Copper Bottomed

The stuff of our lives is all conducted through Copper wires, be it a signal or a muscular lump of current. A very few use pure silver but that’s madly expensive. Mind you, so is Copper metal these days. I might be a bit behind the times in finding out about this quality issue but here is an article sent out by Autoleads recently about the price of Copper and what it’s doing to our cables&;.
Copper, once the low cost metal of choice for electrical conductivity, has now become one of the world’s most traded commodities. With prices rising an incredible 200% at its peak, (faster than the value of gold has risen in the same period) it is now affecting all companies who trade in products containing Copper.
Take for example, the car audio market. For years now the humble amplifier wiring kit has been taken for granted as a means of powering car amplifiers fitted to vehicles.
What has been the effect of rising Copper prices on this market? Well, before we do that lets examine the composition of the wiring kit and the expectations we have from them.
Like most wiring solutions, Copper is the chosen conductor for carrying an electrical supply from the originator source (in this case the car battery) to the sink of the electricity, the amplifier. Having the correct cable to do this however, is more complicated than most people think. Unlike home wiring which is often run in a straight line and plastered over to conceal, Car amp kit wiring has more obstacles to overcome.
Due to the contours of the vehicle the Power cable has to be flexible to run along the chassis. This can mean 90 degree turns in quick succession. To enable the cable to do this it has to be flexible. The composition of the Copper in the cable is a key factor in the flexibility of the cable. The thinner the individual strands the more flexible the cable.

To create the strands Copper is drawn from a solid block. During this process a complicated heating and cooling process is applied (if required) to create Oxygen Free Cable (OFC). This process removes most of the oxygen content from the Copper. This adds to the strength and purity of the finished cable which again results in greater flexibility and better conductivity. The same process can be applied to speaker cable which also improves the speaker sound reproduction. The Non OFC process does not remove the excess oxygen and therefore reduces the performance but also makes the cable less flexible. This process is much cheaper than the OFC method. The result is the cable size is thicker, less flexible and less effective.
The next key factor in the performance of the Amp kit is of course the amount of Copper required. Amplifiers’ outputs are always rated in Watts. But the key factor to the cable being able to ‘run’ an amplifier is the cable’s ability to handle the amperage. Having too thin a cable to run the amp will result in under performance and could even lead to the cable overheating and causing a fire in the vehicle.
As power cables are run from the battery, often to the boot of a car, they can be in excess of five metres long. This too adds to the complexity of choosing the correct cable to run the amplifier adequately. Again, too little Copper in a long stretch of cable will result in poor sound reproduction and may lead to a fire. To ensure that the correct amperage kit is used there is a simple equation which will work out the correct amperage. Total wattage divided by the voltage equals the amperage. So a 360 watt amplifier would need at minimum a 30 amp kit (360/12=30) In choosing the kit it is also advantageous to take into account ‘Efficiency’
Every electrical product whether it be cable, speaker or the amplifier itself will have an efficiency factor. This all depends on the quality of components and the build quality. For example a less expensive 360 watt amplifier could have a less efficient rating than an expensive 360 watt amplifier. Let’s say that an amplifier has a 60% efficiency factor. That means out of the 100% of power that is delivered to the amp only 60% is used and the other 40% is wasted through heat. Let’s say the cable has an 80% efficiency rating over the 5 metre length. You get the picture; to ensure the amp runs at the most efficient rating you need to deliver as much power as you can. This obviously means more Copper. But as we said at the start of this material, the price of Copper has increased.
This has led to a dilemma with amp kit manufacturers. Do we increase the price to reflect the Copper price rise over the last year? Or as some manufacturers have done, do we reduce the amount of Copper to keep the cost down?
And that is exactly what some manufacturers have done. To keep ‘competitive’ prices they have reduced the amount of Copper in the amp kits. They have done this in a number of ways. Lets examine two of them.
Reduction of Copper.
Some manufacturers have dramatically reduced the amount of Copper in their kits subversively. They have reduced the Copper content. At the same time they have increased the amount of plastic insulation, giving the illusion of the cable being the same thickness. As we said earlier this has many ramifications such as poor sound quality and possible fire risk. Doing this has enabled them to keep the price stable.
C.C.A.
To give the impression of a high Copper content without increasing prices some manufacturers have added other metals to the Copper giving the illusion of a high Copper content.
CCA or Copper Coated Aluminium is being used as a substitute to Copper in many kits. Aluminium strands painted in a Copper colour is added to Copper strands to bulk out the cable. This dramatically reduces the price of the cable as Aluminium is around 30% of the cost of Copper.

Whilst the size of the cable is maintained, the efficiency and safety is greatly affected. Aluminium is a poor conductor of electricity and easily gets hot under load. The results are just as dramatic as the reduction of Copper with poor sound quality and a higher chance of a fire starting in the vehicle.
At Autoleads we value the quality of sound and the value of life. Therefore we have maintained the 100% Copper content across the entire range of amplifier wiring kits as well as installation cables. This ensures better sound reproduction when installing car amplifiers and virtually eliminates the risk of fire. But of course…quality comes with a price
All of which got me thinking – I can’t do metallurgy testing on the wires but I can have a look at some kits, so we have ordered a bunch in and will be weighing and measuring them as well as assessing them as to fitness and completeness for purpose.