Why doesnt a company make a 1" long pure silver power cord??? - Page 3

PRobably some of them actually believe. I'm waiting for a company to come out with 2 lines of cables, and you have to switch them when Mercury is in retrograde.

i) because you have to remember that audiophile electronics manufacturers still think its 1995, evidenced by HDMI being rare and poorly supported, and digital audio requiring a lot of bulky external equipment based on (generally speaking) less than state-of-the-art equipment (before anyone even starts, go look at what McIntosh, Accuphase, Mark Levinson, Rotel, Classe, Wavac, etc offer in terms of actual HT receivers/preamps, and then compare that to what Yamaha, Denon, Pioneer, Sony, JVC, etc offer in terms of actual HT receivers/preamps, also compare the S/N and THD figures)

basically what ^ means, is that audiophile electronics manufactureres still think tin/lead is normally used, but because of RoHS, lead cannot be used for european export, and since its cheaper to make one product and ship it to the US and EU, simply changing voltage and adding/removing SCART as needed, vs two entirely separate product lines, lead is being removed across the board (at least on PCBs, mercury still shows up in some backlights, but its rare, and has to be declared, thats unrelated to the scope of this discussion though), not to mention that copper is going to provide a somewhat better connection (which is used not because of some "higher quality" commitment, but because of the demands imposed by modern integrated logic) not to mention that copper is pretty cheap in the quantities used on these boards (when you start talking multi-thousand qtys, it gets expensive, but we're talking a $5-$20 PCB on a $500+ MSRP component)

one place where you still see some tin/lead/etc is on leads from cheap ICs (like anything TI/AKM/Cirrus/etc produces, yes, even the "audiophile" D/A chips) because it drops production price, and these components are usually mechanically installed, meaning the lead size is VERY small

ii) its to prevent corrosion and look nice, it also lets them blah blah about gold being in the part, generally gold is used as a conductive coating to protect all sorts of IC logic, because it won't impact transmission (from an electrical standpoint, we aren't talking "sound signature of gold vs silver vs copper etc" impacts), but won't corrode, and is cheap if you use VERY little (like less than 1 oz per 10-20 components, given that per oz its something like $500, but given that we're talking contact pins and exposed traces with layering as thin, if not thinner [sic] than, tissue paper)

the only place, imho, that gold should have in electronics, is contact pins/balls/pads/etc (basically wherever two boards/components/etc touch one another), instead of this "plating" thing

I really like the garbage and wine quote, it answers the question with such blunt eloquence

Silver doesn't work for power cord. It only works for interconnect and speakers cables.

The audiophiles are right. The cable that arrive to the house has a huge section so that's not a problem (and most of the electric pollution is into the house, even if there's some outside). Then the best is to install dedicated power lines, ideally one per device, with 4mm section for amps.
To filter all is important, begining with sources and then to filter amps.
And to use "race" power cords everywhere, and even between the filters and the wall, and from the power box to wall outlets.
There's nothing ridiculous in all that cause it works.

Surely not cost effective, but doesn't work? Care to explain why you CAN'T make a power cord out of silver?

Lead is still used inside most large IC's to connect the chip to its packaging (Ball Grid Array).

Why use a cable at all? Why not extend the outlet to the amp directly? It's just another 3-4 feet of the outlet wire.

Yea, and solder the wires from the breaker box directly to the transformer windings with silver solder...

Why even go from the breaker box? Move next to a power plant and solder some silver wire to the transformers

I mean there's no benefit of using silver for power cords.

That implies that there is a "benefit" of using any other wire in any other position; this is disputed by some and embraced by others.

Personally, I approach everything as rationally as possible. Sure some say that there are hundreds of kilometers of "cheap power wiring", but that all stops at the transformer box (as transformers create their own isolation points) so you can toss that argument out. Then you have hundreds of meters of "cheap power wiring" from the transformer box to your house and inside the house so the last 6' of wiring shouldn't matter, this argument has to be considered.

