Designer in wall wiring - worth it?

@jea48 Wrote:

 Only the length of wiring from the secondary of the isolation power transformer feeding your audio equipment should be considered. Forget the miles and miles, (Maybe thousands of miles), of wire before the transformer that feeds your house,  as far as, AC noise in the wire is concerned. 

I agree! In my opinion, the service entrance cable from the utility pole to the house electrical service entrance panel should be copper (not aluminum), preferably buried underground if possible. 😎

Problem is, at least Mid-American Energy Power Company, supplier of electrical power in my area, will not install copper or hook up to it. Must be aluminum only, as spelled out in their residential section of their hand book.

Copper is a better conductor than aluminum. Copper’s available fault current will be higher than aluminum wire. Less Line impedance... Therein a fault current event is more likely to blow their utility power transformer up if copper was used. The power company would rather like the aluminum wire to burn free at a termination, breaking the fault circuit or give the High Line Fuse time to blow, killing their power transformer...

FYI, Fault current can be in the 10s of thousands of amps before the High Line fuse blows, or the low voltage secondary aluminum wire blows fee at a termination, breaking the fault circuit.

You can install copper from the load side of the meter socket to your main service equipment panel. Any where else in your home.

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Copper is a better conductor than aluminum. Copper’s available fault current will be higher than aluminum wire. Less Line impedance... Therein a fault current event is more likely to blow their utility power transformer up if copper was used. The power company would rather like the aluminum wire to burn free at a termination, breaking the fault circuit or give the High Line Fuse time to blow, killing their power transformer...

@jea48 and I thought they just did that these days because aluminum is cheaper than copper. Thanks for the explanation. 

Well aluminum is cheaper than copper. And it weighs a lot less. 

 @erik_squires  While I don’t get on this forum often, I generally respect what you have to say. Your comments here about specialty in-wall cables are disappointing. The Audience Hidden Treasure In-Wall cable has a lot more technology embedded in it than simply being a shielded cable. There is more information about it in the review, should you care to read it, and on the manufacturer’s website.

Even more germane is the suggestion, often echoed on this forum, that you speak truth from personal experience. I encourage you to try it. I have found that the installation of a Romex dedicated line was very worthwhile, and the subsequent installation of the Audience Hidden Treasure greatly improved upon the Romex. With proper installation, the risk of using this cable is far less than driving a car to work.

To address the OP, for a 15' run, or even two 15' runs, the cost of the cable will likely be a very small percentage of the overall cost of your system.