Aluminum wire is used mostly in large guages into the main panel or a subpanel. You need to use a grease on it as well. Aluminum was used for a time during the 1960's wiring entire houses, copper was scarce because of the Vietnam war. I used to own a house built in 1967 wired entirely with aluminum wire.
Dedicated 20 amp circuit - Electrician laughed!
I brought my electrician out to my house today to show him where I would like to install a dedicated 20a circuit for my system. He laughed and said that's the stupidest thing he's heard and laughs when people talk about it. It said, if you're going to do it, you have to have it separately grounded (shoving a new 8 foot rod into the ground) but even then, he sees no way there can be an audible improvement.
Now, he's not just an electrician though. He rebuilds tube amps on the side and tears apart amps and such all the time so he's quite well versed in audio electronics and how they operate.
He basically said anyone who thinks they hear a difference is fooling themselves.
Personally, I'm still not sure, I'm no engineer, my room's not perfect, and I can't spend hours on end critical listening... But, he does kinda pull me farther to the "snake oil" side and the "suggestive hearing" side (aka, you hear an improvement because you want to hear it).
I'm not taking a side here but I thought it was interesting how definitive he was that this not only WILL not make a difference but ALMOST CANNOT make a difference.
Now, he's not just an electrician though. He rebuilds tube amps on the side and tears apart amps and such all the time so he's quite well versed in audio electronics and how they operate.
He basically said anyone who thinks they hear a difference is fooling themselves.
Personally, I'm still not sure, I'm no engineer, my room's not perfect, and I can't spend hours on end critical listening... But, he does kinda pull me farther to the "snake oil" side and the "suggestive hearing" side (aka, you hear an improvement because you want to hear it).
I'm not taking a side here but I thought it was interesting how definitive he was that this not only WILL not make a difference but ALMOST CANNOT make a difference.
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Don't get me wrong, I completely believe that Audio components should not be in a circuit that is shared by appliances. I also believe high current amps usually work best plugged directly into a wall receptacle and on a dedicated circuit, or at least one shared by only a few low current devices. Follow your manufactures recommendations, but generally (unless you have old or bad and not up to code wiring) you do not need to re-wire your house to find a clean circuit/circuits to run your audio gear...Jim |
Back in the old days (I can say that now) in the early 50s, our family home was wired with old stranded aluminum, textile insulated wires; one hot and one neutral with no ground. They all ran under the house from joist to joist through glass insulators. Every time we ran the toaster and about anything else, it would blow one of the old screw in fuses and dad would have to go to the basement with a flash light and screw in a new fuse. Sometime around the mid 60s I helped my father and uncle re-wire the whole house and put in a 30A, 220V (back then actually was 220V) circuit for mom's new dryer - Thank God and science for Romex....Jim |
That sounds like old knob and tube wiring. Is this what it looked like? https://www.google.com/search?source=univ&tbm=isch&q=knob+and+tube+wiring&sa=X&ved=2... If it was knob and tube the wire was more than likely tinned hard drawn solid copper wire. Jim . |
@jea48 Yep, that was exactly it :-) Not sure when the original house was built, but it was very old when we moved in when, I was a young child, in early 50s. I believe you're right, it does seem that that old wiring was copper and the wire we replaced it with back in the 60s, was insulated copper plated alum. in a jacket, a bit like the modern Romex....Jim |
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