Silver Speaker Cables

charles1dad

9,210 posts

10-07-2022 at 02:33pm

@whistleraudio

Once you reach a certain degree of silver wire purity is there a discernible audible difference in your opinion? For example 5N compared with 7N. I have a Vogue Audio 7N OCC silver power cable and it’s very good ​​​​​​. But I feel the same with regard to my Lavricables power cables which are 5N silver. I can affirm that both are very high quality excellent products.

Charles

I have tried 7N, because I do not have a reliable source for silver of this purity. Remember that 7N is 100X as pure as 5N. It would also be a pita to handle without contaminating it.

I have tested several wire samples at the Anchor Group in the UK. They specialize in precious metal certification. Some samles supposed to be 5N did not even reach 4N!

I suspect that many cable manufacturers trust that their raw wire suppliers deliver what they are supposed to when it comes to purity. They often do not.

I see that eg. Vogue Audio says "7N OCC silver singular multicore bonded". What does "bonded" mean? Is is silver bonded to copper (i.e silver clad), or is it 7N silver all through?

11AWG per pole of 7N OCC silver would be extremely expensive.

Good catch @whistleraudio

I bought some of Vogue Audio’s speaker cables and after receiving them, I discovered they are actually stranded copper with silver substance filling the voids between the strands of copper. After I contacted them about it, they changed their website description to read: “singular multicore bonded silver” but still with no mention of copper.

I’m not saying their speaker cables won’t sound great in your system. That is for you to decide. But don’t be mislead to believe they are 100% pure silver.

I’m hoping they change their website description again to be more accurate, but they are currently dealing with the aftermath of hurricane Ian.

Interesting @rockrider 

Their website gives the impression of them selling 7N OCC silver wires at very low prices. I believe that several users of this forum have bought the wires assuming they are pure silver. If something looks too good to be true, it is usually not true.

But they may, sound good as you say. ;)

I bought some of Vogue Audio’s speaker cables and after receiving them, I discovered they are actually stranded copper with silver substance filling the voids between the strands of copper. After I contacted them about it, they changed their website description to read: “singular multicore bonded silver” but still with no mention of copper.

I’m not saying their speaker cables won’t sound great in your system. That is for you to decide. But don’t be mislead to believe they are 100% pure silver.

I’m hoping they change their website description again to be more accurate, but they are currently dealing with the aftermath of hurricane Ian.

Wow!! Thanks for reporting your findings, and seriously shame on Vogue Audio, wtf! When I looked at the site a week ago I saw no mention nor indication of the cables containing copper content, other than their listed prices seeming too low to absorb the cost of even raw silver, much less premium OCC wire (or whatever)!

This is buried under the "About" tab on their website.

OCC (Ohno Continuous Cast) is a wire casting process developed to eliminate annealing issues and minimize grain boundaries in silver wire. A silver purity of  7N (99.99999%) results in the lowest distortion of an audio signal. Analogy: Smooth asphalt road compared to a gravel road.

​Our wire is custom manufactured for us. It is an alloy of 7N silver 60% and 40% 5N copper. The silver is bonded to the solid copper cores. This method greatly reduces the cost of OCC filament wire yet retains outstanding audio performance. Note: This is not the typical flash-plated stranded wire that many builders offer today.

​Air-core Teflon tubing is known for superior dielectric properties when compared to PVC and PE cores making it ideal for use as a conduit in high-end audio cables. Minimal signal dissipation and reflection.

However, under FAQ, this is what they write:

"Is the 7N OCC wire that is used pure silver? Seems like a very good price for silver cables."

​Yes. There has been some confusion regarding our wire construction. Our wire is a multicore single conductor with a pure silver bonding. This method offers far better economies than typical OCC filament wire but with similar sonic performance. We have clarified these aspects in the product pages. View the Tech link.

The Tech link takes you to the About page with the actual nitty gritty.