new cable project

[Ianm2]

having gone off the van damme cable, I could do with suggestions for excellent sounding coax type cable for interconnects, please that aren't an arm and a leg?

cheers....

[Rob042]

Yes!

Toppys cable link interconnect - great stuff.

Buy some 75 ohm aerial down lead with the air gaps in. Cut to length, remove then inner copper if you wish ( it could be used as part of the i/c) then thread silver wire of about 0.3mm into the air gaps . then using your own method /ideas wire the fed and returns to plugs and away you go.

{this is non-detailed as I feel Colin should take the credit and is far better at explaining it }

there a commerical i/cs out there that use the same idea -ie using an air gap - and have used the idea to great effect myself.

wire - http://www.wires.co.uk/

The wire will be in the range of tenna , the lead about a fiver!
have started to play using gold platted silver which isnt that much more and will not tarnish :-)

ROB

[Greg.]

Hi Rob,

Yes, credit where credit is due, but I think you'll find Black Stuart advocated this approach ages ago when we were all messing with fine silver wire designs. See the mammoth CVH and TightWAD CVH design threads on the old board.

I don't understand why some people want to use goldplated silver wire. Silver is the better conductor and even if it tarnishes, I believe silver oxide is still better. have you heard an audible benefit? I've noticed a few refer to gold plated wire in the past and have wondered. What do you think?

Best wishes,

Greg

[Rob042]

Greg

on gold platting, to my ears there seems to be a more natural upper mid and treble. A couple of hifi friends have taken metre i/cs of me after using them on their turntables and I have one for digital. Used to use vhd's 1022 hybrid but the gold plated 0.3mm cable is better I feel.
Try the idea either with over sized teflon tube or the aerial lead - the wire isnt too experiment with.
Colin and I where talking about this as the thread was being created and Coiln came up with the idea of using the aerial lead but if Stuart got there first then a nod to him is due.

Rob

[Paul Welsby]

I do think silver is rather bright, but i like that.

The current theory (in some departments anyway) seems to be that the signal travels on the surface of the conductor. Now if this means that the signal in a gold plated silver wire travels on the gold or if it means that due to the higher conductance it travels on the interface between the gold and silver i dont know...

But i think that gold platting a silver wire does look counter intuative if your trying to conduct via silver.

But i dont suppose we care what conducts the signal as long as it sounds better to our ears.

P

[Rob042]

Paul
some reading seem to point to different frequencies travel along different sections of the wire - ie the higher the frequency travel nearer the edge.

I do use silver , just thought I would try it, and quiet like it, as do other. Doesnt cost much to try.

Rob

[buddam]

For the Colin T version, are we talking any cheap old coax? Since the more expensive Maplins stuff (with cu braid and mylar film) is pretty inflexible and puts pressure on connectors.

Adrian

[Global]

There is a good, but somewhat mathematical, discussion of the 'Skin Effect' here

http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~www_pa/...ect/page1.html

It is normally thought that this is only significant at radio frequencies but this article shows, I think, that it may be more significant than previously supposed at audio frequencies but still not enough to matter!

I tend to think from this that the worst you might expect from gold plating is an infinitesimal loss of transmission at the very highest audio frequencies which should be inaudible.

Mark

[Richard]

Re. which wire/metal to use I went for enamelled copper magnet wire in my pre.

Copper is almost the best conductor and the enamel stops it oxidising on the surface. Gold would do the same but if there is a skin effect at higher audio frequencies then those will be attenuated by gold relative to the lower frequencies travelling in the silver below it. All a bit theoretical perhaps.

The following conductivities relative to Copper 100 are interesting,

Aluminum 59
Brass 28
Cadmium 19
Chromium 55
Cobalt 16.3
Constantin 3.24
Copper:
Hard drawn 89.5
Annealed 100
Gold 65
Iron:
Pure 17.7
Cast 2-12
Wrought 11.4
Lead 7
Manganin 3.7
Mercury 1.66
Molybdenum 33.2
Nichrome 1.45
Nickel 12-16
Nickel silver 5.3(18%)
Phosphor bronze 36
Platinum 15
Silver 106
Steel 3-15
Tin 13
Titanium 5
Tungsten 28.9
Zinc 28.2

Rich

[Rob042]

Adrian
I used B and Q stuff - it has a weak braid which was earthed at one end.

Richard
learn something new everyday - didnt know silver was a 'better' conductor than copper,thought they where the same
Am not saying to my ears the use of the gold made a night and day change in sonics, but it is interesting.

Rob