Anyone with experience having cables made using Amorphous Metals/Alloys

@williewonka Thank you very much. I appreciate the knowledge share.

Regards,

Audio_phool

@audio_phool - this link confirms the distortion effect of insulation with high Dk

The Impact of Insulation on Wire and Cable Performance (energy5.com)

But I think there is a better article that describes the details - ill keep looking

Cheers

@audio_phool - the basics are

• if you apply a positive voltage/current through a wire, the insulation will adopt a positive charge
• if you then apply a negative voltage through that same wire, the insulation will adopt a negative charge
• but if you apply an AC signal through a wire, the continuous back and forth from +ve to -ve changes the charge in insulation but not at the exact same time as the frequency of the signal
  • the change in the charge held by the insulation lags the AC signal
    • during that time lag the signal will encounter some "resitance" due to the insulation having the opposite polarity
    • this is where the distortion creeps into the signal
    • it is very small, but discernible, even in the most basic system
    • the lower the the Dk of the insulation then the faster the polarity of the insulation will change
      • and a lower level of distortion will be achieved
• ​​​​​​​it tends to be more noticeable in the higher frequencies as opposed to the lower frequncies.

These articles may be of assistance

https://www.psaudio.com/article/cables-time-is-of-the-essence-part-1/

https://www.psaudio.com/article/cables-time-is-of-the-essence-part-2/

https://www.psaudio.com/article/cables-time-is-of-the-essence-part-3/

I think there is another article dealing with this topic only that I will try to find

Regards - Steve

@williewonka Thank you for your response. I am actually intrigued by the mechanism and it's explanation of how dielectric can affect the conductivity. I would like to know about your thoughts on how dielectric induces noise in the signal, a more indepth discussion. Feel free to PM me if you think this is not the appropriate forum to discuss it.

Audio_phool

@audio_phool - RE...

So have you measured the capcitance of same conductor (of same lenght, geometry, width/diameter, thickness) with different dielectric used as insulation material. I thnk thats what is making the audible differences.

Turns out, the Dieletric Constanct (Dk) of the insulation has little to do with the capacitance of the cable. The capacitance of the cable is measured between the signal conductor and the neutal conductor and is governed more by cable geometry, (e.g. number of conductors, space betwen conductors etc...)

• so, the capaciance of the cable can impact sound quality by impacting the magnitude of impacted frequncies within the audble frequency range
  • e.g. more Treble or Middle or Bass
• whereas the Dielectric Constant of the insulation governs how much noise is generated within the cable itself
  • i.e. as the signal alternates from +ve to -ve, the insulation is charged in one direction and then charged in the other direction. The switching to and fro causes noise that imapcts the signal being conveyed and reduces clarity and details
  • so clarity and details can be improved by using an insulation having a lower Dk value

I have measured the capacitance of my interconnect cable with each change in insulation material and there was little to no change in the value of its capacitance.

• certainly not enoungh to impact treble and bass response
• But the improvement in clarity and details was easy to discern as the value of DK of the insulation was reduced

Hope that makes sense? - Yep, I also had to research this aspect of cable design because I initially thought the Dk of the insulation on a wire would impact cable capacitance, but my measurements did not support those thoughts.

Regards - Steve

@srinisr saw those listings...too much of money for me to try amorphous metal. Maybe someone else with deeper pocket can snag it.

Strange coincidence but a pair of stealth audio indra's just showed up in the classifieds!

5K for a 5m RCA interconnect pair. The same seller is also selling a pair of Sakra interconnects - 5K for a 1.75 m. The Sakra's are Stealth Audio's top of the line cable.

@bugredmachine thanks for your reply. It's good to see your response kind of validating my hunt for Amorphous metal. So did you sell the Indra now that you have balanced pre? I know these kind of cables are crazy expensive, something which I will never spend my money on.

Audio_phool

What is attractive to engineers is finding technology being used to "solve" the cable dilemma. I used single ended, but could not find used XLR, cables 3 years ago and they added some serious soundstage and clarity to the sound. Vastly different system then but I still have the imprint of how nice even the single ended sounded in my system while trying to kill my background noise since I did not have balanced preamp then.

I felt like the Indras were pure as the driven snow and added nothing and took away nothing. But stupid expensive.

@williewonka I am glad that you are also intrigued by Amorphous metal as I am and hence the hunt. You have made an intersting point about Dielectric Constant of different materials. Since Dielectric constant for a material is the ratio of capcitance of the material to capacitance of the vaccum. Since Capacitance of the vaccum is a constant which means higher the diaelectric constant, higher the value of the capacitance of the material. So have you measured the capcitance of same conductor (of same lenght, geometry, width/diameter, thickness) with different dielectric used as insulation material. I thnk thats what is making the audible differences.

