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Wire mod [message #9990] Sun, 19 August 2007 06:01 Go to next message
Bill Epstein is currently offline  Bill Epstein
Messages: 1088
Registered: May 2009
Location: Smoky Mts. USA
Illuminati (2nd Degree)
Colinhester sent me home with his Yamamoto 45 amp after a recent visit. It was the inspiration for talking Steve Brown into building the Simple 45 with me and I had always wanted to hear it against the Simple.

The Yamamoto really is magical sounding. With the same output tubes in both, I was gratified to hear that the Simple with it's significant modifications by Steve outperformed it in terms of separation between the instruments and voices and a greater sense of the venue on live performances.

Where the Yamamoto kills the Simple is in the upper octaves. The simple, in comparison, is overly dry and a little etched. Thinking that perhaps it could be the silver hook-up wire we used, I decided to try changing it for copper. I had a bit of XLO teflon-insulated pure copper in 26ga. I bought from Michael Percy several years ago.

I only replaced the output wires to and from the choke and output transformers. The change is all for the good. Now Steve Brown's version of the Simple has some of the the sweetness of the Yamamoto without losing the sense of air and detail.

Perhaps any good copper wire would yield the same result but this XLO at 65 cents/ft. is marvelous. It will be much easier to return the Yamamoto to Colin, knowing that the Simple 45, altho' different, is in the same league.

Re: Wire mod [message #9991 is a reply to message #9990] Mon, 20 August 2007 11:56 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Wayne Parham is currently offline  Wayne Parham
Messages: 18670
Registered: January 2001
Illuminati (33rd Degree)

Very interesting. That's the thing with the Audio Note gear. They use copper in some models and silver in others. They even use silver wiring for transformer windings in some. But you liked the copper wire better. I'd like to hear the two A/B'ed. Good stuff.


Re: Wire mod [message #9992 is a reply to message #9990] Thu, 30 August 2007 10:23 Go to previous messageGo to next message
SteveBrown is currently offline  SteveBrown
Messages: 330
Registered: May 2009
Grand Master
Bill, good write up. Now if I just had my amp here with me in Tulsa, I could play with it and see if I notice the same difference. From past experiences w/Gary Pimm and listening to his work, the conclusion was that the insulation made as much difference as the conductor. He used cotton (clean, white, untreated, unwaxed) on interconnects and tried to use just enamled copper in the chassis with outstanding results. Just cheep Radio Shack stuff, IIRC. Now as I mentioned, I do have a limited supply of some old enamled copper wire circa 1930 that could be tried, but I may save that for my future boutique parts business. Let's see, $17.50/ft? hmm..


Re: Wire mod [message #10000 is a reply to message #9991] Tue, 02 October 2007 10:23 Go to previous message
Crystal is currently offline  Crystal
Messages: 110
Registered: May 2009
Viscount
I actually like the silver wiring. It to me just collabs better. But I'm use to the first starter of things, it's hard to break old habits.

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