Funny thing is, the first time I heard a silver interconnect, I had no idea what its construction details were. It sounded totally different to any interconnect I had heard in my system to date, having the subjective effect of skewing the frequency response to favour the upper octaves, with more APPARENT detail being present. The overall effect was to make MY system sound unbalanced and fatiguing.
AFTER finding out that the interconnect was constructed with silver wiring, I became interested in reading the comments of others, many of which appeared to correlate closely with my own findings.
What many so called 'objectivists' fail to recognise is that suggestion works equally both ways. If the subject convinces themself that there is no valid reason why otherwise identical siver and copper conductors should sound different, I have no doubt that in sighted and blind listening tests the subject would find that to be the case.
What I find really interesting is that in many sighted listening tests I have been involved in, the high priced, designer brandname, glitzty product which would apparently elicit positive preconceptions has been trounced by a cheap 'plain Jane' alternative.
Open minds are a real asset.
Last edited:
Glad to hear you now recognise that suggestion works both ways and that open minds are a real asset. I sincerely apologise for thinking you were hopelessly intransigent on this issue.
I guess it was what was effectivley a blind test on a silver interconnet that really swayed you.
Give my regards to your friend.
Hi,
Well, well, well...
No doubt this is a fun test and it will be fun to relate at the next annual convention of the Audio Objectivsts as "You should have been there when I pulled this conjob on the "goldenear" fraction..."
However, if we desire results that are more meaningful it may be a better idea to get information regarding how to conduct the test here:
ITU-R BS.1116-1 (10/97) "Methods for the subjective assessment of small impairments in audio systems including multichannel sound systems "
http://www.itu.int/dms_pubrec/itu-r/rec/bs/R-REC-BS.1116-1-199710-I!!PDF-E.pdf
Other ITU recommendation that may have a bearing are:
ITU-R BS.1284 General methods for the subjective assessment of sound quality;
ITU-R BS.1285 Pre-selection methods for the subjective assessment of small impairments in audio systems;
ITU-R BS.1534 Method for the subjective assessment of intermediate quality level of coding systems;
For those who are not familiar with the ITU, it is the International Telecommunication Union.
Ciao T
Well, well, well...
No doubt this is a fun test and it will be fun to relate at the next annual convention of the Audio Objectivsts as "You should have been there when I pulled this conjob on the "goldenear" fraction..."
However, if we desire results that are more meaningful it may be a better idea to get information regarding how to conduct the test here:
ITU-R BS.1116-1 (10/97) "Methods for the subjective assessment of small impairments in audio systems including multichannel sound systems "
http://www.itu.int/dms_pubrec/itu-r/rec/bs/R-REC-BS.1116-1-199710-I!!PDF-E.pdf
Other ITU recommendation that may have a bearing are:
ITU-R BS.1284 General methods for the subjective assessment of sound quality;
ITU-R BS.1285 Pre-selection methods for the subjective assessment of small impairments in audio systems;
ITU-R BS.1534 Method for the subjective assessment of intermediate quality level of coding systems;
For those who are not familiar with the ITU, it is the International Telecommunication Union.
Wikipedia said:
Ciao T
Why ? Submission the the authority ?
Absolutly agreed. That's exactly why (and i had explained that before) i don't believe in my own feelings unless there is a real evidence, if they are not verified by measurements, and in measurements i cannot correlate when i listen.
I have an example, about condensers. I had changed all signal electrolytics on a big mixing desk for tantales ones.
They were expensive, and i eared a difference at the first test. Chosen to use them (more expensive= better ?)
I was disappointed with the sound, after a while. Then, i discovered that there where measurable distortion with tantalum (as well as ceramic). Return to electrolytic fake "bad sound".
Back to the cables: you can change your amplifier, with very noticeable changes in dynamic, slew rate, power, bandwidth and distortions. Very measurable too. And change your loudspeakers with huge differences, day or night on every aspects, including energy curves, response curve, etc...
On cables, you can measure changes at high frequencies (1->3 mhz) depending on the impedance of the cable. Nothing about the material in witch is made the conductor or isolator. And, anyway, very thin differences, if any, when you hear.
I prefer to work on my amplifiers and. loudspeakers. And,when a cable is the price of an amplifier, well, there is just a problem with mental sanity.
Did you spend on polishing the painting of your car, hopping the car will run faster with air penetration, the same price than the motor itself ?
As simple as that.
And, about silver, or carbon, i'm sorry, but there is no evidences that silver "sound" differently than coper. Just your cable have a difference in impedance ?
This thread will turn round and round forever, and everything had been told on the subject.
Last edited:
Interesting anecdote, giving evidence for an effect. The problem is that such evidence is difficult to weigh.mach1 said:
I'm not sure it is "many", but certainly 'some'!
