Copper, Silver or other

I have been doing a little experimenting with my system lately and I would like your opinions or more specifically what material combo works best for you. I.e. do you use copper, silver, or other throughout your system (interconnects, speaker cables, jumper cables/plates), or do you mix them up? I have had the opportunity to mix and match quite a few cables/interconnects/jumpers and I have arrived at a combination that I really like. Copper interconnects, copper speaker cables, solid core silver jumpers. I am not looking for brand specific cables, just what material combination works for you and why.

Greg

 

Since cables and ICs make no difference whatsoever to the sound, I use the cheapest possible. In an aberration I once bought a good-quality silver IC, which was and is completely undistinguishable from a cheapie that came with a cassette recorder. So, the answer is copper of a reasonable (but not silly) thickness. Cables are best bought from your local hardware shop and ICs should be the cheapest possible consistent with reasonable quality (e.g., decent plugs).

(I would hate to spoil my image for my many fans :JOEL: )

 

Copper through and through for me. I've never heard a silver cable that I found to suit my tastes although YMMV.

If you are new to the forum, Tones does not hear any differences with cables, whereas some of us do. Cables can be both fun and nightmarish at the same time.

 

Tones is entitled to his opinion (or ears )
I prefer copper, i find silver can edge to the shrill sounding point.

 

Way to go Tones - have you been on the red meat again? I hope you outlive us all..

FWIW [and bear in mind, if 2 of Tone's gang post consecutively, it becomes a Zerogain 'takeover']

My interconnects - see Tones above, except where I have to make something eg 'TRS jack' to phono for my bass processor, then I cut any old lead in 1/2 to save soldering. When I have finished my house renovation I will be able to make some attenuated I/Cs and also a passive L+R mono send+return for the bass processor [only possible to do passively with the attenuation]
Speaker cable is 2.5mm solid core, cable tied every 1/3m and clipped along the wall. I think it's about 25m for £10
Yes, I can hear differences in cables in some setups [eg WM home system], but it doesn't motivate me to fart about with them - until I've cracked everything else

 

I wasn't actually aware that the Klingons were into hi-fi, but there you go. q'Pla!

I'm happy for you to hear (or think you hear) differences, NeYank (and these amount to the same thing) - I would never question anyone's sincerely-held belief system - just don't expect others to hear them too.

Does 30 years of hi-fi experience count as inexperience? Perhaps. My main set-up is all Linn, the second a mixture of good quality bits and pieces (LP12/Meridian 588/EAR/Quad/LS3/5A). Now I realise that, to the more affluent among us, these may indeed be mid-fi, but it's all I can afford, so there you go. I personally have never heard a speaker cable or an interconnect make any audible difference whatsoever, which is great because I can then spend on CDs the money that others throw away on cables and ICs.

 

NeYank
We have had these discussions in the past, somewhat heated aswell.
It is best left to the individual to say what they feel, without others jumping on their case

 

In Tones case, it is not. There are many people out there who think cables are pedaled by ex car salesmen and are all hokus pokus. There are others who swear by them. It is possible that both are right, given our limited understanding of the individual's interpretation of sound and ear/brain interface.

When Tone posts his opinion, I think it would be healthy to counter it with your own differing experiences rather than suggesting he is wrong in his assertions. If he then challenges yours, then of course it's open season

 

You might well be right anbout the discernment, but one has to cope with one's shortcomings or surfeit of imagination. The hearing itself is excellent (has been tested), apart from the natural and normal drop in high frequency perception with advancing years.

I might indeed be in the minority, but that doesn't make you right and me wrong, it merely makes us different. And, as these things are completely subjective (sound only exists in our heads), they are perceived differently by different people, each of us makes our own reality, and one reality is as valid as another. I wrote what I did with tongue slightly in cheek, because I'm known on this forum as one of the forum's more notorious sceptics, and the locals would be amazed if I'd said otherwise. It is merely my opinion and I'm happy for others to believe differently. So should you.

 

Er, I don't have Quad speakers, sir, I have Rogers LS3/5As, augmented (I forgot to mention) by a Linn Sizmik. Makes a wonderful noise.

 

Only to you and some others, ol' spud, not to me and some others. Anyway, it is not my desire to start a war over it and it's getting away from the question originally posed, so I shall henceforth bow out of this thread gracefully (ungracefully? disgracefully?)

