DIY silver non inductive ww resistors

[SimontY]

Interesting. I'll try again one day

[tom1356]

Originally posted by SimontY
Hi,

Thanks for all the info Tom. I'm actually rather reluctant to put any silver in my system, nearly always it's sounded too bright. I guess the colouration it received doesn't suit my speakers and rest of my system. I realise the harshness is probably due to impure silver and/or using too thin conductors.

I think I'll try some resistors using copper instead for now, at least until I find somewhere that isn't a rip-off! I know people who work for a silverware company and can get things at trade price. Needless to say I asked about wire.. they don't do it Not that I think using sterling (92.5% iirc) silver could possibly be as good as pure copper.


Interesting, and to me that explains perfectly why silver gets such a bad press for sound quality!! (if poor silver is compared to good copper...) Ah, you didn't mean 93% purity did you...? Well, it could still be the reason.

Hmm, you mention Radioshack, I wish we had that in the UK! We used to have Tandy, which is similar, but I think that's all but gone now. I have to put up with comparatively costly Maplins and Farnell...

I like your new winding method Tom, sounds good.

I really need to get my x-overs offboard before doing this!


Thanks,
-Simon

The brightness blamed on silver is just more of the signal (detail) getting through. You should have to make some adjustments with speakers/crossovers to adjust for this. The speakers you own were voiced with copper and it's inherent drawbacks in mind. You will need to adjust.

Originally posted by GaryB


Not currently in the market for silver wire, but I know a few folks who have bought teflon insulated silver wire from the following folks:

http://www.a-msystems.com/physiology...silvertef.aspx

They make this for medical work, so its quite high quality. The people I know used it to rewire tonearms and were pleased with the result. Some of this wire is very thin and easy to break, so be sure to get an appropriate diameter.

---Gary

This would be fine for interconnects but the Teflon will be to thick to wind resistors from. The insulation needs to be an enamel type.

Originally posted by mrfeedback
In my experience, silver plated copper, or pure silver wire does not go well with lead containing solders - adds a nasty note that is not there with lead-free solders, and not there with silver free wires or solders.
Silver + lead solders sound nasty to my ear also.
I think this is some of the basis of bad press regarding silver.

Eric.

Very interesting. I only use lead free solder so I can't comment on the combination of lead and silver.

If you can get silver "right" in your system it's a whole new ballgame.

This is winding one of a 1.8 ohm resistor. This shows the second wire removed and clear lacquer applied.
It's not as perfect as I hoped but it is a lot better than the last winding method. The second layer will go in the voids between the winds.

[tom1356]

Originally posted by SimontY
....It was snappy and detailed, but so what?

-Simon

I heard this also and I couldn't wait to do whatever it took to get more.

Such is the road I'm on...every step is another joy to behold.

[Squalish]

It occurs to me that a lathe set on low speed w/ one of these spindles would make an ideal winding machine. Either hand-feed the wire slowly and carefully along its length or find some way to regulate moving the wire along, either way, you'll wind the whole thing in under a minute. (This is assuming you drop the 'between the wire' placement thing, but I don't understand why it's used).

Are you sure there's no shorts in the above spindle? A short, if I understand the principle correctly, would both lower the resistance very slightly and increase the inductance by making the direction the magnetic field is being pushed nonsymmetric. Without an LC meter or a very, very sensitive ohmeter, you wouldn't necessarily know it, either.

[Steve Eddy]

Originally posted by tom1356
The brightness blamed on silver is just more of the signal (detail) getting through. You should have to make some adjustments with speakers/crossovers to adjust for this. The speakers you own were voiced with copper and it's inherent drawbacks in mind. You will need to adjust.

Hmmm. That doesn't seem to make a lot of sense.

If the brightness is due to more of the signal getting through, then how can you adjust for it except by letting less of the signal get through? And if you let less of the signal get through, then you're right back where you started, no?

se

[tom1356]

Originally posted by Steve Eddy


Hmmm. That doesn't seem to make a lot of sense.

If the brightness is due to more of the signal getting through, then how can you adjust for it except by letting less of the signal get through? And if you let less of the signal get through, then you're right back where you started, no?

se

More of the signal meaning more detail due to a lower noise floor.
Adjust the level of the tweeter with a slightly larger silver resistor to reduce it's total output.
As a side note if you remove the distortion in the upper frequencies from the rest of the system you may end up prefering a slightly brighter high end.

[fdegrove]

Hi,

If the brightness is due to more of the signal getting through, then how can you adjust for it except by letting less of the signal get through? And if you let less of the signal get through, then you're right back where you started, no?

Yeah...my thoughts exactly.

I'll tell you what happens though, it let's you hear what's wrong with the system.

Most people find CD too bright for their liking (some are) and (un)consciously try to compensate for it.

Maybe they should visit a recording studio or listen to a mastertape first?

With silver wire, the more you use it throughout the chain the more you'll like it.

Often it's like hearing recordings as they really sound for the first time, quite like the mastertape.

Cheers,

[Steve Eddy]

Originally posted by tom1356
More of the signal meaning more detail due to a lower noise floor.
Adjust the level of the tweeter with a slightly larger silver resistor to reduce it's total output.

If it's just a lowering of the noise floor, then you shouldn't have to adjust anything. Just enjoy the lower noise floor.

But how is the noise floor reduced by silver? At least in this context where you're using it to create a resistor. All else being equal, silver is a bit more conductive than copper so for a given gauge and length of wire, silver will have a lower noise floor by virtue of its lower resistance.

But in this case, you're using the silver to create a resistor which I assume will be the same value as any other resistor you'd use and since silver is more conductive than say copper, you'd have to use a greater length to get the same resistance and if your silver resistor has the same resistance, it will have the same noise as if you'd made the same resistor out of copper.

So where is the noise floor being reduced?

se

[fdegrove]

Hi,

So where is the noise floor being reduced?

It's not....

Whether someone prefers the sound of a silver wire resistor over an equivalent copper wire one I can understand completely but noise floor hasn't got anything to do with it...

Ciao,

[Steve Eddy]

Originally posted by fdegrove
Yeah...my thoughts exactly.

I'll tell you what happens though, it let's you hear what's wrong with the system.

Perhaps. Whatever it may be doing or not doing, if one doesn't care for the end result, it doesn't make much difference anyway.

Most people find CD too bright for their liking (some are) and (un)consciously try to compensate for it.

Maybe they should visit a recording studio or listen to a mastertape first?

Hmmmm. I've always wondered about the logic of that. It seems to imply that a master tape is somehow objectively "perfect" when in fact they are made using subjective evaluation in an acoustical environment quite different from the typical listening room and using equipment you typically don't see advertised in the pages of TAS and Stereophile.

And of course unless you listened to a master tape of a recording you already have, how could any meaningful comparison be made?

With silver wire, the more you use it throughout the chain the more you'll like it.

That may work for you and others, but it hasn't worked for me.

Often it's like hearing recordings as they really sound for the first time, quite like the mastertape.

Hmmmm. How does one know what a recording really sounds like? All we can possibly know is what a recording sounds like after passing through the filter of the acoustical environment and electronics with which it's being reproduced.

Therefore it seems to me that it just boils down to which filters one prefers.

se