Steve's correct point aside (tarnish of silver is not the conductive form of silver oxide and is generally not even an oxide), the resistivity of AgO is about 60 ohm-cm. That's equivalent to a conductivity of 0.017 S/cm. That compares to 63 million for metallic silver, so the myth is only wrong by a factor of three billion or so.
Its temperature range, for most of the common stuff, both the tin and the silver are used to protect the copper, silver plated with the relevant dielectric used for higher temp applications. It was more a dig since mil spec always comes up as a sort of mantra when esoteric cables are involved, obviously if its mil spec then it adds to the esoteric value.
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skin effect/depth at 10khz is 660µm. i would not say silver plating is snake oil
To make a difference the plating would have to be a couple of skin depths thick - say 2mm. Silver plating is rarely that thick. Silver plating for audio is snake oil.
Silver has a lovely shine. Therefore people who hear with their eyes believe that it must improve the sound. Once this belief is established no amount of evidence will shift it.
Silver has a lovely shine. Therefore people who hear with their eyes believe that it must improve the sound. Once this belief is established no amount of evidence will shift it.
660uM ~= 0.025" plating? you have to be kidding! That is the equivalent of 22AWG solid wire! That is not plating.
That IS snake oil.
during wire manufacturing surface gets rough, electroplating will smooth it a bit. still only microscopic level though
skineffect will grow at those "sacd" hi frequencies..
skineffect will grow at those "sacd" hi frequencies..
exists many better metals for plating which are stable and pleasing to eye than silver. (platinum group metals)DF96 said:
If you do not know why silver plating are used then say so.
If you know - then why not write the real reasons instead of harassing..
There are several reasons why copper may be silver plated.
The most obvious one are when as an example teflon are used as insulation.
Copper start oxidizing at much lower temperatures than the temperatures teflon need to be heated. Silver start oxidizing at a higher temperature than the temperature teflon needs to be heated to..
How much effect does this have on the signal levels, any that are relevant, nope, its only when you get to very high frequencies that you get any problematic effect (except in some planar transformers, but again working way outside audio frequencies).
You still need to silver plate the copper if a PTFE jacket is being coextruded onto it.
Off line for a day. Thank you FIOS.
Anyway, I stand corrected, silver oxide, or more correctly silver hexasufate or something like that, is a poor conductor. Don't blame snake oil cable salesman for inventing it as I was taught this in tech school decades before that idea ever came to pass for cables.
The old wire-wrap wire was also silver over copper. It relied on the high pressure cut as it wrapped around the square pin for a gas-tight connection. Sounds like it should have just been tin. Litz cable is for HF, and I guess inside the insulation stays clean so it does have an advantage in skin effect. (Useless in audio as was mentioned. We are talking Ghz) Or, maybe that was wrong too! Ya, learn something new every day.
Putting the phono stage inside the table was even better when solid state came along made a lot more sense than silver cables.
Back to tracking down my ground loop or noise issues with my new oppo and Outlaw. Looks like the HDMI spliter is to blame.
Anyway, I stand corrected, silver oxide, or more correctly silver hexasufate or something like that, is a poor conductor. Don't blame snake oil cable salesman for inventing it as I was taught this in tech school decades before that idea ever came to pass for cables.
The old wire-wrap wire was also silver over copper. It relied on the high pressure cut as it wrapped around the square pin for a gas-tight connection. Sounds like it should have just been tin. Litz cable is for HF, and I guess inside the insulation stays clean so it does have an advantage in skin effect. (Useless in audio as was mentioned. We are talking Ghz) Or, maybe that was wrong too! Ya, learn something new every day.
Putting the phono stage inside the table was even better when solid state came along made a lot more sense than silver cables.
Back to tracking down my ground loop or noise issues with my new oppo and Outlaw. Looks like the HDMI spliter is to blame.
Maybe you don't know, but even the color of the teflon affects the sonic performance as the colors are contaminating the pure teflon.
In the 80ties I analyzed and researched the different substances used for color both for chemical, electrical and sonic differences. And differences there are
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