Pure Silver Wire

It’s a good question.  You’re showing 4N silver cable I think, but better silver goes up significantly in cost that'd obviously drive the cost of those cables up a lot.  I have this theory that manufacturers largely use copper cables/interconnects to  voice their products so when consumers use silver cables the increased level of information can become too much and as a result sound a bit bright.  I personally use silver interconnects but Acoustic Zen Satori shotgun bi-wire cables that are copper.  I reviewed Voodoo Ultralinear silver speaker cables in my system 20 years ago and found them to be excellent if a little less robust sounding than my AZ cables, but for someone looking for more detail/air their cables would be a great place to look. 

Cheap silver interconnect and cables are incredibly harsh. Good silver cables require a lot of design work with the kind of wire, geometry and dielectric casing. Maybe there is more to it than that. Silver cables have been both the very worst cables I have heard and the very best. The very best were real Nordost Odin 2... simply stunning... not remotely harsh, detailed and natural... $17K a pair.

Silver is a better conductor which is important when conduction is the only issue.  Now I don't recommend using a poor conductor for interconnects and speaker cables, but conduction (opposite of resistance) isn't the only concern in audio.

Silver is 7% better conductor than copper, so by making the cross section 7% bigger you get the same current carryng capability with copper.

I recently tried some very high quality silver plated copper 8 awg speaker cables, expecting them to be awesome.  they were very harsh...now many people don't realize what harsh it--harsh is when the upper frequencies are much louder than the lows and mids.  So those nice heavy speaker cables are destined to become a nice heavy power cord.

As others have mentioned, silver is often reported to be harsh in analog cables (note this does not apply to digital cables since digital signals are 1s and 0s so lows and highs are transmitted equally.  I highly recommend silver in digital cables). 

Different grain structures of copper seem to give the best performance.  

Jerry

I'll go you even cheaper.  Build your own IC's out of pure silver wires and decide for yourself if silver is worth it.   Here is a source, under $12/foot.

https://partsconnexion.com/connex-cable-bl-ag-interconnect-cable-2-x-23awg/

Clear Day solid silver "Shotgun" speaker cables sold for $500/pr in 8ft lengths, and found a receptive market. Unfortunately, CD owner/designer Paul Laudati passed away in 2019.

@piebaldpython 

Where have you been for the last 20 years? Silver speaker cables are everywhere.

I’m a musical detail freak. Darwin Cable is where I ultimately landed after years of cable upgrades, inchding Odins. Darwin’s have great sound, and the builders provide top tier service. Darwin produces a number of differently priced models. As stated repeatedly, cheap silver is just that. 

I have three or four pairs of inexpensive pure silver cables. I wouldn't describe any of them as bright or harsh.  But, none of them are as good as my Black Cat Silverstar 88 cables. 

@roxy54 

I was suggesting solid core large diameter. Have heard about silver strand speaker wire but it's more like the solid core like you find in house 12/2 electrical wiring style. It's not all that difficult to find someone that draws wire and silver ingot is not that expensive 

I've been building pure silver speaker cables and power cords for years from three-nines soft-annealed round wire or flat wire sourced from Rio Grande.   The key to avoiding stridency is soft-annealing.   A wise manufacturer of 4-nines silver wire once shared with me that 4-nines or higher is largely a marketing gimmick.   

Remember brightness or harshness varies a lot from person to person.  Be tweeters are harsh to some.

One reason this could vary is hearing loss.  As an old guy, my upper frequencies are weak so if something seems harsh to me, all I have to do is take my hearing aids out and voila, no harshness. 

but music sounds much better with my hifi hearing aids in, so I prefer to avoid enhanced upper frequencies and listen with them in.

Jerry

Good cable design has many different elements as mentioned. Just talking about silver vs copper is part of this picture. I’ve recently been using both Zenwave all silver ICs (latest version of the D4) and power cables. These cables use OCC silver which was designed to minimize grain structure in the cable. In speaking with Dave at Zenwave, he has experimented with many different aspects of the cables to get where they are right now.

He does make OCC silver speaker cables and yes, they are expensive. There are definitely price differences in different levels of “pure” silver or copper.

In very general terms, and in fear of stating the obvious:  

1. You do not see more solid silver cables due to cost of materials.  
2. Silver cables tend to sound fast, clear, and thin.  I used a highly regarded by The Absolute Sound solid silver design when running Krell with Apogees in the late 90s to early 00s with good results.  However, when moving on to more transparent electronics and speakers I moved to a more modern design copper which provided warmth and density, while maintaining detail.  
3. Cheap silver cables I have experience with sound etched and harsh.  
   Cheep copper thick and muddy.  
4. There is much more to cable design than conductor material or solid vs multi strand.  The materials and design of the dielectric, heat dissipation technology, conductor crystalline structure, and conductor geometry all play a role in SQ.  

Hi Everyone,

There are many different grades of silver and many different gauges of silver. Pure silver has a shorter molecule distance then pure copper which makes it faster and more accurate in terms of sound quality.

