I know a lot of you have been looking forward to the day when the 600V Duelund DCA12GA tinned-copper tone wire becomes available so you can use it to make DIY power cords, and that day is now here! Woo hoo!
The new 600VDC Duelund DCA12GA tinned-copper tone wire!
Today a spool of 600V Duelund DCA12GA tinned-copper wire arrived from Frederik, and it should be available from Parts ConneXion (for those in North America), and from Hifi Collective (in the UK), in the very near future (I believed it has shipped to them already, but I didn't see it on their respective home pages when I checked a few minutes ago). To find the Duelund distributor for your particular country you can check HERE.
Frederik tells me that the pricing for the new 600V Duelund DCA12GA is still being finalized, but it should be in the range of about half that of the pricing for the regular DCA12GA, or around $10 USD per meter.
As soon as I find out the actual pricing for the new 600V Duelund DCA12GA I'll let you know.
Bottom to top: DCA26GA, DCA20GA, DCA16GA, and DCA12GA.
The 600V DCA12GA tinned-copper tone wire uses the same stranded tinned-copper tone wire conductors as the regular DCA12GA tinned-copper tone wire that I wrote about in my review for Positive Feedback in Issue 92, which utilizes 65 strands of 0.25mm diameter tinned-copper wires (top DCA wire in the photo above).
The Duelund 6.6mH CAST Sn-Cu Air Core Inductors utilize Duelund DCA12GA leads.
The difference between the new 600V Duelund DCA12GA Sn-Cu wire and the regular Duelund DCA Sn-Cu signal wire is the new PolyCAST dielectric that was developed to allow for the 600V rating.
Per the Parts Connexion description, PolyCAST is “… a unique thermoplastic resin composite, which emulates Duelund’s “Signature” CAST process”, which means it is similar to the deluxe CAST damping material that is used in the Duelund CAST capacitors, inductors, and resistor - the black material you see in the Duelund 6.6mH CAST Sn-Cu Air Core Inductors in the photo above.
That means you can now get that great DCA Sn-Cu tone in a 600V DC-rated line of DCA tinned-copper wires that you can be use as hookup wire in electronics where higher voltages are present, as in power supplies (i.e. using the 600V DCA20GA), and now with the 600V DCA12GA that you can use in your DIY power cords.
My first trial using the new 600V version of the DCA12GA will likely be comparing it to the original DCA12GA version that I use as speaker cables in my main system, which is currently hosting the Duelund-Altec Project loudspeakers, those grand ol' Stokowski Altec's.
Stokowski Altec's in my living / listening room.
That way I'll be able to give you a better idea how the new 600V DCA12GA compares to the DCA12GA signal wire musically and sonically.
Then at some future point I'll build up some DIY 600V DCA12GA power cords for my vintage McIntosh MC30 monaural amplifiers and report on that as well. Ditto for a power cord on my Fender Princeton Reverb guitar amp!
I think most of you know I love the tonal qualities that tinned-copper wiring so easily provides, and some of the gorgeous tone of my vintage McIntosh electronics was due to being wired up with tinned-copper wire internally, and if you read my last Duelund-Altec Project post, you know that vintage Altec's also used tinned-copper wiring internally in their crossovers and to connect to the drivers.
McIntosh and Altec likely used tinned-copper wire during manufacturing for the pragmatic reasons of its ultra-stable electrical performance characteristics and durability over the long term, which really helped them from a reliability standpoint in manufacturing electronics, yet in a bit of serendipity it turns out that tinned-copper also contributed in part of the gorgeous classic tone those two vintage marques are known for.
Ok, that's it for now. As always, thanks for stopping by, and may the tone be with you!
