[eightbitpotion]

So I've been doing research on silver cables (diy projects)...but it seems like there are ONLY two options for phono tips out there - Nickel and Gold plated... gold is a pretty good conductor, but silver and copper are a much better conductor. Silver and copper tarnish easily, however, gold does not...which I suppose makes it the best choice.

My questions? Has anyone ever tried making copper or silver (mainly copper) phono connectors? I know they tarnish, but audiophiles such as us would be more than happy to keep them clean...right? My second question- can one FULLY benefit from a pure silver cable if they're limited by a nickel or gold tip? O_o

I'm really new to this cable thing...and that was probably a stupid question, but I felt as though it was something worth asking.

 

[squid]

Quote:

Originally Posted by eightbitpotion /img/forum/go_quote.gif My second question- can one FULLY benefit from a pure silver cable if they're limited by a nickel or gold tip? O_o

The whole benefit of a silver cable is in our audiophile heads

Gold-plating a connector of a silver cable will bring up its resistance by some billionths of Ohms, thats the only difference. Its more of a question if you like gold-plated connectors looks.

 

[eightbitpotion]

You pay a lot for silver cables, and with good reason. It's not just billionths of ohms....it's the principle. If it's just a placebo logic...then a copper cable will STILL be bottle-necked by the gold contacts. Here's some info on the conductivity of these four metals.

Silver- 630.5 1/mohm-cm
Copper- 595.8 1/mohm-cm
Gold- 446.4 1/mohm-cm
Nickel- 146.199 1/mohm-cm

I'm not trying to put down gold in anyway...I know few live by it, but I'm asking why? Spending the money for silver...or the budget of copper...and being held back by gold or nickel? Of course I never claimed that the gold or nickel will hold you back...

I guess I'm just confused

 

[MrMajestic2]

LOK and WBT both make silver RCA connectors. Probably others, but these are the only ones that spring to mind.

 

[eightbitpotion]

Quote:

Originally Posted by MrMajestic2 /img/forum/go_quote.gif LOK and WBT both make silver RCA connectors. Probably others, but these are the only ones that spring to mind.

I've ran across these today....very awesome cables...grade-A. But, they claim one of three things.... that they're silver-plated ...again, you can't plate a rock and call it a great conductor (unless the rock is made of silver); Rhodium-silver alloy....(conductivity of 221.729 1/mohm-cm); and lastly Palladium-silver alloy... (conductivity of 94.8 1/mohm-cm).

These are all trying to sale something as if you're getting a conduction from pure silver (they bold silver and underline the pure)....

I'm not trying to put down gold or nickel at all...I'm just wanting to know if ANYONE has ever seen pure solid copper or silver connectors to put on their solid silver cables....if so I want to buy them, and if not ...I need to figure out a way around it o_O. Sorry everyone, I'm not trying to go crazy.... I'm just looking for products.

 

[ericj]

You can also get rhodium-plated, but frankly i think rhodium plating for a connector is beyond silly. It's not even a good idea, and the reality is that you can't get a good solder joint to it without fairly specialized solder. Or alternately extremely generalized solder - like indium solder.

You can solder damn near any solid object to any other solid object with indium. It just costs a sickening amount of money, and ruins your iron.

The only reason to use rhodium is, it's pretty and it doesn't wear off. So much so that most of the "white gold" jewelry you can buy is just rhodium plated.

 

[MrMajestic2]

Quote:

Originally Posted by eightbitpotion /img/forum/go_quote.gif I've ran across these today....very awesome cables...grade-A. But, they claim one of three things.... that they're silver-plated ...again, you can't plate a rock and call it a great conductor (unless the rock is made of silver); Rhodium-silver alloy....(conductivity of 221.729 1/mohm-cm); and lastly Palladium-silver alloy... (conductivity of 94.8 1/mohm-cm). These are all trying to sale something as if you're getting a conduction from pure silver (they bold silver and underline the pure).... I'm not trying to put down gold or nickel at all...I'm just wanting to know if ANYONE has ever seen pure solid copper or silver connectors to put on their solid silver cables....if so I want to buy them, and if not ...I need to figure out a way around it o_O. Sorry everyone, I'm not trying to go crazy.... I'm just looking for products.

The LOK center contact pin is solid silver I think.

 

[eightbitpotion]

Quote:

Originally Posted by MrMajestic2 /img/forum/go_quote.gif The LOK center contact pin is solid silver I think.

"Features a center contact pin machined from hard drawn 4-nines solid silver rod. Its beautifully machined connector body is first plated with solid silver and then replated using high purity rhodium. Count on this premium locking barrel design to provide a secure connection in any system."

Words from them.... I'm actually willing to call this statement out... solid silver plated? O_o Not to mention, it DOES have a solid silver center pin....which is actually along the lines of what I'm looking for, but from my understanding, RCA connectors have the male-pin which is the hot signal, and the outer-ring which is the ground. If this is the case, it's a flawed product resulting in ultimate bottle-neck with the poorly conductive rhodium plated rings on the ground.

I don't know much about RCA cables though...phonos are what I'm looking for. If i'm wrong about the RCAs though....then surely there'd be a phono out there that's similar. :-\

Excluding RCA...and phonos...are there bananas coppered?

Edit: I found some silver-plated copper and copper bananas at AudioQuest....

