Highly Polished wire????

Thanks again, Dan and Craig. I can think of no one on this site more knowledgeable than Garfish.

As far as wire purity goes, I have to admit that I also find myself falling into the trap of being drawn into a product which offered 6 - 9s (99.9999%) purity over one that did not. One thing that I will raise at this point is, are we really sure we are buying wire that is actually that pure?

I am sure that the wire manufacturers will jump right up, and come at me hot and heavy, but I recall a small wire manufacturer throwing down the gauntlet. He challenged any company advertising their wire's purity to be over 99.99% or 99.999%(I apologize for not remembering which one) to prove it. I don't know what carrot he dangled, but I don't think anyone stepped up to the plate.

His assertion was that a scientist let him know that the analysis(X Ray Diffraction or EDAX[also X Ray) used could do no better than the figure he was claiming. While I have run these types of tests(as well as ICP, flame spectroscopy, SEM, TEM), I am surely not an expert. I will say that I might side with this opinion. This type of equipment is not as hallowed as the real world thinks it is.

What I mean is that there are a lot of curious results that come out of them. We always joked about it. As an aside, one of our biggest laughs ever was at the expense of our useless PHD Analytical Chemist. He ran the Analytical Department, we only ran tests here and there. But, we were under the same director, and attended the same bi - weekly status meeting.

Anyway, one day he presented his results of his analysis on the cermet pencils(we mark substrates with them, as they don't burn out in even a 980 degree C furnace - but will above 1100 C). The X Ray Analysis said that the cermet pencil markings were 55% rhodium. Rhodium was the most expensive of the 8 precious metals at the time, probably still is. The pencils were $0.50. Well, we all fell off our chairs with laughter. However, this guy's pride and blind faith in his equipment was way over the top. He refused to back off this assertion.

Of course, being the joker I am, I proposed that we shut down as a company, order as many cermet pencils we could afford, and go into the precious metal reclamation business. A $0.50 investment would probably yield maybe an ounce of rhodium. At $7000/ounce at the time, we thought we could live off of that. Even the company's owner got involved, asked me to draw up a proposal. Guess you had to be there...

The point I am taking far too long to make is that like amps that feature 0.005% distortion, things sometimes look a lot better on paper.

If anyone is that interested in buying this ultra high purity wire, while we will get hosed, we don't have to get killed. AudioQuest FP-6, used in cables such as Midnight speaker cable used this kind of wire. They advertised something like 99.99997% pure, or is that FPC?(which was even higher). They claim their newer stuff is even much better, due to the Perfect Surface Copper. Just buy some Midnight(it's 10 gauge - and quite reasonable these days), and you should have all the wire you need to do a lot of jobs

I don't know... I use AQ Midnight on my woofers, and to be honest, I find the Coincident CST 1.0 I use to my mids/tweeters to be very much superior. Especially, when I switch them. Even my father, the ultimate electrician/technician/EE cynic had to admit that the two wires sounded different.

From personal experience, products from Audio Note are as good as things get. But, we are forced to judge them with our ears rather than our eyes. Kondo - san doesn't make things for gearheads, unless they like to brag about the 75 pounds of silver in an amplifier's transformers. If 4 - 9s purity is good enough for him, it's definitely good enough for me.

My thanks to him for the Audio Note solid silver RCA plugs I have. Fantastic.

Dan,

Thanks for the kind words. By the way, if you are interested in investigating the company where I once worked, check out their website:

http://www.electroscience.com/index.html

I was in R & D, and developed many products over the years, which I take a lot of pride in the fact that they are listed on the site as current products. My favorite part of the field was designing conductors and resistors. Some of our customers were Vishay, Dale, CTS, Sprague, Ohmite, NTK, Bosch - suppliers to the high end industry.

While most of the things I dealt with were precious metals, I am not a jeweler, so my ideas about polishing wire may be way off base. However, as I did quite a lot of wirebonding(you know, the hairlike connections in a microchip from the actual chip to the leads) and microwelding. So, I got to buy a lot of aluminum, silver, gold, and platinum wire. Which is probably the reason why I am so virulently opposed to expensive audio cables. Believe me, even when we pay $100/m for a silver interconnect we are absolutely being taken to the cleaners. If I told you how much I could put together a set of gold interconnects for, we would all be crying.

As I am not a jeweler, I come from a different perspective as to how suitable a material is for the purpose of polishing a wire for high end audio applications. I will say that the composition of jeweler's rouge should be ascertained so as to be able to best remove its residue from the wire.

Obviously, there is a danger in "fixing something that isn't broken". By that I mean that if a wire is in good condition from the get go, one could muck things up by going about this business. I would say there would be something to act as a carrier in the composition, such as a polymer and solvent vehicle(be they both natural or synthetic). Once those ingredients are known, I would be able to recommend how to remove whatever residue is left.