The difficulty with silver cables (and the like) is that although there is anecdotal evidence (which people like me should not merely dismiss) there appears to be no measurements, no plausible theory and no hard listening evidence.
I spent part of this morning doing some reading on non-ideal transmission lines, in 'Fields and Waves in Communication Electronics' by Ramo, Whinnery and Van Duzer. I also saw that their treatment of skin effect for a round wire means that this has even less effect for audio than is sometimes thought, because the current in a round wire can penetrate further than the 'plane surface' approximation would suggest so the resistance rise is smaller.
I am too: mind changes reality. Especially, random processes are influenced by mind easily. Meditative state of mind is needed, though, but it is not a problem since listening audiophiles are usually in deep trance state.
There is no secret in this "skin effect". The electric field do not prefer any kind of place near the window in a cable. It just go the shortest and the easyest way. As, i hope, everybody knows, there is a magnetic field at 90° in presence of a current. This magnetic field push the electrons at the surface. But there is no problem for the electric current to travel in the heart of the wire if you compensate the induced magnetic filed with a magnet, by example.
And, silver or Coper, the speed is always the same: the speed of the light.
And, for those who don't knows, it is not the electron "joe" (an electron of a silver atom) who travel from the beginning to the end of a cable, but each electron push the next one, witch push the next etc. like the water does not move horizontally in a wave. And because it is only the magnetic field witch move, this field knows nothing about the composition of the atoms of the conductor: Silver or coper is just the same.
To take an other example, take two roads of the same size (the resistance). Push 1000 car in each, with a speed of 100kmh (the speed of the light for the current): you have the same number of cars by hours, whatever the road is in tar or concrete, and whatever the circulation is at the left or the right side of the road.
Last edited:
How about just using a twisted pair, it mostly cancels the magnetic field and hence the inductive term with AC signals.
I am not sure at all about the rest of the conjecture, I suspect the magnetic field would have to be perfectly concentric about the wire and mirror it perfectly to cancel, and by definition a permanent magnet can't do this for AC, or even varying DC, and there is no skin effect at DC.. Skin effect really isn't significant at audio frequencies..
I certainly have no clue how electrons actually propagate through a conductor, (there are several theories obviously) what we do know for sure is that if you stick one in one end of a conductor one pops out the other end, and that there are physical phenomena that are associated with the process including magnetism...
According to this, VERY slowly: Speed of electricity flow (speed of current.)
"The electric current works out to be a flow of approximately 3 inches per hour. Very slow!"
Note: corrected spelling of "approximately" in the text of the website entry
Last edited:
kevinkr, you are right, i over simplified. There is too an other effect, with two close parallel wires, witch lead the current to flow in the side of each conductor witch is the nearest of the other one, and not peripherally...
But all that is part of the impedance characteristic of the wire where the form is more important than the metal at high frequencies. (waves guides).
Between 0 to 100 000Hz, as far as i know, the response curve of a cable for loudspeakers of a honest diameter at domestic length is quasi flat. More than the one from the amplifier.
About the propagation theory, i do not knew there where some controversy other than one similar to the Photon/wave for the light. (Apologize for my poor English)
I was taught that an electron itself propagate very slowly. Not to forget that, at high frequencies, the electromagnetic field does not need anymore conductors and propagate even in vacuum. Happy for those who use some tube radio receivers ;-).
Did vacuum have some kind of "sound characteristic "?
In the tube itself, it is the real electron which is torn from the cathode by the temperature and that's why the metal ages.
But all that is part of the impedance characteristic of the wire where the form is more important than the metal at high frequencies. (waves guides).
Between 0 to 100 000Hz, as far as i know, the response curve of a cable for loudspeakers of a honest diameter at domestic length is quasi flat. More than the one from the amplifier.
About the propagation theory, i do not knew there where some controversy other than one similar to the Photon/wave for the light. (Apologize for my poor English)
I was taught that an electron itself propagate very slowly. Not to forget that, at high frequencies, the electromagnetic field does not need anymore conductors and propagate even in vacuum. Happy for those who use some tube radio receivers ;-).
Did vacuum have some kind of "sound characteristic "?
In the tube itself, it is the real electron which is torn from the cathode by the temperature and that's why the metal ages.
Last edited:
Hi,
Let us put together what is reasonably known.
Speed of electricity - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
If we apply DC to a wire (note DC implies a constant net change, so our switch on of DC actually creates a Step-function that may be viewed as AC) we can, once the system is settled we can observe net migration of electrons.
The "natural" speed is in the region of millimetres per hour, the large the electrical field accelerating the electrons, the faster they move. So the voltage gradient along the wire determines the "speed".
For AC the principle is rather different, AC in essence does not "travel through the wire", but it propagates as an EM Field around the conductor, typically at a large fraction of light speed.
There are interesting qualifications in all of this, relating to return conductor placement and spacing. But all of this is so Tres Primitive, I cannot believe we are even discussing this?