@bugredmachine Thanks pointing out the Stealth Audio. If you have (considerable) experience with it then I would like you to elaborate it. It would be better if you can provide any comparisons as well. I checked their website & looks like they use amorphous metal only in their analog interconnects. But price seems to be prohibitve to me.

Audio_phool

Stealth Indra's are amorphous metal. Fantastic cables.

@audio_phool - did some reading on the amorphous metals and I am intrigued, but from what I understand, this could potentially open up a pandora’s box - it should be fun trying to figure it all out 😃

At this moment in time I have no sources for this type of conductor, but will keep it in mnd going forward.

From what I have read, they tend to be used in experinabtal or highly advacncd engineering and are yet to be used in something as mundane as wire. However, there is some articles on using them for transmission cables to mitigate tranmissions overheads, so it souls come sooner than later

But do keep an eye on Neotech cables - they seem to be ahead of the curve on metalurgy.

And thanks for providing all the info - much appreciated - Steve

@ghdprentice - yep you got it - from my web site

Dielectric Constant - what is it?
During previous developments, it was quite noticeable that selecting wires that had an insulation with a low Dielectric Constant (Dk) for the signal or live wires only resulted in improved sound quality

Dielectric Constant (Dk)…

• Dielectric constant, property of electrical insulating material (which is a dielectric) equal to the ratio of the capacitance of a capacitor filled with the given material to the capacitance of an identical capacitor in a vacuum without the dielectric material.

• PVC: Dk = 4.0
• Teflon: Dk = 2.2
• Foamed Teflon (AirLok): Dk = 1.45
• Cotton or Silk: Dk = 1.3
• Air: DK = 1.1

So what does this mean in reality

• the lower the Dk, then the noise that is generated by the signal passing through the wire is lower.
• I have compared teflon to Foamed teflon and foamed teflon to cotton and in each case the wire with the lower Dk valuse outperformed the other wire
• One of the reasons Duelund is loved by audiophiles is that the cotten insulation provides for a very detailed signal

My challenge with the Helix IMAGE DIY cables, was to get the Dk value as close to Air as possible...

• my cables use solid wire conductors
• if you put a bare solid wire inside an oversize teflon tube then the wire will only come in contact with the teflon at a single point and the rest of the wire is surounded by air
• I use a tube that has an internal diameter approximately 25-30% larger than the diameter of the wire
• the tube does not collapse around the wire - hence maintaining the air gap around most of the surface area of the wire
• I seal the end of the tube with hot glue or heat shrink to minimize the amount of tarnishing - so far after two years the wires are still very bright

And so the Helix IMAGE Air came into being!

You can apply this technique to any cable geometry and it will provide excellent clarity and details.

Hope that helps - Steve

@williewonka 

Steve, thanks for sharing your journey on making cables. It nicely points out how many permutations there are in searching for the “right stuff”. Early on in my career I was asked to develop a electro mechanical system which required a dielectric of uncertain properties. After struggling with theory for a few days, I just went out and bought every brand and type I could find and started trying them. From that I learned some generalities. Same kind of thing you are doing. I assume you have done similar research in insulation. 

@srinisr No I haven't tried those distributors but I will surely check with them, thyanks for that. But I doubt if it's (Amorphous Copper/Silver) not already avaibale, then they will make just 10 meters or so for me.

Audio_phool

OP have you tried Neotech? Taiwanese company with distributors in California, Canada and the UK.

Neotech

@williewonka Thank you for your response. Looks like you have pretty deep experience with DIYing cables. I agree with you regarding UPOCC cables & hence even I use UPOCC copper cable for speaker cable.

I would like to know how & from where did you manage to procure UPOCC Copper or silver cables for your exoeriments? I find it very difficult, some times even next to impossible to procure cables that I want. Recently I wanted to procure flat foil UPOCC Copper or Silver...I was not able to find anyone who could provide me what I wanted. Hence any help on procuring cables or conductors is much appreciated.

Regarding the point that you mentioned about finding UPOCC better sounding than rest of the conducors (ignoring the geometry & talking purely from conductor perspective). Thats quite understandable as UPOCC has very less amount of crystal copared to OFC version or even standard metal version. But UPOCC is the patented method so finding it easily and economically is going to be a challenge.

