[Review] Copper or silver cables-which ones?

I feel a double blind test coming on... oh but of course they dont work on cables right? ;-)

 

Actualy it was used for the critical control wiring of the main console.7 of 9's was used and it is very expensive and soft with a teflon wrap over double shield of silver foil and braid.
Zanish you sell silver cables don't you what a supprise!I'll even buy a pair to see what you mean but copper bloated c'monyour no fool but we have conducted many comparisons of copper and silver and they both exhibit tell tale characteristics
Arrange to send me your best silver IC after broken in I'll bring it one of our audio Syndrome meetings for our members opinion.
You up for the challenge.Sorta like the Ryder Cup of IC's.Thank god its not golf cause you guys kicked our butt last time out.
rollo


P.S. forgot the most important thing cables act as tone controls and all cabling is SYSTEM DEPENDENT that being said its very very subjective I really don't one is better than the other just more synergenic with your system.Your system may need silver to sound its best.Maybe you needed more clarity or just wanted more detail.Whatever the case its fun

 

Some interesting info on differences (or lack thereof) made by changing materials:

http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~jcgl/Scots_Guide/audio/skineffect/page4.html

Few folk are more knowledgeable in the field than the writer, Dr. Jim LeSurf, a former lecturer at St. Andrews and keen hi-fi enthusiast. His conclusions would appear to bear out that the differences obtained by swapping silver for copper are negligible.

The whole site is very interesting and worth reading.

 

All this site confirms is that we are not yet sufficiently advanced in our understanding of the physics of the transmission of audio signals in cables to know how to measure the differences that our ears can clearly hear.

 

I'd say differences that you believe you can clearly hear, but I guess we'll beg to differ on that one!

 

Either that or they dont exist. Even if we dont understand the physics, then if the effect exists we can measure peoples subjective listening experiences to determine wether the perception is real or not. Even cable effects are amenable to scientific investigation - they have no special status if they are real.

 

The reason I suspect silver/PTFE wiring was specified for the space shuttle wiring (if indeed it was) would be for reasons of greater resistance to chemical attack. If some gloop leaks over yer wires while in earth orbit you might be in trouble.

The rest is ice cream logic*. Just because it's wiring used on the space shuttle doesn't mean it's going to be any better than any other audio cable. Although it undoubtedly sounds good in the marketing: Developed by NASA!

On the contrary. I find it difficult to think if there were an effect attributable to metallurgy alone on AC signal transmission that said effect would have not long since been noted and exploited. There are after all far more critical applications than getting the latest Eminem album down a speaker cable.


*Just because ice creams are sold on the beach, and sharks attack people swimming near the beach, doesn't mean ice creams cause shark attacks.

 

Please let me clarify that I was given the NASA grade wire by an engineer who worked for Sperry at the time.He made me a 5 MTR. pair.The stealth silver ribbons, have no clue to the conductors make up other than its silver.
The engineer told me the best part of the design was that the cable maintained a constant imped. of 80 ohms no matter the length, he felt it would be suitable for the audio signal.
I just can believe you don't find silver thin or dry and copper bright, in my experience its the complete opposite.Are you shure it wasn't silver over copper.
I will admit silver has more detail,clarityand transparency but NOT body and soul.
C'mon you copper guys I need some support here.I'm not saying mine is better than yours just that silver does NOT have the weight or bass as copper and the main part of my thread is that they have different strengths and weaknesses.
rollo
P.S. I have 3 spools of 10 ga silver over copper stranded wire in a concentric wind also used in the NASA SHUTTLE.It was used for power wiring in the cockpit for the control panels.If anyone would like some to try a DIY power cord FREE email me and w'll talk I I'M NOT A DEALER.

 

mosfet is right .....

most aerospace cable ie silver plated copper in ptfe sounds bright and harsh [IMO and my system]

there are specific reasons why this is used ..the silver is to stop leaching at contact points, ptfe is that it very good insulator and tolerant of hi temps and chemically very inert.

I do not sell cables .......in a commercial sense, if asked I will build a cable. The cost covers the materials and time but not a profit margin ...each is bespoke and often tailored to the individual system. For me this is purely a hobby .....I will offer advice for free and even let people build my cable designs for free.......hardly the actions of someone with a vested interest in converting people in using exotic cables.

I just like what silver does .....it doesn't even have to have a theortical high purity you can get 80% of the performance from even 99.8% ....which is head and shoulders above all but the most exotic coppers. 50% of the performance is to do with topologies and materials used ...so even the very best condutors can be made to sound ordinary if you have a bad design.

So if your making a cable use air as your dielectric and the best conductors you can get hold of....if you create a twisted pair in 95% of systems you don't even need to use a shield [which imo screws the sound any way] finally the plugs will make about 10% difference I try to use low mass plugs as these seem to affect the sound least.