First of all, the wiring is in your walls is physically far away from your equipment and should introduce minimal interference, but could having a properly shielded, high quality cable that actually is right beside your equipment prevent extra noise/interference from entering your equipment? Just maybe?

Now what about the active filtering or isolating? Now here is where I will make a stand. If you implement an isolation transformer or balanced power supply (another sort of isolation transformer), you are isolating the power circuit after it from everything else and effectively throwing away all the "cheap power wiring" before it. Now here, if you use high quality cabling, they are 100% of what really has an effect (or not) on your system. Now I won't get into whether there is a difference between power cables, I'd rather just point out that using either of these solutions will effectively cancel out the "power cable non-believer" main argument of "what about the rest of the wire". On the isolated circuit behind an isolation transformer or balanced power supply, you can control 100% of the wiring used.

This issue really confuses me. As far as I know, the material of the cable should be irrelevant to keeping the signal as "intact" as possible, especially when applied as a coating. I can understand shielding, flexibility and the such, but why the material in the wire(not the plug). I've also been told(by EEs with decades of experience) that the relative difference in material is in the figure of several ppm, and has a minimal effect on the distortion when compared to other components(or is this wrong?). What is more important, is the cable thickness, as illustrated by coat hangars(or am I wrong on this too?). Sometimes, much of this all seems like the placebo effect to me =|. But I can't really say either, since I haven't exactly re cabled any of my equipment or the such.

Numerical measurements would be nice too, if anyone replies =D

2 things

#1 : Stop listening to EE's, they're set in their ways and have likely NEVER bothered to question what they were taught. Use your own ears and be the judge!

#2 : Different cables measure differently, there is lots of data about how different metals conduct electricity and their specs in terms of resistance, (and when built into a multi-conductor cable) the inductance and capacitance of the cable. The main thing that people like to argue is that these differences in conductors and cable designs don't matter enough to be "heard by human ears". Again, screw all that argument, listen to it yourself and be the judge.

Most people that argue one way or the other have never bothered to actually try things for them selves. I hate that and it angers me to get into arguments with people about this so I no longer do.

To me, special power cabling wouldn't make sense without some kind of power conditioner. Without a power conditioner (or filter or whatever), the most I might do is upgrade a crappy wallwart to a better Sigma 11 or something, which makes sense regardless of the cabling used (as the cable is going to be at least halfway decent, if not "pure audiophile grade"), since a lack of power for your components, regardless of the signal quality, hurts more than a cheaper cable.

IMO, headphone recabling > better power supply >= expensive interconnects >= power conditioner > power cabling.

In other words, worry about last signal path first, amount of power behind the signal second, quality of power running through the system and secondary short signal paths third, and finally quality of cheaper components pushing that power to amp/headphones finally. If it's that big of a deal, you can also DIY or have commissioned better connection points in your amp/DAC/pre-amp/whatever.

Of course, YMMV.

That's a bit harsh, what ALL EE's are stick in the mud's who will never advance their thinking?
So who innovates the new stuff/ideas ?

I have not been on an active duty with regard to audio kit advancement for a while, just enjoying what i have for the time being.
But I have do have reasonable kit and done a spot of diy.
I have also been through my exotic cable/wire phase.
I use Siltech IC stuff and silver in my diy kit.
Done a fair bit of subjective experimenting.
have paid a fair few $$$ for wire too.

Cable debates do get very polarised at times!
My view is that I feel most of what i perceive is probably not real in a measurable engineering sense.
Even if i don't believe my ears, as long as it's consistent then fine, it's an informed decision if i choose to drop an insane amount of $$ on a cable etc.
But i do aslo feel that a lot of this high end ephemera is total BS snake oil!

As for the OP , I have tried this with interconnects.
I inserted a 60mm length of exotic siltech cable between waaay less exotic 1m IC's.
And yep, heard a difference , a nice one!
I was blown away, and asked an audio designer friend [hardcore objective] to listen, and yes he heard it too.
Powerful thing the human mind!

Still love my silver cables though