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Wire Selection, what, where, why???

post #1 of 13
6/18/07 at 12:29pm
Thread Starter 
Hi guys

I am new to the forum.

I just ordered a small amount of Homegrown Audio 99.99 silver Ic3 braid and
24 ga single strand to make some mini to mini cables. I seems like good stuff, who would ever thought that wire could be so exspensive LOL.

What do think of this wire and what other sources are out there.

How does the use of differant wire change the quality of the sound that passes threw it?


Thanks for the help
Frank
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post #2 of 13
6/18/07 at 12:57pm
As far as places to buy, I think you got a pretty good source there. I found a store on ebay that sells silver plated cooper for a pretty good price.

Different metal have different current carrying characteristics (say that five times fast :P), and different resistances at different frequecies. All of these factors determine how a cable "sounds". The lower the resistance of the wire, the better it will carry a signal. There is also something called "skin effect" which is, at higher frequencies, the current tends to flow along the outside edge of the wire. When this happens, the effective conducting area decreases, which in turn increases resistance....a bad thing. People believe different things as to how to solve this problem. Some feel that one large single conductor will help reduce this problem, where others (such as myself) believe that a stranded conductor is better because it essentially has more "skin" surface area.
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post #3 of 13
6/18/07 at 12:58pm
oops.
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post #4 of 13
6/18/07 at 1:20pm
I have just received 50' of HGA 26ga silver (the on-sale stuff), and I like it alot, very fun to play with, already made two fine sounding short IC's for classical.....
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post #5 of 13
6/18/07 at 3:25pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bjornboy81 View Post
As far as places to buy, I think you got a pretty good source there. I found a store on ebay that sells silver plated cooper for a pretty good price.

Different metal have different current carrying characteristics (say that five times fast :P), and different resistances at different frequecies. All of these factors determine how a cable "sounds". The lower the resistance of the wire, the better it will carry a signal. There is also something called "skin effect" which is, at higher frequencies, the current tends to flow along the outside edge of the wire. When this happens, the effective conducting area decreases, which in turn increases resistance....a bad thing. People believe different things as to how to solve this problem. Some feel that one large single conductor will help reduce this problem, where others (such as myself) believe that a stranded conductor is better because it essentially has more "skin" surface area.
Thanks for explaining it.

Is that why silver vs copper or silver coated copper sound different? So which would be better for improving highs and which for lows, generally speaking?

Quote:
Originally Posted by AudioCats View Post
I have just received 50' of HGA 26ga silver (the on-sale stuff), and I like it alot, very fun to play with, already made two fine sounding short IC's for classical.....
yes there is the fun of it all thanks
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post #6 of 13
6/19/07 at 12:35am
I believe common consensus is silver is better for highs. It is electrically more conductive, but it's expensive and delicate so IIRC most people reserve silver for wiring up either single driver systems or tweets and mids in a crossover. I imagine it's also a good candidate for headphones, though I've never actually heard of anyone wiring their headphones with silver wire. I have heard of someone wiring their headphones with, I believe, silver coated CAT5... with a teflon jacket... is that correct? lol!

With as delicate as silver wire is, I would be afraid of wiring my headphones with it.
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post #7 of 13
6/19/07 at 12:51am
the 26 gauge silver I got is more robust than I thought. I wouldn't have problem using them for headphone wiring. Add techflex tubing for protection it should be fine.....I'd imaging 24 gauge is a lot more robust.

But 6' headphone wires will kill 24' silver, if it is at the normal price of $2.5/ft .............
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post #8 of 13
6/19/07 at 3:42am
Seriously! How about this: build small battery-powered mono amplifiers and attach them to each can, wire the drivers with silver wire and just run a nice interconnect to each amp. hehehe
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post #9 of 13
6/19/07 at 5:28am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Logistics View Post
Seriously! How about this: build small battery-powered mono amplifiers and attach them to each can, wire the drivers with silver wire and just run a nice interconnect to each amp. hehehe
lol, what do you think we buy those silver wires for? making interconnect is the original intend.... it will cost the same amount of silver either as the IC cable or as the phone cable....





fc911c, I think high purity silver gives more/finer detail, and the thinner the wire the more crispy the highs (verses the thicker the more roll-off and warmer, according to the theory)...
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post #10 of 13
6/19/07 at 7:17am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bjornboy81 View Post
As far as places to buy, I think you got a pretty good source there. I found a store on ebay that sells silver plated cooper for a pretty good price.

Different metal have different current carrying characteristics (say that five times fast :P), and different resistances at different frequecies. All of these factors determine how a cable "sounds". The lower the resistance of the wire, the better it will carry a signal. There is also something called "skin effect" which is, at higher frequencies, the current tends to flow along the outside edge of the wire. When this happens, the effective conducting area decreases, which in turn increases resistance....a bad thing. People believe different things as to how to solve this problem. Some feel that one large single conductor will help reduce this problem, where others (such as myself) believe that a stranded conductor is better because it essentially has more "skin" surface area.

wrong so utterly wrong... ALL of these effects are only relvent in high fequancy circuits >1MHZ
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post #11 of 13
6/19/07 at 8:49am
Quote:
Originally Posted by kipman725 View Post
wrong so utterly wrong... ALL of these effects are only relvent in high fequancy circuits >1MHZ
This sounds right for solid wire. The skin depth for copper at 20KHz is ~0.6mm, whereas the radius for a 22 gauge wire is only ~ 0.3mm. The radius would have to become greater than the skin depth in order to make a distinction between skin and center. This would be about 1.2mm in diameter, or a little less than 16 gauge wire - but even that much is probably a pointless distinction.
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post #12 of 13
6/19/07 at 9:58am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by AudioCats View Post
lol, what do you think we buy those silver wires for? making interconnect is the original intend.... it will cost the same amount of silver either as the IC cable or as the phone cable....





fc911c, I think high purity silver gives more/finer detail, and the thinner the wire the more crispy the highs (verses the thicker the more roll-off and warmer, according to the theory)...
thanks I will try differant wires thanks
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post #13 of 13
6/25/07 at 8:02am
For other projects, you might try teflon jacketed wire. The copper is often silver clad and the cost is miniscule. I use it on diy amp projects and like how it performs there. If high frequencies propogate via the skin effect then they will travel on silver cladding. LOL!
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