Surely no-one actually believes that electrons directly travel and traverse the full length of the wire? The action is actually by far better imagined as a variant of Newton's cradle...
Ciao T
Let us put together what is reasonably known.
Speed of electricity - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
If we apply DC to a wire (note DC implies a constant net change, so our switch on of DC actually creates a Step-function that may be viewed as AC) we can, once the system is settled we can observe net migration of electrons.
The "natural" speed is in the region of millimetres per hour, the large the electrical field accelerating the electrons, the faster they move. So the voltage gradient along the wire determines the "speed".
For AC the principle is rather different, AC in essence does not "travel through the wire", but it propagates as an EM Field around the conductor, typically at a large fraction of light speed.
There are interesting qualifications in all of this, relating to return conductor placement and spacing. But all of this is so Tres Primitive, I cannot believe we are even discussing this?
Surely no-one actually believes that electrons directly travel and traverse the full length of the wire? The action is actually by far better imagined as a variant of Newton's cradle...
Ciao T
Yes, no secret, but the maths quickly gets hairy. Like most things with rotational symmetry, the solutions to Maxwell's equations involve Bessel functions. For some reason I have never managed to get an intuitive feel for Bessel functions, like I once had (many years ago) for Legendre polynomials (they crop up where spherical symmetry rules e.g. QM of the hydrogen atom).Esperado said:
It is true in a sense that the electrons go the "shortest and easiest way", provided you define this in terms of least action rather than what might look shortest to us.
You can't undo skin effect with a magnet. The electrons don't get pushed to the surface. They can't because the surface is already full of electrons. You may be confusing skin effect with electrostatic surface charge. What happens is that the fields can't penetrate the metal, so the electrons further in don't know they are supposed to be conducting a current. Electrons never travel at the speed of light, except in the artificial sense of fast electrons hitting a dielectric and producing Cerenkov radiation.
I have only ever seen one theory. Third-year solid state physics: band theory of solids (due to Fermi?). When a lot of atoms arrange themselves in a crystal lattice the energy levels of each atom (second-year QM) spread out into bands. Alternatively, the periodic (in space) electrostatic potential only permits certain allowed wavefunctions. Two ways of looking at the same thing.kevinkr said:
Different issue, not skin effect.
I believe yes. I mean with a magnetic field. With a double parallel wire, each magnetic field in a single wire produced by the current influence the other wire and the area where the current flows is no more a circle near the skin, but the green surface in here:
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
This was called proximity effect.
I just reproduce what I've been learned because i have no way to make any measurements or experiences about that. So, in that manner, I'm stuck in the camp of believers ;-)
About silver and coper, if i remember well, the skin depth, at a given frequency, is quite the same with the one of Coper (depends of the metal) . And because Silver is a better conductor than coper, it will have a less impedance than coper for the same diameter of the conductor. Nothing wich can change enough the response curve, at our audio frequencies, to be audible.in any way. And nothing you cannot compensate in increasing a little the coper diameter.
Last edited:
That's called proximity effect.
Both skin effect and proximity effect were addressed nearly a century ago with the development of litz wire.
se
For loudspeakers wires, we can conclude that using an expensive metal like silver is just stupid, as we can have the same properties changing the geometry of a coper wire. (flat wires, etc.) And it is the same with isolator material.
The only interesting thing at the end will be the response curve. Yes, the wires can change VERY slightly the response curve of ours systems, but it is a better way to change this response curves, more economical and where we can manage it the way we want. It is the amplifier's or the loudspeaker's side.
We have to remember that, with wires, we are talking of changes less than 1/10 db between 0 to 100 000 hz, here, while our Speakers and listening rooms are not linear in a scale of 10dbs and much more.
And we have to remember too that 1db was set this scale to be near the littlest difference in level a human ear can notice.
We knows too that air temperature and humidity changes will have more noticeable acoustic effects than cables properties.
Buying a XXX$ cable is just insane. Better put those $ in better speakers and amplifiers and acoustic treatment of our listening rooms.
The only interesting thing at the end will be the response curve. Yes, the wires can change VERY slightly the response curve of ours systems, but it is a better way to change this response curves, more economical and where we can manage it the way we want. It is the amplifier's or the loudspeaker's side.
We have to remember that, with wires, we are talking of changes less than 1/10 db between 0 to 100 000 hz, here, while our Speakers and listening rooms are not linear in a scale of 10dbs and much more.
And we have to remember too that 1db was set this scale to be near the littlest difference in level a human ear can notice.
We knows too that air temperature and humidity changes will have more noticeable acoustic effects than cables properties.
Buying a XXX$ cable is just insane. Better put those $ in better speakers and amplifiers and acoustic treatment of our listening rooms.
Last edited:
- Status
- Not open for further replies.