| ginsner |
I was looking for some spools of speaker wire at one of the surplus stores the other day and the owner showed me some military grade 16g wire that comes as 4 marked twisted strands he had for 25c a foot, and apperently it is silver coated copper.
I am thinking this would make damn nice speaker wire especially if you were bi-amping
anybody have any ideas on this? |
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| john curl |
| Seems like a bargain, but you have to try it to know for sure. The silver coating is usually put there to prevent copper oxidation when applying the insulating coating that is usually a high temperature type (being military and all), and not necessarily for signal quality. Quite often, this silver coating is plated on and it has a lot of residual impurities. We have found that many examples of this wire can sound bright or edgy. Still, why not try it and see? |
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| KBK |
John
I believe it has to be electroplated and done when the coppr has been fully smoothed to perfection in terms of diamater accuracy arcoss the length, and chemical prepped/washed ..THEN 'high purity silver' electroplated or dipped (I can't remember exactly which one it is!) wire works and works VERY well. But the give-a-way **** on ebay is just that.... ****.
The only way to buy the good stuff, is to make calls to each individual company who may make a given wire, and see how the silver plating is done, and at what purity.
We are throwing the entire baby out with all the bathwater on this one, it is likely SOME, a miniscule amount of that ebay silver/copper wire is PHENOMENAL....the trick -- is knowing which one.
That requires effort.
It's easy to figure out which one it is. The manufacturers who charge 3x as much as the next guy, for seemingly the same product..that's the one you are looking for. Find out who manufuactures like that, then you can get the best stuff around on ebay, and no-one will be the wiser. Your own private stash of the good stuff. |
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| ginsner |
| i guess i can afford the 2 bucks it would cost for the 8 feet i would need as it isnt braided and that would give me 4 8 foot wires |
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| john curl |
| I should hope that you can afford it. Please don't look at any of the wires that I normally use. ;) |
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| Apex Jr |
If it is Mil-Spec wire the spool should be marked by a mil #
M16878/4 standard wall 600V
M16878/5 Thick Wall 1000V
M16878/6 Thin Wall 250V
All at 200 degrees C
Also might be marked M22759/11 newer mil #
The price is a great price since I charge .23ft per foot just for
a single conductor and it's a great price from regular retail.
There's a lot of info on the net once you have the mil #'s
Steve @ Apex Jr. |
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| ginsner |
didn't look at the spool for #'s though
and i was off on a couple things
1. its 5 conductors twisted together
2. its 20g not 16
i had just looked briefly the first time
the only markings are the bands identifying each strand as it is all black on blue. i will give it a shot later today to see what it is like
i also got a chance to look around at more of the stuff they have and it seems like a diyers paradise. all sorts of salvaged electronics, power supplies and what not
He also gave me a number for a guy in town who apperently has a stockpile of tubes, i guess he was a tech at the radio station. that could be usefull if i get into this diy stereo thing a little heavier. |
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| I_Forgot |
| quote: | Originally posted by KBK
It's easy to figure out which one it is. The manufacturers who charge 3x as much as the next guy, for seemingly the same product..that's the one you are looking for. Find out who manufuactures like that, then you can get the best stuff around on ebay, and no-one will be the wiser. Your own private stash of the good stuff. |
I'll be happy to sell you some stuff I got on ebay for 3X what I paid if it will make you feel better- I mean if it will make it sound better.
I_F |
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| FastEddy |
KBK: " ... 'high purity silver' electroplated or dipped (I can't remember exactly which one it is!) wire works and works VERY well. ..."
I would guess that "dipped" stranded would be way too costly for a wire mill to manufacture. One would think the electroplateing would give the manufacturer much better costs control as "dipping" into a silver bath would consume much more silver per meter ... Yes? |
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| KBK |
I would suspect that, yes. I cannot for the life of me remember which is the correct one, but believe it is the dip type that is the one that 'works' for audio use.
This is a 15 year old memory from a discussion on the old BBS system from the "alt.audio.highend" group.
The explaination was seemingly valid, according to what was suspected of wire response considering maxwell, skin effect, etc. The answer was well spoken. It's just a vauge memory now. |
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| FastEddy |
... but it would seem that since electroplating results in a better bond between silver and copper and the interface between the metals may be more uniform and without gaps or bubbles, that the dip method would have poorer results ... I'll have to find this out as we may be in the audio wire biz soon.
:smash: |
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| patch |
Steve gives good information on pricing.
Electroplated silver is very pure, 99.999, starting with commercial grade 99.99.
The minimum tested silver thickness, under ASTM B298, is 40 micro-inches, or one micron. This depth has been proven in military and industry to be more than adequate - in terms of durability (copper protection) and high frequency signal performance.
It is my experience that those who talk of hearing a "cold, harsh, overly bright, etc" sound when using silver plated wire are making a criticism of the quality/performance of the electronic equipment in the audio chain. Pure silver cannot add any sound of its own.
Silver most efficiently transmits high frequency signals - the part of the spectrum where objectionable odd-harmonic distortion piles up. Distortion in the source material and equipment will ride down the silver with more power and bandwidth than with copper. Sensitive speakers will then broadcast that "cold, harsh, overly-bright" sounding source distortion.
That said, I believe that some peple with fine speakers need the high-end dampening effect of typical high-strand copper wire to get acceptable sound from their electronics. |
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| FastEddy |
patch: " ... It is my experience that those who talk of hearing a "cold, harsh, overly bright, etc" sound when using silver plated wire are making a criticism of the quality/performance of the electronic equipment in the audio chain. Pure silver cannot add any sound of its own. ..."
