Good cheap silver wire?

I have found four manufacturers of good cheap silver wire. First, silver is THE best conductor, followed closely by copper, and then a good dropoff to gold. One other reason silver will ALWAYS conduct better than copper is that silver oxide is a conductor, copper oxide is not. There is DH Labs, and PureSilverSound, both already mentioned here. PSS looks cool. There is also Red Rose Music, Mark Levinson's new company(believe it or not). Their silver interconnect is $50/foot + $50 for temination(could do it yourself to save more $$$ ?). And here is the best, these guys should be locked up - HomeGrown Audio(they have a website). They sell a copy of Kimber KCAG(using the same grade, 5-9's silver), only better because it's solid core instead of stranded. Also, they have a cheaper cable, their version of Kimber Silver Streak. Prices, are you sitting down? $70/meter, terminated for the better cable. The other is about half of that. You also can buy both of these cables as kits for about half of these prices. You have got to check out their website. I e-mailed the guy(regarding spealer wire), and got a very well thought out response. He explained the difference between his wire and Kimber, and that the speaker cable is about a month away. I can't wait to try. There are reviews on AudioReview.com

Thanks for the feedback. Take care! Steve

Steve, I bought the 6 foot pair from warrengregorie.com and it went together very well. The wire only cost $229.00 for the pair and it is 99.999% pure not 99.99%. The wire was also not 30 awg each conductor. The wire came as one piece of 18 awg, one piece of 20 awg and 0ne piece of 22 awg. This totaled 15 awg. Interlinkhouse wanted $400.00 for the wire and I believe his was only 99.99% and 15 awg. I saved $150.00, but it took me 2 hours to assemble. I do not use any connectors for the end of the wires. I feel every connection added would degrade the sound of the wire. The wire asssembly was easy. I just cut the material fed the wire through the teflon, marked the strands and braided it togther. I have not heard other silver wire so I can not compare, but for 5N silver, design and price. You can't beat it. BTW, I use all Melos tube equipment and I listen to cd only. My speakers are North Creek Rythmn kits that are also a great value.

I needed to add this. I went to the site mentioned (www.warrengregorie.com). Those kits are roughly the same price as Sergui's stuff. Plus it sure sounds like a pain in the butt to thread 8-12 feet of wire through all those teflon connectors. What kind of terminations do they provide? Also did you use silver solder etc? Also what are you driving with them. Currently I run silver speaker wire only to the electrostats of my ML monoliths, but am using a Sergui design OFC cable for the bass boxes. I hope that I don't sound like an advertisment for his cables, I assure you that I have no financial interest in his company. I just have been quite impressed. Remeber cheap doesn't equal good. I would rather find a reasonably priced product that will do what I want as opposed to a cheap product, that would be silver, but does not deliver the benefits of silver. Enjoy! Later, Steve

Dear Mifi3491, Try a pair of Sergui's cross-wrapped silver wires. Not the most economical of his line, but the sound is incredible! My girlfriend even agreed that they are worth the money ( now a compliment like that from a woman who freaks out about some of my stereo purchases is a hell of a complement!) The coolest thing about Sergui, besides his prices, is that he will make whatever you want! Currently he is getting me the hospital grade sockects and silver plated OFC wire for my four new dedicated power lines for my listening room. I have posted the specs for the whole set-up under the chat topic regarding "best power conditioners" here on audiogon.######## I have contacted the references for silver wire mentioned above. Myron Toback ( a nice guy on the phone) is actually a seller of jewelery findings. Findings, for those not in the jewelery business, are products used in the manufacter of jewelery. His wire is only 99.99% (sterling). Also it is only available down to 30 gauge. I have really become a believer in the "skin effect". Sergui's wires are a good bit smaller and they really do ( in my opinion enhance) coherency. I wasn't really sure that the skin effect was real, but when you think about it, electrons do have mass and would be subject to rheologic charactoristics similar to that seen in fluid dynamics. Besides this the wire Myron provides is only 99.99%. Sure the would be cheap to construct as stated above, but by the time you add in the RCA plugs ( WBT on like since soldering this wire to even gold plated Radio Shack RCA's would probably defeat any possible benefit seen). Just having cheap silver wires, doesn't necessarily mean they are good! Get it :)!

I have built these (http://www.warrengregoire.com/hifi-stereo-silvercables.htm)speaker cables a month ago. They work well but are still burning in. I bought the 6 foot cables. I also bought my digital interconnect from Interlinkhouse and like it very much.

Buy your cables from Nemo (Sergui) at interlinkhouse.com. I have been quite impressed. Sometimes he will run auctions on ebay or audiogon. Search these site for either "interconnect" or STEALTH ( his brand name for his cables). The higher priced ones are REALLY worth the difference. Pretty cool guy to talk to about stereo stuff also. He has some good theories of his own that make great sense in you understand the physics behind the whole hifi scene! Later!

If you do not mind building your own do as I did (both 24ga and 30ga), as suggested by Greg Weaver at SoundStage.com: Get 99.99% pure silver wire from Myron Toback, Inc. in NYC (212/398-8300). This wire was un-insulated. Get a spool of PTFE (high grade Teflon) tubing from Allied Electronics (800/433-5700). (This tubing should be of a larger gauge, smaller number, than the wire.) After cutting your wires and tubing clean your wires with Caig ProGold (to de-oxidize, seal, improve conductivity, & lubricate for insertion into tubing). Then carefully insert the wire into the tubing.

The last time I referred to a conductivity chart, I remember copper having higher conductance than silver (this is measured in mhos, the inverse of resistance, which is ohms.) Why not save your $$$ and buy more CD's, which will certainly bring you more listening pleasure than silver cables.

Try www.puresilversound.com I haven't personally tried the cables nor have I ever seen them, however, the owner sent me an e-mail advertising the site. It looks intriguing-- I may just try them myself! If anyone has tried them tell me what you think. My e-mail address is jzzmn88@yahoo.com Thanks!

DH Labs makes silver conductor interconnects, and silver coated copper speaker cable that are absolute steals. Their interconnects are under $100 for 1m pair, and their speaker cable is $4/ft. We use it extensively in many of our demo systems.