Amorphous metal (or alloys) are actually a step ahead. They are made using a method called as Melt Spinning (there are other methods as well) wherein the molten alloy is cooled very rapidly so that atoms don't have any time to form any crystal structure. Hence these are also called as metal glasses. Now since they don't have any crystal structure at all and they are very tightly placed without any (or minimal) interatomic space compared regular crystalised metal, it's going to be even better than UPOCC because of the said reasons. Hence I am looking for amorphous Copper or silver. Let me know if you know any manufacturer who can provide me what I am looking for.

Regards,

Audio_phool

@audio_phool - I’ve been making my own geometry cables for almost 10 years. in that time I have tried dozens of wire types/manufacturuers.

In that time I have become aware of the many factors that govern cable performance...

• Conductivity of metals - which translates to speed of propoergation of the signal
  • this coverns the dynamic performance of the metal or alloy being used
    • The best I have used to date is UP-OCC solid silver, followed by UP-OCC solid copper
  • But it also impacts the accuracy of the signal being passed down a cable,
    • this impacts clarity and details and ultimatley Image
  • Standard Copper has a conductivity rating of 1.0
  • OFC copper is a little better at 1.1
  • Solid silcer is around 1.3
  • UP-OCC copper is around 1.5
  • UP-OCC silver is around 1.7
• alloying Standard Copper with another metal having a lower conductivity rating will result in a conductivity rating less than 1.0
• alloying copper with another metal having a higher conductivity rating higher than the copper being used will result in a value somewhere between the two
  • however, mixing metals cause distortions due to the different speed of propergation of the two metals being used
  • e.g. I have found that using silver plated solid copper wire caused the clarity to be reduced, i.e. compared to a similar cable made using either pure copper only or pure silver only

Having said that, Duelund tinned copper is prefered by many because of its smooth tones, But when compared to a cables that uses UP-OCC wire, I found the duelund wire lacked the dynamic performance of the UP-OCC cables - but that is my preference

I also tried Mundorf Pure Silver and found it tp be less dynaic than UP-OCC copper

What became apparent during my various experiments was that using pure silver or copper resulted in a significantly better reproduction of the overal image, which I believe is due to the accuracy of the signal being conveyed by the left and right channels.

My Cables

• For interconncts I use Solid UP-OCC silver for the signal conductors and solid UP-OCC copper for the neutral
• For speaker cables I use solid UP-OCC cupper for the signal wires and silver palted stranded copper wire for the neutral
• For source power cables I use solid UP-OCC silver for the live and silver plated stranded mil-spec for the neutral wire and plain copper from Home Depot for the ground wire
  • I tried using UP-OCC copper for the neutral, but the cables sounded too analytical for my liking
• For amplifier power cables I use solid UP-OCC copper for the live and silver plated mil-spec for the neutral wires and plain copper from Home Depot for the ground wire
  • this has more to do with lowering costs than cable quality

Having said all of that - this hobby is all about personal preference, so I encourage you to experiment to find your own nirvana

There are many cables out there that use various alloys, so there appears to be a market out there

Take a look at this link for my cable approach

• My Audio Alchemy (image99.net)

Good luck with your quest.

Regards - Steve

@carlsbad2 Theoretically speaking OCC is better for electrical conductivity than normal/OFC copper/silver because of lesser crystals present. Amorphous metal takes this to next step and has no crystal structure at all hence amorphous, but having no crystal will act as perfect single crystal because of lack of crystal boundries. Hence I am interested in Amorphous Copper/Silver.

Now I am not looking for any alloys as I know these alloys have lesser conductivity than Copper/Silver. But if you can get Graphene or some Carbon Nanotubes which are better than Silver in conductivity then it's a different thing. But these things are supre expensive to begin with. Hence asking for just Amorphous Copper/Silver sheets.

Any experience using these type of amorphous metal cables is also welcome.

Regards,

Audio_phool

People will try anything. I’ve even seen interconnects made of carbon dust (like spark plug wires) with very high resistance.

But I feel I should point out that any copper/silver alloy will always have a higher resistance than either pure copper or pure silver. (that is why we look for very pure copper). Sterling silver conductivity is generally about 5% below copper. (Pure silver is 7% above copper).

All that said, Mundorf markets a Cu/Ag/Au allow wire which they claim they have "experimentally" determined to be superior for audio use. I put "experimentally" in quotes because I believe the results were not measured, but judged. I have used this wire in amps and interconnects and was happy with it. However, I didn’t make identical wiring from OCC or Silver to compare.

Jerry