True enough ... what goes in one end of the wire comes out the other end unchanged (or at least "less changed") when using silver as a conductor = less resistance = lower impedence over a broader range of frequencies ... as opposed to "ordinary" copper.) Silver being the best room temperature conductor available (so far).
That is the reason that there ! are military specification ! for silver clad or silver plated or silver dipped wire ... better results under adverse conditions and over a broader range of frequencies.
Garbage in = garbage out ... suffice to say that better conductors would tend to make distortion and/or good or bad noise more noticable.
:angel: |
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| tarcuper |
" Pure silver cannot add any sound of its own."
If it is true, why are so big audible differences between pure silver cables? For example Siltech and Audioquest?
:rolleyes: |
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| mrshow4u |
| quote: | | " Pure silver cannot add any sound of its own." |
| quote: | | If it is true, why are so big audible differences between pure silver cables? For example Siltech and Audioquest? |
So, are these differences real? Measurable? able to be picked out in blind listening tests?? Sorry this is beginning to sound like a thread awhile back. We can measure Silver. For moving electrons, Silver is the king. All of your TO-3 high power transistors wire bonds are pure Silver. Not for sound quality, for current capacity and low conductor heating due to the smaller IR losses. It seems to me that low-frequency wiring is understood well enough that Silver would not be criticized. |
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| tarcuper |
Everybody who loves audio stand somewhere on the road to understand mystery of audio world.
Perhaps you are very far from it yet, but everybody has chance to step forward...
What do you think about perception of music? It is only physics, biology?
No. Hearing music is vitally emotional and spiritual.
Blind tests are mostly useless. When you switch, you already hear an other part of the music, and the technical circumstances of switching are not negligible at all.
(sorry, my english is rather bad, but I want to learn:) |
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| auplater |
Perception= individual experience
Reality= applies to more than one person
If you don't understand the difference, perhaps that's why cable manufacturers can rip off so many audiophools. |
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| poobah |
Goldplater,
Wanna tell ' em about silver plating... oops, I mean dipping?
:) |
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| auplater |
| quote: | Originally posted by poobah
Goldplater,
Wanna tell ' em about silver plating... oops, I mean dipping?
:) |
you had to ask... :devily:
Ahhh... the sweet smell of cyanide... swoonn
Silver plating ACTUALLY has alot of carbon in it if it's at all shiney... pure silver plating has a matte finish and is almost white w/o post finishing...
Great stuff for microwave plumbing, especially when you rhodiium flash it... rf engineers KILL for that stuff
as for use in audio gear... let's just say I don't go that way...
John L. |
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| mrshow4u |
| Yup, Silver+Teflon is awesome. Looks good, solders well, no melting insulation. Only thing it requires is more cash and good strippers. |
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| patch |
auplater is right in stating that a lot of carbon is found on silver plated wire. The carbon atoms are found on the *surface* of the silver, and are thought to get there via use of organic lubricants in the wire-making process. I have read that carbon atoms can make up roughly 40 percent of the surface of a finished silver plated wire. Highly controlled manufacturing had it down to about 15 percent.
I have not read anything on the amount of atomic carbon on the surface of bare copper wire, but assume its there at least equally, given the overall tighter process controls on silver plating. |
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| patch |
FYI, here is a link to an older tech report on silver plating issues in aerospace cables. This is a referenced ESA report on research done in 1983. It updated research done in the 1960s. Not many source documents like it out there.
Link to ESA site.
That server is slow. If the link doesn't work, go to www.escies.org and look under technologies\materials and processes. |
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| poobah |
Great article dude!
Finally... confirmation as why wires are plated with silver in the first place.
:) |
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| auplater |
| quote: | Originally posted by patch
auplater is right in stating that a lot of carbon is found on silver plated wire. The carbon atoms are found on the *surface* of the silver, and are thought to get there via use of organic lubricants in the wire-making process. I have read that carbon atoms can make up roughly 40 percent of the surface of a finished silver plated wire. Highly controlled manufacturing had it down to about 15 percent.
I have not read anything on the amount of atomic carbon on the surface of bare copper wire, but assume its there at least equally, given the overall tighter process controls on silver plating. |
Actually, while surface contamination of the wire with carbon containing lubricants is a problem, the carbon I was talking about is actually co-deposited with the silver, due to grain refiners, briteners, surfactants and other electrochemically active stuff in the plating bath, as well as breakdown polymers of the cyanide anion in the solution.
Many analytical techniques are incapable of resolving carbon contamination in metals, due to back streaming of pump oils in vacuum apparatus, the low atomic weight of carbon, etc. hence it is often excluded in purity specs.
So when you see plating specs of 99.99% purity, they often exclude non-metals for these reasons.
FYI |
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| patch |
auplater has information on silver purity in plating that is truly interesting and new to me. I would like to read lab assay results on this, and find ways to prevent impurities. Thanks greatly for any help on this.
I noted in the ESA article that I posted - their rules stated that the finished silver plating must have no porosity (dullness usually), not sure exactly what that means about the processing.
FWIW, when doing small time plating, we use investment-grade silver rounds for anodes and get a dull white finish (when we get the variables under reasonable control and the anodes don't polarize on us <grin>). Ours take a light cotton wheel buff to bring up a shine.
Also for FWIW, I have read that wire makers heavily plate larger (e.g.) 16ga solid copper wires using electrolytic/cyanide processing to 99.99 or 99.999 percent silver purity. The wire is then drawn down to the smaller gage (34, 30, 27, etc) strands and the resulting 1 micron or more silver coating. |
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