In terms of abrasives, zirconia(zirconium oxide), tungsten carbide, or alumina(aluminum oxide) would all seem fine. What is a surprise to most people is that metals are pretty soft, especially in comparison to ceramics(oxides, carbides, nitrides, etc.) But, in order to obtain the type of polish you would be after, one would have to cascade the grit of abrasive. Progressively moving to finer and finer grits. I know from metal and furniture polishing that 400 and 600 grits leave a very smooth finish. 600 grit would be better.

But, is sanding wire a good thing? I think the starting point of the wire is the most important factor. If one were to buy very high grade silver or copper, and its surface appeared good, leave it alone. Maybe just treat it chemically(acetone, xylene, a glycol ether acetate, etc.) to remove any organic matter which had accumulated via handling.

Finally, perhaps Kondo - san from Audio Note knows best. He developed a way to draw the silver wire through the diamond dies during the wire's manufacture which in his view sounds best. To him, like many people's view of the initial audio signal, things must be perfect from their inception, once lost, it can never be regained.

GOOD LUCK!

Good points, Sol322

Bwhite and Dan, I thank you profusely for your research.

It's no wonder that it was Silver Audio was the company I was referring to, without referring to them. They are one of my favorite audio cable manufacturers, and I now remember reading this discourse in a past visit to their website.

So there, a no BS statement on wire purity. From a genuine guy, Max. I agree, certifying purity of better than 4 - 9s is either a company who is misinformed, or just following along with others touting 6 - 9s to keep up with the Joneses.

It seems as if Audio Note and Silver Audio are both in agreement in their assertion that drawing the wire is the critical step. I would still be sure to use a suitable organic solvent, to ensure removal of any contaminants along the lines of oil from ones fingers, the machinery, or the like.

If I can toot the horn of a manufacturer, I must say that in my experience and opinion, Silver Audio's cables are as fine as I have encountered. I have personally come across their Silver Bullet and Hyacinth interconnects, and recommend both to anyone who is interested in finding out what really good silver cables sound like. Liquid, detailed, natural. I would love to pick up their Symphony speaker cables, but a power amp is a bigger need for me right now.

As a former chemist/material scientist, I have done a lot of work with metals and electricity. From whatever has not been forgotten by me, I can say that polishing metals does change a component's electrical properties. This is easily seen via resistivity/conductivity. We often burnished our contacts(a pencil eraser or fiberglass brush can work well), and the differences were certainly measurable.

The way two materials mate together is a very esoteric thing. The overriding goal is to achieve what is referred to as an "ohmic contact". That is techobabble for saying that the two materials marry well. No two disimilar materials ever marry as well as the same material to itself.

Silver was always far better in making connections than gold, and silver alloys(platinum/silver or palladium/silver) were better than silver as time goes by. In fact, 45% silver/55% palladium has been used for about 80 years when it comes to REALLY critical connections(military, not audio). This alloy is able to very nearly achieve a TCR(temperature coefficient of resistance) of zero. Which means that when put through mil - spec testing, in this case measuring resistance over a range of -55C to +125C, the resistance almost does not change. And, that holds true over time/use/fatigue.

As far as how all of my useless experience translates to audio, that is a bit more complicated.

I will say that AudioQuest sure markets the importance of the surface quality of a conductor. But, I feel that the sonics of their cables are no more or less superior to anyone elses. They have always maintained that the music rides along a wire's surface, hence its importance. Theoretically, if that is true, doing away with the impurities(such as oxides and sulfides) on a wires surface would pay real dividends.

However, many a cable manufacturer asserts that what their cable offers is the key to good sound. Whatever that technology may be. Also, if Nordost's technique is being held up as the only way to produce a good sounding cable, then I certainly cannot buy into any of this argument.

While copper and silver do combine well(check out a phase diagram), the real reason copper wire is plated with silver is to make it last longer; economics. The long term effects of silver(or any material) coming in contact with another material is in question.

For example, current flow will cause silver to strongly migrate through soda lime glass. Think this is not a real world example? Well, many high end resistors(Vishay, Holco, etc.) are cermet(ceramic - metallic) in composition, using glass as their bonding mechanism. That glass can be made of anything, as electronic glasses are infinite in number. Hopefully, it isn't soda lime glass, but as it is dirt cheap, it is prevalent. The industry can show SEM(scanning electron micrograph) after SEM of silver migration through a conductor/resistor it is joined to.

From an audio perspective, I have heard Ray Kimber worry about the long term effects of silver plated copper. It was a degradation question, from what I remember. Both he and AudioQuest have always disparaged silver plated copper as sounding horrible; bright, irritating, splashy. Although, now I think AQ is selling a silver plated conductor. I guess whatever sells...

Personally, I believe that better sound can sometimes come about by using the same material from a cable's stem to stern. I have heard cables with silver plugs, solder, and wire, and the sound was quite special. Natural, smooth, grainless. Not that this is a do or die statement. There is no such thing in audio, or wire. And, I think, that is my real overall point.