[bdb55]

http://cgi.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/auc....74303&auc&3&4&

"2 strands of 24 karat gold plated, gold/silver/copper alloy"

Anyone ever heard gold (or part gold) ICs before?

 

[bluesaint]

Read my reply.

http://www4.head-fi.org/forums/showt...threadid=38735

 

[kuma]

Only pure silver and gold cables I am familiar with is Siltech G5 lines of ICs.

These are said to be made with pure silver and 24 k gold for conductor. AFAIK, they do no use any plating.

Below is from the company's propaganda sheet:

This metallurgic process starts with high purity silver. In a complicated and expensive process an exactly calculated amount of 24K Gold is added to the Silver crystal structure resulting in an almost 100% perfectly mixed Silver-Gold conductor. When used in a well-designed audio cable it removes all barriers.As with all our cable products we start with the basic ingredients: Silver, Gold and a lot of common sense. For the interconnect cables improved star-quad techniques are used for state of the art performance. Much attention is given to the mechanical construction of the Signature cables. Teflon® insulation is used because of its superior dielectric characteristics. Perfect mechanical dampening is realized through massive sound absorbing jacketing.



• Siltech Gold-Silver cable

 

[blr]

If you ask me, gold in any form except for plating the connectors does not belong in audio cables. Gold has higher resistance than both silver and copper and does not offer any advantages in terms of grain structure. On the opposite, gold is grainier than similarly processed copper or silver. I am also a bit sceptical about gold-silver alloys

 

[kuma]

Quote:

Originally posted by blr If you ask me, gold in any form except for plating the connectors does not belong in audio cables. Gold has higher resistance than both silver and copper and does not offer any advantages in terms of grain structure. On the opposite, gold is grainier than similarly processed copper or silver. I am also a bit sceptical about gold-silver alloys

blr,

yeah, you are right. how could possibly gold be good as a conductor.?
i dont really get it either. however, from what I hear out of these particualr gold cables, however not necessarily my absolute favorite, don't sound that bad.

I am not sure how much of 'grain structure' has an influence in sonic outcome, but these particular ones I have tried sounded better than many copper or silver ones. Must be many ways to work a metal to get a desired effect. One thing for sure, material of conductor used does not gurantee a good sound. Their previous G3 effort also used gold and silver as a conductor, but, they were one of the slowest dynamically challenged cables and didn't offer much expect from mellow top end, for example.

 

[bluesaint]

According to Stealth, these are the reasons to use gold:

But why using gold while silver is more conductive?!!!
Well, there are several reasons:


1. Unlike it is in the loudspeaker cables, in phono and line-level interconnects conductivity of the wires has not much to do with the sound quality - but oxidation, impurities, internal grain structure and GEOMETRY of the conductors have. Plus, some qualities of the dielectric used to insulate the wires ARE very important to the sound.

2. Silver oxide IS highly conductive (unlike copper oxides) - but silver is easily polluted with Sulfur and when "infected" by these other elements (from the outside air or from a contact with human skin) and when polluted, silver loses conductivity, uniformity and "plasticity". It's not a problem with thick silver wires or contact surface, but it IS a real problem with extremely thin wires or silver foil used in interconnects.

3. According to "The Essex Echo" article by Malcolm Omar Hawksford (which is the ONLY classical and acknowledged article on the on audio cables sound theory: 10 or 12 printed pages that explain what sounds best and why using a lot of math) interconnects sound more "focused" and "extended" if they are made of a VERY thin wire: the thinner - the better, in fact. Clarity, resolution, bass tightness - everything is better with thin wire. Why? Because thin wire allows to "move" the skin effect out of the audible range and eliminate (or greatly reduce) the time smearing of audio signal - i.e. the time domain distortion subjectively perceived as excessive upper midrange "brightness" and "boomy" unfocused bass...

4. However, thin wire is fragile. Plus - it is VERY difficult to make a very thin silver wire of high purity - since despite of using special measures, it gets terribly polluted in the production process. It is possible to get a chunk of silver of 7N (seven nines) purity (i.e. 99.99999 pure) - but when a thin wire is made of this silver, the wire will have only 99.9 purity or worse. It is close to impossible to make pure enough thin copper wire either. Plus, a very thin wire "ages" very quickly and becomes even more fragile with time.

5. So, the wire must be VERY thin and VERY pure to sound good. But - it's close to impossible to make thin enough and pure enough silver (or copper) wire.

6. Back to the dielectric. Vacuum is best. Air is almost as good. Teflon is best of solid dielectrics (because of the fast charge/discharge characteristics = less energy storage = better transient response). Foamed Teflon is better than solid Teflon (since it contains air bubbles). The more air - the better. But - how to protect our thin silver or copper wire if it 's surrounded by a lot of air?