What you need to remember is that all ic act as filters and blocks to the transmission of your signal .....so your cable should take away as little of the precious signal. The best ic is no ic ...but even the signal traveling throught the pcb of your cdp is being screwed by the copper tracks.....I recently moded two aa5 cdps one had the dac pcb point to point wired with silver ....with only the dac curcuit modded this unit was nearly on a par with the fully moded one....which had upgade psu and exotc supply caps.

Don't take my word for it get out there and try it for yourself.




IMO don't use silver plated copper as an IC. if you don't belive me just build an identical pair one using copper and the other silverplaited copper ..... mind you if your unable to tell the difference then the whole debate can be ignored. Thats not to say it doesn't exist it just means that for what ever reason you can hear it!

 

If there was an effect it would have been noticed elsewhere in physics. It has not. Double blind tests also fail to show any statistically significant perceptive effect.

 

This is correct, at least so far as PTFE is concerned. Because of the tiny size of the fluorine atom, it packs very well around the central carbon chain, giving fluoroarbons their characteristic chemical stability and inertness - they don't react with anything and nothing much reacts with them. As a result, the stuff is very durable.

I really wonder about the silver. It is a better conductor than copper, but only just, and it is also prone to attack (the characteristic tarnish of the sulphide, although this doesn't affect its electrical properties to any significant degree), and of course a lot more expensive.

This point is made very well by Dr. Lesurf on his website. If there really did exist something so interesting as the considerable variations previously described in the transmission of a signal because of the nature of the conductor, this would long have been scientifically investigated - as Mosfet says, it could be relevant to many applications. The fact that there is no peer-reviewed literature on the subject indicates not that scientists have closed minds but rather that there is nothing to investigate.

Don't know about that - if I saw a shark, I'd scream my head off

 

and of course science has never been wrong and its allways been able to measure everything ?

theres more in heaven and earth etc etc........

double blind tests ........

with out the resources of say a university or commercial research establishment, are worse than useless. To be statistically valid the sample size must be measured in hundreds of individuals and they must all think there listening to something other than cables.

I may be wrong but I've not seen results from a double blind test that numbered more than 10 to 15 participants....even I've done them for eight see the articles section. You would no seriously consider accepting these as anything but flawed.

You all know this as its been covered ad nauseum on this topic and others.......

As I say if you can't hear the difference don't worry about as its not going to effect you .....but don't tell those that can it doesn't exist

I'd rather judge the results with my own ears......

a case in point I'm certain that jimbo won't mind .....when he fisrt heard a silver cable he thought it was as good as the cable he had......I did not. After the best part of a year sorting various aspects of his system out the cable that he thought was the equal of the silver has been thrown from the system to be replaced by you guessed it ...by the original silver one.

Tones.....are you still using those silver ic cables ? have you not swap back to copper to test the hypothesis?

 

Scientific theories have been wrong but the scientific method is not. Currently there is no evidence to support the claims of the pro cable lobby.

It depends on the method used - using 20 individuals and 20 cables and 20 tests and getting them to rank them you would be able to get very significant results by examining the repeatability of the ordering. After normalising for LCR values of course.

Human perception can be deceiptful.

 

Yes, indeed I am. They do look nice, but they don't sound any different from the freebie that came with the cassette recorder (the compariason you propose was the first thing I tried when the latent audiophool bug in me was killed by the performance (or lack thereof) of a Mana stand - this made me realise that I'd heard what I wanted to hear, and not what was actually there).

I'm currently reorganising my stuff to go in the new cabinet I'm currently building and I had to buy some new ICs. Naturally I bought the cheapest and nastiest I could find - I practise what I preach!

 

Zanash,
Sorry didn't mean to insult your integrity just having fun.The sperry cable is solid silver not silver over copper.
Anyway inserted Promitheus silver cable from CDP to TVC which replaced Harmonix golden performance and I know its hard to believe but I liked it for the most part.Better clarity,detail,and bass which really suprised me.
Well, guess I'll have to listen to more silver cable and have some fun.It all sounds different SYNERGY is the KEY so keep trying until you find your match.
Cheers rollo

 

Tones, perhaps your system just doesn't have the resolution to enable you to tell the difference!

 

Have you tried Grahams Palladium interconnects, sublime!

 

Have you tried Grahams Palladium interconnects, sublime!

 

the only way for a proper comparison is to organize same length, same geometry, same connectors.

i think this can be done with "anti-ICs" now speltz launched a silver line. there are anti-IC freaks out there who has both of them and can talk about real differences.

 

If you tried Zanash's ag/au interconnects against some copper ones you will hear the difference believe me. After swapping back to my copper ones the other day i couldnt wait to get the ag/au's back. They sounded muddy an distorted. Zanash will loan you a pair i am sure but i doubt you will take the challenge as sceptics dont like to be proved wrong. Jim.