[Steve Eddy]

Quote:

 
Unless you volume matched VERY well - the same effect (volume change towards louder) could easily give the impression of better separation. Just as slightly higher volume falsely gives the impression of better sound in general. 
 

 
Yup. That's a phenomenon that unscrupulous sales people have taken advantage of for many years.
 
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[Armaegis]

Quote:

Unless you volume matched VERY well - the same effect (volume change towards louder) could easily give the impression of better separation. Just as slightly higher volume falsely gives the impression of better sound in general. 
 

I am aware of that and did my best to match. On my home rig I do have some calibration points and use those for comparison.
 

 

[DaveBSC]

Quote:

It is exactly that inconsistency of the subjective impressions of how cables sound, which helps to evidence the difference is caused by our own perception and not the cable itself.
 

Why is that? I was pointing out that the tendency to lump all silver cables into "thin and bright" is incorrect. They aren't all made out of the same silver, so they don't all sound the same. All copper cables are not "warm and rich", some are the exact opposite.
 

 

[liamstrain]

So if *what* metal they are made out of, does not consistently account for specific changes in sound (e.g. silver = brighter) - what does? You're still not providing any useful data here, DaveBSC. 

 

[Steve Eddy]

Quote:

Why is that? I was pointing out that the tendency to lump all silver cables into "thin and bright" is incorrect. They aren't all made out of the same silver, so they don't all sound the same.
 

 
His point was that different people may report a different "sound" even when using the SAME cable.
 
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[Tilpo]

Why is that? I was pointing out that the tendency to lump all silver cables into "thin and bright" is incorrect. They aren't all made out of the same silver, so they don't all sound the same. All copper cables are not "warm and rich", some are the exact opposite.
 

I wonder what they could do with the silver to change it' sound. They can make it an alloy, but won't that reduce conductivity (which should be bad)?
Thickness and wire geometry might theoratically affect the sound, but I don't see how there can be 'different kinds' of silver. Silver is just silver, or am I wrong?

 

[Steve Eddy]

Quote:

I wonder what they could do with the silver to change it' sound. They can make it an alloy, but won't that reduce conductivity (which should be bad)?
Thickness and wire geometry might theoratically affect the sound, but I don't see how there can be 'different kinds' of silver. Silver is just silver, or am I wrong?

Pretty much, yup. I mean, really the only relevant characteristics of a conductor is its conductivity and permeability. Since neither copper nor silver are ferromagnetic, their pemeability is about the same as for air so you can scratch that off the list, which just leaves us with conductivity. And that really just translates to simple resistance. Silver's slightly more conductive than copper so all else being equal, a silver cable will have slightly less resistance.
 
This is one subject where there's always been a lot of choppin' but no chip flyin' if you know what I mean.
 
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[DaveBSC]

Quote:

So if *what* metal they are made out of, does not consistently account for specific changes in sound (e.g. silver = brighter) - what does? You're still not providing any useful data here, DaveBSC. 

Everything else does. The insulator matters (PVC is quite different from foam teflon) the geometry matters, gauge matters, purity matters, stranded vs. solid core matters, even the connector matters. A direct gold or silver plate over pure copper is the ideal connector, but most are made out of brass, with a layer of nickel underneath gold so that they look very shiny. Looks great, but not good for sound quality.
 

 

[Steve Eddy]

Quote:

Everything else does. The insulator matters (PVC is quite different from foam teflon) the geometry matters, gauge matters, purity matters, stranded vs. solid core matters, even the connector matters. A direct gold or silver plate over pure copper is the ideal connector, but most are made out of brass, with a layer of nickel underneath gold so that they look very shiny. Looks great, but not good for sound quality.
 

As I said, a whole lot of choppin' but no chips flyin'.
 
Please, take it someplace other than Sound Science.
 
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[liamstrain]

DaveBSC - you have yet to provide ANY evidence at all, that any of those things (aside from poor connections, and insufficient capacity) could possibly have ANY impact on sound signature. 
 
Do you have data you can share with the rest of us? Or are you going to keep slinging nonsense? 

 

[Steve Eddy]

Oh, by the way, the nickel under the gold isn't there so much to make it look shiny (though a bright nickel plate will also do that) but rather to prevent the gold from diffusing into the copper or brass (actually it's the copper or brass that interdiffuses with the gold, but for all intents and purposes it doesn't really matter). You can direct plate over copper and brass with "hard gold," but hard gold's alloyed with either cobalt or nickel.
 
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[kevin gilmore]

Both pure copper and pure silver are diamagnetic. And can be attracted by huge magnetic fields.
 
The only substance that is conductive and is neither diamagnetic or paramagnetic is a compound
of 75% copper and 25% palladium.
 
As far as i know, no one is making wire for audio use this way.

 

[Steve Eddy]

Quote:

Both pure copper and pure silver are diamagnetic. And can be attracted by huge magnetic fields.

 
That's incorrect.
 
Diamagnetic materials are not attracted to external magnetic fields. Just the opposite, they repulse external magnetic fields. That's because diamagnetic materials emit a magnetic field of a polarity that opposes the external field impinging on it. Superconductors are highly diamagnetic, which gives rise to the classic superconductor demonstration which has a magnet levitating (and sometimes even spinning) above a superconductor.
 
Copper and silver are both very very weakly diamagnetic. The most diamagnetic material outside of superconductors is bismuth, and even it's only very weakly diamagnetic.
 
Quote:

The only substance that is conductive and is neither diamagnetic or paramagnetic is a compound
of 75% copper and 25% palladium.
 
As far as i know, no one is making wire for audio use this way.

 
Why would they? The diamagnetic properties of silver and copper don't appear to present any problem that needs to be fixed.
 
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[tmars78]

How about cables out of argentium? 

 

[liamstrain]

silver germanium alloy... should be fine, if expensive since that's mostly made for the fine jewelry market. 
 
edit: it may increase the electrical resistance. Not sure how much...