 

[amb]

Worrying about some sub-fraction of an ohm of resistance in a RCA plug (for interconnect use) is just silly -- the source output impedance is probably hundreds if not kilos of ohms, and the amplifier input is usually a volume pot tens of Kohms in resistance, plus an input buffer resistor another hundreds or kilos of ohms. The signal being transferred is of such low currents that there is practically no loss.

Speaker connectors, on the other hand, is a different matter because of the high currents (many amperes), and even a fraction of an ohm could cause significant power loss. Here, large contact area is a good thing (banana plugs, etc.).

Do the math. It's only Ohm's Law, plus P = I²R.

All that matters is the connector fits securely (but not so tight as to wear down the contact plating), and the contact does not corrode or tarnish easily. The rest is just plain "audio jewelry", nice to look at and gives you bragging rights, but does nothing for the actual signal.

 

[Soymilk]

silver plated copper vs solid silver: a property of conductors is that the majority of the charge will be at the surface, therefore most of the current "flows" at the surface. having solid silver won't give a worthwhile difference compared to silver plated copper. feel free to do it if you'd like, but that's the reason why most things are spc, not just silver.

for the jacks, ya gold is used cuz it will never tarnish or rust or anything like that. and it looks pretty.

 

[eightbitpotion]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Soymilk /img/forum/go_quote.gif silver plated copper vs solid silver: a property of conductors is that the majority of the charge will be at the surface, therefore most of the current "flows" at the surface. having solid silver won't give a worthwhile difference compared to silver plated copper. feel free to do it if you'd like, but that's the reason why most things are spc, not just silver. for the jacks, ya gold is used cuz it will never tarnish or rust or anything like that. and it looks pretty.

I agree with this statement...the surface area is the majority of conductivity...however, it would only be ideal if there was a non-conductive filling... right? It just seems like too much of a conduction wouldn't be good if it's being bottlenecked....

In the end...I agree with the minute changes that would happen if it were a pure connection... :-\ I guess I'm getting too audio-snobby for my wallet's own good

. Thanks everyone for your comments...I got a lot of ideas out of it.

 

[AudioCats]

the safest way is do a test, using various connectors/plugs. Try a blind test and if your equipments (gear + ears) can not tell a difference, then anything is as good as anything else.

I know cable material/insulation/geometry can make huge differences (material actually has the least effect, and dielectric the most), but I am not sure if I can tell the difference between just different connector coating. I won't say they don't, just haven't had a chance to do a thorough/fair enough test to figure it out.

There is alot more than ohms law that is involved in this IC stuff. Most are not just Voodoo.

 

[Dave_M]

It's one thing to claim you can hear the difference between different cables because of different dielectrics, geometry, etc (things that can make a difference). But when it comes to the conductor material, could anyone really hear a difference between copper and silver conductors? I doubt it very much. It seems absurd to worry about it when the signal is just about to be put through resistors and PCBs with copper tracks.

Silver interconnects exist because there are people that will pay for them. People who are prepared to pay even more get cables with complex braiding up to some crazy 9 AWG or something for speaker wires (they must be super conductors, right?

)


RCAs are a bad design (using coax for audio signals, what where they thinking?). Eichmann bullets are the only RCAs that are designed well. But they are expensive and fragile so I wouldn't buy any if i were you. They are patented as well, so I don't think we will see any cheaper clones.

Save your money now and aim for a balanced XLR system. That way you can avoid all this rubbish with overpriced RCAs. I still think copper is better than silver for audio, all things considered.

 

[eightbitpotion]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dave_M /img/forum/go_quote.gif It's one thing to claim you can hear the difference between different cables because of different dielectrics, geometry, etc (things that can make a difference). But when it comes to the conductor material, could anyone really hear a difference between copper and silver conductors? I doubt it very much. It seems absurd to worry about it when the signal is just about to be put through resistors and PCBs with copper tracks. Silver interconnects exist because there are people that will pay for them. People who are prepared to pay even more get cables with complex braiding up to some crazy 9 AWG or something for speaker wires (they must be super conductors, right? ) RCAs are a bad design (using coax for audio signals, what where they thinking?). Eichmann bullets are the only RCAs that are designed well. But they are expensive and fragile so I wouldn't buy any if i were you. They are patented as well, so I don't think we will see any cheaper clones. Save your money now and aim for a balanced XLR system. That way you can avoid all this rubbish with overpriced RCAs. I still think copper is better than silver for audio, all things considered.

I wasn't really comparing silver and copper...I understand that copper is the best you'll get as long as there's copper tracked PCB....but gold isn't as good of a conductor as copper...that's what I was wondering about...as far as bottlenecking. Silver would still benefit over copper in a cable because conductivity will make it keep a stronger signal over copper...or nickel...or aluminum... It all makes more sense now, but I'd still like to do a blind test later on when I get around to it.

 

[Daroid]

You said you were wondering why gold and nickel weren't good conductors?
Well, you perfectly right - they aren't.
They are just used because they are noble metals, so they don't corrode or have any oxidation. Gold is a soft, expensive material and is thus only used in thin layers. This keeps price and impedance low. Nickel is much tougher, but oxidates, but only very slowly. It is also much cheaper than gold.

So using these materials to seal copper or brass is a very good idea