plain copper, I simply assumed it sounds better.

Also I assumed that the JPS cable was some high purity copper cable. I didn't know it was some mystery aluminum alloy. Aluminum in an inferior conductor of electricity compared to copper.

I barely research the JPS because I thought it was a standard upgrade recommended by electricians. If I had known it was some mystery aluminum alloy I wouldn't have gone near it.