 

NeYank - For the sake of forum harmony, try using the search function to read through some of the MANY old cable debates, a few of which got rather heated not so long ago. Continuing to debate this here will get you precisely nowhere I'm afraid...

 

All my cables are JPS labs and the signal cables are Aluminium/Copper offer (to me ) the best of both copper and silver without the disadvantages of either.

 

Seconded. Some of the previous cable wars nearly destroyed the forum. We don't want another one.

Michael.

 

Greg,

It is customery and polite on Z/G to include your business credentials in your signiture cheers Tone

 

hmmm well I used to think like Tones, lamblasting every tweakery. I still think audiophile candy is for saddos, and a sucker is born every minute.
But I have heard a difference thro' mains, and interconnects do slightly alter the character of the sound.
My big moment of truth came when I built a silver cable myself, and found I preferred a cheapo copper.
I really pity someone who is taken in by the £800 cable, by and large it is a rip IMO, surrounded by clever marketing, unless they can give adequate reasons for r and d costs, and expertise. A lot is just spouting bull, with no r/d. It will improve sound due to its design? how, why, evidence, comparisons? Most of it is just repacked cheapo stuff. that is the crime of the great hifi lie. There are a few who defy this.
Its all the hype and expectation, that causes disappointment. If nothing was hyped, we wouldn't be like this. You can pay 1000s for silver, and its meant to be the be and end all. When you find something for £2 sounds better, you begin to wonder what you are paying for.
Why does it matter if you put on a sliver cable, well its for conductivity, yes but the signal has just been through a load of resistors in my amp. What good is a bit of silver going to do on top of that?

Trouble is, they will have you believe its your system, your ears, your room, or something is wrong with you. Then ask you to spend more and more on your components, caus you can't hear it.

Put it this way, how would you like it if you saved up years for say a £20k s/h ongaku full of silver, and found a diy set 211 valve for £1k sounded as good?
You would see the silver hype and be aghast.
As Peter Walker said, 'any old bit of wire will do'.
Are you going to put stuff in every pcb, rewire all the internals, connections, sockets, plugs, wires, in your transport, dac, pre amp, monoblock powers, and speakers?
its ok in simple valve stuff. your tranny amp stuff is just thin copper tracks. What is the point of putting a serious i/c when its going thro 1mm of thin copper?
I am not against it, just a sceptic, just ask 'why? how? research? if they spout claims and can't or won't give some reports, avoid like the plague.
One of my most hateds is a company that produces claims, and then refuses to give info on why.
that is like saying 'buy my stuff, its the best, blah blah blah', most other companies would give some kind of backup without giving away secrets, the consumer is looking for reasons, its almost godlike to say, its the best, but I am not telling you why or how we did it. Then why should I believe or trust, or spend my £800? I think some of these people need to realise how aloof they really are.

p.s. I sometimes use a paper clip for biwire jumpers.
I said that in a posh shop in watford, and got looked down on as if I was browsing chateau d'yquem, or petrus, with a bottle of £2 lambrusco in my hand

 

I didnt worry with the material of my cables when I choose them, in the end I have silver plated copper PCs, speaker cable and component video, but copper ICs, digital and analog...

 

As long as its of reasonable guage, about 0.5m long and has decent construction that will do for me.

My experience in terms of differences is purely from upgrading from bell-wire to 2 core cooker cable. There was a positive improvement but subsequent cables of better quality etc. have not provided such a noticable leap on.

Reasonable thickness, keep it short, decent construction.

 

I use copper speaker cables, because Maplins sell Shark copper cable at decent lengths for very little money.

The ICs are a mixture of brands, mostly freebies I managed to get out of dealers when buying something. I have no idea what any of them are made of, but the yellow VDH ones look the nicest, so I have those on the TT and CD player.

-- Ian

 

I have copper interconnects for the DAC and tuner (QED Qunex 2 is copper, and I'm presuming the VDH C5 is as well), a silver plated copper co-axial lead to the DAC from the cd player, and my speaker cable is weird - silver and carbon (VDHs 'Linear structured carbon', what exactly it is passes me by, but its a black conducting layer around the silver core).

Seems fine to me, though I haven't the money to try a vast range of cables to see what works best - I'm still in a state of near shock after convincing myself to spend £80 on airlock plugs mind you :shame:. When my sister fould the invoice she practically fell off the sofa....note to self: hide it next time and state it cost at least half of what it really did