I recently bought some 14 AWG stranded speaker wire and normally the wire is a reddish copper color for both conductors and the insulation has a line drawn on it to keep track of polarity.
I bought wire from a manufacturer named "Southwire". The ad description says the wire is copper, not CCA (Copper Clad Aluminum) or any other alloy combination yet one of the conductors is copper colored and the other is silver or gray in color.
I am including two images, one of the wire ad picture and the other of the wire ad description.
My question is, what makes the one conductor silver/grey? I know it makes the polarity easy to keep track of but how do they change the color? I wrote to the manufacturer but they did not reply.
Here are the images. I inserted red arrows where the description specifically says that the material is copper. Is this some sort of dying technique?
I bought wire from a manufacturer named "Southwire". The ad description says the wire is copper, not CCA (Copper Clad Aluminum) or any other alloy combination yet one of the conductors is copper colored and the other is silver or gray in color.
I am including two images, one of the wire ad picture and the other of the wire ad description.
My question is, what makes the one conductor silver/grey? I know it makes the polarity easy to keep track of but how do they change the color? I wrote to the manufacturer but they did not reply.
Here are the images. I inserted red arrows where the description specifically says that the material is copper. Is this some sort of dying technique?
Kay Pirinha ,
I would think that if it is "plated" they would have that listed in the specifications. I am not sure if there is some other way to make the wire a different color without introducing another metal or alloy. That's what I'm trying to determine. Thank you for your thoughts though.
I would think that if it is "plated" they would have that listed in the specifications. I am not sure if there is some other way to make the wire a different color without introducing another metal or alloy. That's what I'm trying to determine. Thank you for your thoughts though.
Thank you all.
Doesn't tinning with anything other than silver lower the conductivity? I guess I'm a bit surprised that they wouldn't need to mention the tinning in the specifications. Or is it that because the tin is on the ground lead it does not need to match the conductivity of the positive lead?
You buy speaker wire, specifically stranded wire, to increase the conductivity correct?
Doesn't tinning with anything other than silver lower the conductivity? I guess I'm a bit surprised that they wouldn't need to mention the tinning in the specifications. Or is it that because the tin is on the ground lead it does not need to match the conductivity of the positive lead?
You buy speaker wire, specifically stranded wire, to increase the conductivity correct?
The two leads are in series as far as the ac signal flowing 'back and forth' to the loudspeaker is concerned.
It is therefore the sum of the resistances of the plated and unplated leads that determines the opposition to the signal being carried.
Hence the plated and unplated leads do not require to have matching resistances.
Most of the consumer grade speaker wire has one tin plated wire for ease of polarity. It is so thin that it doesn’t matter for the systems that will use this grade of speaker wire. It’s easier than printing or putting ridges on the jacket to identify polarity. A 5 year old can see that they are different so the manufacturer won’t get angry letters or sued. the higher end stuff has two copper looking wires because they expect someone who wants better wire will take the time to look and make sure the polarity is right.