Let's talk about Silver...


We got off on a short tangent in another discussion about the merits of silver in cables, but we did not want to derail that conversation. So I thought I would start a general discussion where folks can share their experiences, and opinions of course, with silver cables. This can include solid silver, silver plated or alloys, wire, connectors, analog, digital etc.

The knee jerk reaction in the audio world is to say that silver is bright, and in some cases that may be true, but I think it is not a universal truth. I am currently trialing some solid silver interconnects, and I have had some good success with silver in the digital realm. Please share your experience, and opinions of course.

 

zlone

Showing 1 response by richardbrand

@thelotusgroup 

Silver is 7% more conductive than copper

Well, it helps if you qualify whether this is by volume, by weight or by cost!

The conductivity measured across the opposite faces of a 1-metre cube of metal is roughly silver 63.0; copper 59.6; gold 41.1; aluminium 37.7.  So about 5.7% better conductivity for silver than for copper, when comparing the same volume. Not a lot in it, really.

But the specific gravities are 10.5, 8.95, 19.3 and 2.7 respectively.  The relative conductivities by weight are 6.0, 6.66, 2.13 and 14.0.  So copper is about 10% better at conducting electricity than silver, on a weight for weight basis.  Gold is about a third as good but aluminium is more than twice as good as copper!

So where mass matters, like in the moving coil of a dynamic speaker, or the moving coil of a cartridge, or high voltage transmission lines, aluminium is the metal to go for provided you can terminate it properly!  KEF know this and do it in their high-end speakers.

Now if you take into account the cost of the metal, it gets really interesting (obviously prices fluctuate daily so this is approximate).  If we take gold as the basis, silver offers about 250 times the bang for the buck, copper about 30,000 times, and aluminium a massive 210,000 times the conductivity per buck.  Thats why you never see gold transmission lines ...

You can tinker around with reducing impurities and growing single crystals but until somebody works out how to get superconductivity at room temperature, it really is tinkering with small differences