Copper vs silver cables - Page 10

like I said, I love my copper, up-occ copper cable...works wonders!

I'm a copper lover based on the cables that I've tried...

 

Yeah I had to suck it up and order 4000 meters of stranded copper for guys like you LOL.

The reason why the copper is highly attracted by most users is because, cheaper, meaning more affordable.  This is a known fact guys.   I have a $1200 1.5m silver cable and I love it...   Now for the living room setup, I need another cable along with new set of speakers.... and a sound card.  I need a longer one for this setup, maybe 2m.  As much as I would love to get me another silver cable my wallet won't allow me to buy it ($1400). :(   I'll settle for a Sydney cable 2m which is a near top quality copper.
 

When upgrading cables would you say interconnects for AMP and DAC are more important or headphone cable?

^ the headphone cable

 

Depends which one is dragging your system down.. I mean I've went from crappy Fry's Electronics RCA's to some Kimber Cables and notice a big difference as well.

 

When it comes to digital like Coaxial or USB, I have yet to find a difference.. at least with the stuff I build at home for myself.

I have some questions.

 

Why do cables even madder when the wires in your devices and in most speakers are all copper and all soldered? Also how can Resistance and conductivity of wire be used if the solder and all wire isn't factored in.

 

Why aren't audiophile speakers welded (not soldered) directly to an amp welded directly to the line out of a DAC?

 

And why aren't speaker coils made from silver? Don't tell me its cost because there are speakers out there were the cost would be only about a 5% increase in price and there still not silver.

Good questions. If there's something else in the chain unrelated to the cables that has a different resistance, wouldn't that make fancy cables pointless? Maybe somebody else who is more knowledgeable will chime in. I don't know the answer to this, but it's definitely a good question.
 

Everything matters. Just have to break everything down to understand how. I mean everything!
Cost, Sound, price point in competing gear, make gear easy to assemble, that is your biggest cost... Labor. It is what it is.
Welding....... Come on... Everybody hears differently. Not practical. Everybody's set up is different.
Silver is way more expensive. 5 percent difference is way unrealistic. And silver may have sound qualities that may not benefit speaker coils.

This is my 2 cents.

I see where his questions are going and I know what he means. I asked a similar question about "burn in" recently which was "why do things ALWAYS seem to burn-in for the better? Never worse...?" Anyway I digress....

All I can say is I just finished my first DIY cable today which was an interconnect from my LOD to my headphone amp. I mainly did it just for fun. I decided to upgrade the cables of a headphone and I have extra wire and parts so decided to make a longer interconnect that can be used with my ipad on a plane without leaving my amp dangling in the air.

I hooked it up after checking continuity just to make sure it worked. And I had to pause for a second. I wasn't even trying to check SQ at all but it seemed so noticeably improved I couldn't believe it. I don't mean drastic, I just mean I was shocked that I could notice it.

So two things could come out of this.

1. I used silver plated ofc stranded wire for my cable. I could now become head-fi's latest silver fanboy OR....

2. I could just simply recognize that there are MANY factors involved in why my cable is better than the Fiio L9 cable I was using (first and formost I would imagine 24 AWG vs 28+ AWG?).

I don't know why but I do know bad cables can certainly result in an unwanted vail like feeling on your music from my experience today....

The end.
Edited by Doc-holliday - 9/22/12 at 11:00pm

I'm only really interested in how it affects sound. Do soldering points render a cable's resistance/capacitance(?) moot in any way? Silver is going up in price as of late, too. Copper is relatively cheap compared to silver. I've read about imods with internal wires/parts being replaced, but I don't know if it really makes a difference - there's lots of debate on this matter, that's for sure.

I stopped using my blue dragon v3, and now use my standard OFC COPPER cable....because I really don't notice a difference! $200 down the drain....and the cable is malfunctioning! So, again...$200 down the drain...my little dot mk3 with my sennheiser hd650's really sound out of this world! But you must listen to CDs, and my CD player has a built in DAC....that's my 2 cents....and I've owned my headphones for over a year now....

The cable part (i.e. interconnects, speaker wires, etc) takes even further signal loss (due to timing).  Cable is where it takes the hit the most.

You have a crappy speaker so the sound is 50% good with generic cable.  But with high-end cable you could be getting 55% good sound quality.  The proof is in the hearing, as I heard a big difference from generic cable to the $200 Sydney cable for my A2 speakers.  The location of the some of the musical instruments being played changed and each came more distinctive + more enhanced details.  So it apparently the cable plays very important role despite less than stellar internals in the cheaper speakers.

The goal in this hobby is removing every contaminant from the signal so that it can be as pure as possible at the driver. Cost constraints will limit the purity of signal. We find as many weaknesses and minimize them but there is still some level of contamination because of the physics of a system. The simpler and shorter the better. Ideally, the output of the analog section of the source should go directly to the input of the amps gain stage. Putting extra connectors, wire, solder, etc. adds to the contamination. The least amount of RLC from ideal that is added to the circuit will sound the best. If we have to live with some preconditions in the components, that's the cost. You can order gear with silver internal wiring, solder, transformers, etc. if ya wanna, for a cost. The goal of a vendor isn't to make the best possible gear but least amount of compromises for the cost.

Looking at the insides, most of the money spent on a piece is it's power supply. The signal circuit is kept as minimal as possible.

KISS applies.