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Silver Cable Question

I've been playing around with the idea of buying some cheap silver interconnects. There are so many companies advertising their products to be competitive with cables that are exponentially more expensive.

Some of these audio bargains are Bear Labs, Homegrown, Norh, Lat International, and a few that I can't recall at the moment.

Now, I have a query and a quagmire. For the people who have experience with any of these silver cables, do they make you feel dumb for spending hundreds more on your old yet inferior cables?

Also, I picked up some Mapleshade interconnects 6 months ago, and they would have sounded great if not for some shielding problems that cause hum in my system. How are the shielding on these cables? They don't look very well insulated.

Etane
viggen
audiotomb's avatar
audiotomb
1,112 posts
 
I tried silver audio Hyacynths and they were too bright (bleached out) but very very revealing in my system. Then again maybe it's my AR LS2 preamp. I went with Harmonic Tech Pro Silway II's, natural sounding.
sdcampbell
2,136 posts
 
I have 1 pair of HomeGrown's Silver Lace, 5 pairs of their Super Silvers, and 2 pair of their Silver Solution (office system), and I have been very pleased with all of them. Based on my experience in my own system, I don't think the Silver Lace offers enough improvement over the Super Silver to merit the extra cost. If you want to save some money, and have decent soldering skills, get the Super Silver kit for $60 and try a pair. I don't think there is ANY cable on the market at $60/pr that comes close to the Super Silver.
duat
6 posts
 
My first use of silver was DH Labs Silver Sonic, home made with rat-shack rca's. About $25 a three ft. pair, probably the biggest bang for buck that there is. Analysis Plus Copper Ovals were slightly smoother at $170/pair used. I would like to try Pure Silver Sound. http://puresilversound.bizland.com/
From what I've read, good silver cables just reveal what is there.
viggen OP
838 posts
 
Have any of you guys compared these silver cables with a Coincident CST interconnect? I did some digging, and one reviewer said the silver lace and the cst are almost head to head, one being slighly warmer than the other, in comparison.
jallen
502 posts
 
A few things to consider regarding silver is that not all cables claiming to be silver really are. There are some companies claiming to be silver and they are just silver coated copper. Pure silver 99.999 % silver is very expensive. If you can get a 1M pair for under 100.00 buy it now. Some of this silver raw costs about 10-20.00$ per foot. This is uninsulated or RCA's. A good observation is tht ARC doesn't work well with silver. I concur with this as is also recommended by ARC. ARC does well with their own litz cable (copper). Silver is great if it complements your system. It can go over the edge and peel paint off the walls. Try before you buy. Jeff
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