toad,

Heh, I didn't mean to imply that I didn't believe you...only that it is a bizarre thing that I've never seen. Perhaps there was some other issue at work. It takes quite a bit of energy to get 18AWG zipwire to glow hot enough to melt the jacket.

I've been to a home where the owner had a pair of 1200 watt VTL tube monoblocks and his overpriced MIT Oracle speaker cable was on back-order. I arrived to hear the amps playing at extremely loud levels into some big Dunlavy speakers over light gauge Home Depot speaker cable. He'd been playing with them for hours and I was a bit concerned about the cable so I had him crank it up while I held my hand around a section of the cable. I couldn't detect any heat. But being the paranoid sort, I drove home and dug up some 10AWG cables I had in my "extra stuff" drawer. To be honest, neither of us could really hear a difference in the sound quality after the "upgrade." Go figure.

Cheers,

Cheers,