Pure silver is actually smoother sounding and slightly more laid-back sounding then pure copper. The biggest issue is that there are lots of cable manufacturers representing 99% pure silver when the wire actually has a very small percentage of pure silver with an alloy coating over top of the silver. This is creating a cataract type of affect to the cable. This is much worse sounding than pure copper.

I have listened to many cables that were supposed to be pure silver and then had a metallurgy check the cable to find out that it had a very small percentage of silver. Pure silver is indeed the best sounding and the most expensive cable to build. If you're looking for accuracy, inner detail, better sound staging and a more realistic sounding system then IMHO 100% pure silver is your cable.

Robert Neill

I've long found silver/gold combo cables to deliver on all fronts, presently using Zavfino Gold Rush and Mundorf silver/gold cables in my system. Gold tends to just slightly mellow the silver, very unique voicing.

Audio Magic makes some really amazing cables which are not the least bit harsh once they are broken in. I had their top-of-the-line power cable that I tried in my home theater room to power my 4K projector and (wonder of wonders) it improved the picture quality measurably. In the projector wars, there's a lot that is made out of small incremental improvements and here is a cable that makes as much improvement as spending a few thousand more for the next model up. 

Silver 'done right' will improve the perceived transient speed in an audio system as well. 

I've been using DH Labs T-14 speaker cables for several years. I find the sound to be a "subjective improvement" over the 12g copper cables I used before. I'm very satisfied, so no plans to further experiment with speaker cables.

DH Silver Sonic

I use primarily siltech, which are comprise of silver/gold alloy.  Fantastic cables, not at all harsh and bright but very smooth and revealing.

This is actually something I wouldn’t mind trying.

Silver bar is 99.9%+ pure. Sounds pretty high. So much so that I feel there is no degradation due to alloys. Grain structure ok. I do understand that metrology is something have experience with as a manufacturing engineer. A nice annealing will align back the grain structure and allow malleability again by taking out internal stresses.

The elastomer covering is a pretty easy process. The purity is actually makes things a bit tougher as it would have to be handled with care. If things don’t work out I can strip the wires and sell as scrap weight costing me only the wire drawing cost with elastomer. It’s 13oz plus grip (grip is the wasted sections needed to hold the material and work with it through the dies) to make 4pcs of 10ga x 6ft long each

Extra thick PTFE Coating around 8AWG/8 conductor pure Si stranded wire in a hexoganally braided configuration, encapsulated in a N infused silicon casing.

The difference between Si and Cu cables is immediately noticeable and amazing.

I can get expensive but once you hear the difference, you will never go back.

@carsbad2 off topic and I don’t mean to hijack this thread…what hifi hearing aids are you using? My dad needs a set. He’s a musician and is pretty particular about the sound quality. 

@starwarrior.. .  just being nitpicky....  the abreviation for silver is Ag not Si.  Si is silicon.

I also use Siltech gold+silver for interconnects.

If I stay with silver, likely Albedo as the purist high value performing silver.  

@worldwidewholesales stated  "Pure silver has a shorter molecule distance then pure copper which makes it faster and more accurate in terms of sound quality."

This is an incorrect statement. The interatomic distance for copper (Cu) metal is ~ 0.26 nm and the interatomic distance for silver (Ag) metal is ~ 0.29 nm. The lattice constant for a Cu (fcc) lattice is ~ 0.36 nm and the lattice constant for a Ag (fcc) lattice is ~ 0.41 nm. So in the metal, the Cu atoms are actually closer together than Ag atoms. 

@starwarrior stated "Unlike Au wire Si reacts to O2. Si is actually a better conductor than Au however it reacts when it is exposed to O2."

This statement is incorrect, in addition to referring to silver as Si instead of its correct symbol Ag as @jeffbij pointed out previously. Pure silver (Ag) will not readily form silver oxide (Ag2O) under ambient conditions. Under ambient conditions some physisorbed oxygen is typically observed on silver. For dissociative chemisorption of the oxygen to occur requires heating the silver to several hundred degrees C after which Ag2O is observed.

I would like to clarify that silver in it bulk form is not readily reactive with O2 but in its atomic form it is very reactive. For example in silver nanoparticles, a large portion of the silver atoms at the surface of the nanoparticle are not fully coordinated (have atomic-like properties) and are very reactive. This is the reason that silver nanoparticles are widely used as catalysts. It is possible that a poor silver film with a lot of defects at the surface could have silver atoms that are not fully coordinated and could react with O2 under ambient conditions at these defect sites

Silver does react very readily with sulfur containing gases in the atmosphere, like hydrogen sulfide (H2S), to form silver sulfide (Ag2S). The typical tarnish or corrosion observed on pure silver is due primarily to the formation of Ag2S. The presence of water vapor (high humidity) increases the reaction rate. 

Hi

Let me put it another way: the distance between the atoms (not molecules – molecules are a combination of different atoms like H2O) of Copper and Silver.

But the “charge carrier mobility” is higher on silver than on copper.