7. So - gold IS the solution - since it IS possible to make a high purity VERY thin gold wire. How thin? Approximately a half as thin as human hair How pure? 99.99% or better (24 carat gold is only 99.9% pure). Plus gold is practically grainless, a properly made gold wire is considerably more uniform than silver or copper. And it stays that way!

8. STEALTH PGS (99.99% gold) cables are made with extremely thin gold conductors in a proprietary porous Teflon dielectric, and they do sound special...

 

[kuma]

Quote:

Originally posted by bluesaint 7. So - gold IS the solution - since it IS possible to make a high purity VERY thin gold wire. How thin? Approximately a half as thin as human hair How pure? 99.99% or better (24 carat gold is only 99.9% pure). Plus gold is practically grainless, a properly made gold wire is considerably more uniform than silver or copper. And it stays that way!

these guys make a compeling argument. But, there are more than one way to skin a cat. If gold is THE answer, then every cable in $2k range would be using it. This is sort of like which cone material for dynamic driver is best.

Final voicing of cables boil down to designer's sonic preference and systems anyways. ( particularly in upperrange cables such as these )

 

[MERTON]

why don't they just vacum pack the silver?

 

[blr]

There are few points that should be taken with more than a grain of salt (or is the salt grainless too)

First of all the skin depth in audio frequencies is not at all that small. In fact using 20-22 AWG wire will practically eliminate it. This can be calculated and has been known for quite some time. If you want to use a thicker cable just use a litz construction.
Regarding surface oxidation, it is true that it starts as soon as the wire is drawn, but again using gold is not the (only) solution. Supra cables for instance address the problem by tin plating. Providing that the cable is thin enough to have approximately even current distribution (i.e. negligible skin effect) the presence of a thin oxide layer should not change the electrical parameters of the conductor significantly.
About gold being "practically grainless" I'm sorry not in this uneverse. I can show you atomic force microscopy images of very pure gold surfaces, I use them at work. They show quite fine granularity, finer than copper. Finer grains means more grain boundaries and in turn (according to some) distortion. I haven't ben able to correlate the grain structure with sound yet myself, but if it matters gold is not the best conductor and claiming that gold is grainless is simply not accurate.
As a scientist I've always tried to look at cables in a more "sober" way. Frankly reading some of the manufacturers claims makes me laugh. There are very few manufactureres which designs are based on solid science. That said I haven't heard the cables in question but I believe you kuma if they sound good. The question is could the same effect be achieved by using the same construction but cheaper metal instead, thus lowering the cost.

 

[kuma]

Quote:

Originally posted by blr There are very few manufactureres which designs are based on solid science. That said I haven't heard the cables in question but I believe you kuma if they sound good. The question is could the same effect be achieved by using the same construction but cheaper metal instead, thus lowering the cost.

Yeah. No way I was endorsing Siltech wire or anyone elses. Frankly, any wire companies' so called technical claims should be ignored. At least I do.

BTW, these particular cables I have auditioned, I've returned 'em. At 3500$ and 5,000$ respectivly ( they have three levels I've tried the entry one and the middle.), they did not do what I wanted 'em to do and I continue to use plain vanila copper cables which incidenatly cost about the same as these gold/silver Siltechs.

 

[Zanth]

Well, I have a pair of W Entreprises NW Music Timbre cables which are EXACTLY like the Z-squared AU/AU alloy cables except for the sheathing and braiding technique. I also JUST purchased a power cord using the same idea for cable and the new Furutech 24K plug and IEC.

To me, after putting the IC's into place, ripping out the Cardas Neutral refs, I heard detail and a clear transparent sound I have only ever heard with martin logal prodigy's using an all Valhalla system.

I was floored by the control, deep clear bass and the beautiful non exaggerated and non sibilant highs. The Cardas have been relegated to my secondary system until I can buy another pair of these IC's.

The IC's retail for 1.2k I managed MUCH less. The power cord retails for 4k and again...I managed for MUCH less.

Are cables ever worth the retail price? Hell no.

But for a few hundred bones...if they are the last tweak in the system...then go for it.

I think the AU plated au/ag/cu alloy cable is a true breakthru and one that I am loving.

I have 0 interest in hearing another cable at this point. Seriously, my cable search is at an end.


What I recommend is hitting the Audiogon auctions. Seems when new cables come out people are reluctant to bid and buy. So...if you can jump on one of these z-squared or W Enterprises NW cables...you can usually get them for half the retail price.