Silver = 66 cm²/Vs

Copper = 43 cm²/Vs

And this is why silver sounds so different than copper.

Maybe that will help you. Sorry my mistake on the wording.

Best regards Robert Neill

@worldwidewholesales  posted the following:  "the “charge carrier mobility” is higher on silver than on copper. And this is why silver sounds so different than copper.

Yes, the charge carrier mobility has to be greater for silver compared to copper. Silver has a slightly greater conductivity than copper and the charge carrier mobility is directly related to conductivity. A metal’s conductivity is directly proportional to the following:

1. The charge on each carrier. For Ag and Cu the charge is identical because both metals have 1 free electron in their outer shell.
2. The number of carriers per unit volume. In the pure metals, the interatomic distance between Cu atoms is less than the interatomic distance between Ag atoms. In the pure metals, Cu has ~ 8.43 x 10^22 atoms/cm³ and Ag has ~ 5.85 x 10^22 atoms/cm³. Therefore Cu has more charge carriers per unit volume (~1.44 x more) compared to Ag.
3. The mobility of the charge carriers. The greater charge carrier mobility for Ag compared to Cu offsets its lower number of carriers per unit volume compared to Cu to give it a slight increase in conductivity.

The difference in conductivity between Ag and Cu is relatively small (~5%).

Ag conductivity - 6.30×10^7 S/m

Cu conductivity - 5.98×10^7 S/m

Kimber cables knows how to design silver cable. I have their digital cable D60, kcag ic, and 8AG speaker cables.they match well with tube gear. Onother favorite is Audioquest dragon speaker cables , diamond ic. They work well with tube and ss.

Wire is wire. Resistance is all you need to worry about, so save yourself a lot of money and buy some low cost speaker wire of the appropriate gauge.

Not a single person in this thread could discern a difference in a proper test.  

Even when one one single element of something is rated to be better for some reason, it does not equate to an improvement of the result. Arguing copper to silver is a fool's argument in most cases, not all. Same thing when arguing the heat conductivity of copper over stainless in some uses as in the end of the process the heat exchanged is more than sufficient for the required process. Having the proper gauge copper wire is more important than having any silver. The copper is not holding anything back for our purposes. We can take things to the scientific extreme and argue a lot of BS, but none of the scientific extreme applies here. Proper connections, soldering, and shielding are a much greater value.

Only cable maker I know that offers solid pure silver cables is Timbre Audio. 

Wire is wire. Resistance is all you need to worry about, so save yourself a lot of money and buy some low cost speaker wire of the appropriate gauge. Not a single person in this thread could discern a difference in a proper test.

@jaygilb  So, what Bose system do you listen to?  You’d be much better off at ASR as that’s where people go when they can’t hear. 

+1 @soix 

So, you have .999 AG wire that then is soldered to some style of CU connector. The 'high silver' solder has copper and zinc in it. Let's not forget all of your equipment has copper wire and solder of all types inside. SO.....pure AG wire is more of a fun thingy than a purity thingy in the end...just say'n

@carlsbad2 

digital signals are 1s and 0s so lows and highs are transmitted equally

Strictly, digital 1s and 0s are interpreted from analog waveforms approximating square waves.  Picking the leading edge is important from a jitter perspective.  Approximating a square wave requires lots of higher frequencies in the signal, and that's in addition to the high base frequency - 1.4-Mbits per second for two channel CD quality.

@richardbrand while what you say is correct, it doesn't cause silver to preferentially transit one frequency over another.

To the original point... solid silver is expensive and occupie only the top of a cable manufactures line.  My Wireworld Platinum speaker and IC cables are silver and sound wonderful.  The speaker cables are much richer sounding than the Nordost Valhalla 2 copper/silver cables they replaced.  Audioquest's top of the line cables are solid silver and violently expensive but highly regarded for example. 

@coppy777 Well those WW Platinum Eclipse ain’t cheap either! I opted for the less expensive WW Gold Eclipse 8’s and they are really nice.(CONDUCTOR MATERIAL-4N Solid Silver)

Hey fthompson251,

Agreed. The ICs between preamp and amp are actually G.E.8s. I auditioned a pair of Platimums as potential replacements and returned them. Could not hear any difference after a relatively short audition.

Best,

@carlsbad2

while what you say is correct, it doesn't cause silver to preferentially transit one frequency over another

It might change the discussion focus, when debating digital interconnects, from resistivity to the skin effect at megahertz and gigahertz frequencies. 

Of course, the physical topology of a cable also matters.  At low frequencies (speaker cables) two parallel conductors might suffice but at higher frequencies coaxial cables take over until they in turn give way to very thin unshielded twisted pairs.  At higher powers and frequencies, tubes can replace solid rods, and multiple Litz strands can replace thicker wires.

All cable technologies have capacitance and inductance as well as resistance, and these do attenuate frequencies differently!

I wish there was more discussion about the use of aluminium as a conductor ... especially where low mass is beneficial - power transmission wires, speaker coils, moving coil cartridges.