Silver v Copper wire phono cable

@jw944ts , I have not owned either arm although I did consider the 2G for a while. In the end I preferred the design of the Schroder CB. Asking what a piece of equipment sounds like without really knowing that person well is dangerous. You really can't make anything out of it. We can talk about design aspects and what works better. Tonearms are not supposed to sound like anything. It's job is to hold the cartridge in rigidly in position and allow movement only it two directions. It is the cartridge that "sounds." 

@dover , It is attraction not repulsion with that are sort of like the Schroder Reference arm but, you are right it is not a solid connection and it will have a resonance point. 

It is useless to talk about they way things sound. There is way too much variation involved for a multitude of reasons. 

From a purely design perspective the 2G is a better are. I am not saying the 3P is a bad arm but it does violate several aspects of tonearm design including the one Dover just mentioned. 

@jw944ts , My first Porsche was a 944 turbo. What a car.

The Oracle is very much a descendent of the AR XA as is my Sota. You are right 9 inch arms only. But there is one issue you have to be really careful with. Arms with VTA towers weight more and Reeds may weight more than your suspension can take. You have to look for that spec or call Oracle to check and compare with the arm's total weight including the cartridge. Get back to me with that data and we can discuss it. I have always seen that table with SMEs installed and the SME is a much lighter arm than either Reed.

There is nothing "bad" about silver plated copper wires, speaker cable or interconnects....QED has made many of their cables in this fashion, and many have won awards. A good example would be QED silver anniversary xt.....some here have no idea what they are speaking of....also, Ortofon uses silver plated copper in some of there higher end cartridges, the 2m bronze and black. Two highly regarded cartridges. 

@dover , thx for that info…”should be more accurate”….not quite as important as sounds better

@mijostyn thx for that detailed explanation

Actually the most significant difference between the Reed 2G and 3P is that the horizontal motion bearings use a sapphire cup and needle point in the 2G, but in the 3P the horizontal motion bottom bearing uses magnetic repulsion. This allows for azimuth on the fly.

That means the 2G is mechanically grounded, whereas the 3P is not - its held up by magnetic repulsion.

Some folk report that the 3P sounds more natural (softer), but in my view the 2G

should be more accurate.

@jw944ts , Lets start with the Reed 3P. This is a brilliant design. It not only gives you adjustable VTA on the fly but also adjustable Azimuth on the fly and I think it is the only arm ever to do this. These would be cool features to have but unfortunately they had to sacrifice some basic design issues to do it. It seems if you want to come up with something "different" you have to violate design principles that have been known for decades. For a long time most arms were based on the SME 3009 and for a reason. It was the first arm that was distinctly headed in the right direction. It has issues but it was "the" pivoted arm to have for a very long time.  OK, back to the 3P. That thing at the back that looks like an egg we shall call the bearing housing. I/2 way down the egg to the front of the arm is a ledge. Below the ledge the egg is twice as thick. just above that ledge you see a tab that comes off the arm with what looks like a vertical screw. That is a needle bearing and you can see a hardened cup in the ledge. That is the female side of the bearing. There is an identical bearing on the other side of the arm. Together these form the vertical bearing of the arm. It's level with the horizontal axis of the arm. Now in your head imagine a line that connects the center of the cartridge to the center of mass of the counterweight just below it's midpoint. The vertical bearing is far above that line. This is a stable balance arm. If you balance it so that it floats perfectly horizontal and you were to lift it up an inch and let go, it will oscillate up and down and finally come to rest back at horizontal. As the tonearm goes up the tracking force increases until the arm changes direction. As the arm goes down tracking force decreases until the arm changes direction. If you think about it this is a really bad deal for tracking records that are not perfectly flat. This is the arm that gets launched as it hits a warp big enough. The best way around this is vacuum clamping. A neutral balanced arm tracks better warps and all. The other problem with a bearing geometry like this is the problem of warp wow. As the tonearm rises over a warp the groove velocity increases as the effective length of the tonearm decreases relative to the plane of the record. As the tonearm travels down the warp it lengthens again slowing the speed down. As the vertical bearing rises above the record this worsens increasing " warp wow"  The best you can ask for is bearings that are in the plane of the record minimising the problem. So, by virtue of it's design the 3P is going to have more difficulty following warped records and more  warp wow than designs that do not sacrifice this for trick things like adjustable Azimuth on the fly. 

Now lets go to the 2G. The 2G's bearing housing is quite different. Again it has two needle bearings for the vertical bearing. The female cups are under the housing mounted on a horizontal platform behind the tonearm rest platform. Just about at the level of the record. If you draw a line through the middle of the cartridge to the center of mass of the counterbalance this line will transect the vertical bearing. This is a neutral balance arm. If you balance it horizontal then pick it up 1 inch and let it go it just stays there. VTF does not change with elevation.

No bouncing up and down, no changing VTF. This is an arm that is much better over warps. It has superior tracking and less warp wow.  It does not have adjustable azimuth on the fly. The vast majority of us set it and forget it. We may do it once every 5 years when switching to a new cartridge. Some people are switching cartridges every other side. They love this and removable head shells but they give up ultimate performance for that flexibility. Both arms will work on the SME. 

If you were to AB both arms on SMEs with the same cartridge I seriously doubt any of us could hear a difference. On a less than flat record some of us might be able to hear a difference on certain types of material. 

When I choose equipment I am after the ultimate performance. To sacrifice basic principles the benefit has to be great and IMHO adjustable azimuth on the fly is not worth it. 

Happy Thanksgiving! 

cool; when my ancestors emmigrated from Eastern Europe in the late 1800s-early 1900s, quite a few settled in Mexico City....Im not sure if any still remain there, though...regardless, thanks again for your help!

@jw944ts  : No, I live in México city and born in this country not in USA and for us today is not a holiday day.

R.

Thx for your kind help @rauliruegas 

enjoy your holiday(presuming you are in the US)

j

Dear @jw944ts : Very good no problem with the 9.5". EL effective length.

R.

Thx @rauliruegas ; my table requires 9.5”….not sure what EL means?

Dear @jw944ts  : P3 is an excellent tonearm and you can´t go wrong with and silver wired. The 10.5" could be the best option for EL..

R.

@mijostyn I thank you....the AR was the first turntable I ever owned, the video is interesting...as I am no engineer, looking at photos does not hep me understand function...I owned an early Oracle for several decades, and now own the newest version; they clearly used some of the AR engineering ideas....BUT when it comes to arms, I am pretty much in the dark....have you owned and/or auditioned these two models I have interest in?  If not, has anyone?

Mijostyn, do you now or have you ever owned a Reed tonearm?

Oldhv, was only joking but I genuinely have not liked silver plated wire. I’ve never seen “copper clad” wire in any guise. You make a good point about cartridge coils, and in the case of ZYX cartridges that can be purchased with either silver or copper windings, the copper is generally preferred.

@jw944ts , Sure. It would help if you print a good picture of both arms before you continue. It would also help if you watched this first. If you go to the Reed site if you click on the pictures you will blow ups which show the bearing assemblies nicely. It would also help if you watch this excellent primer on tonearm and turntable design.

@mijostyn ​​​​@rauliruegas …thank you for your thoughts….you both sound more knowledgeable than I regarding the Reed arms.  The 3P is not the one with the laser contraption, so I do not imagine it is massively larger than the 2G….may I ask  you to expand on your thoughts about the bearing difference?  Is this thought of yours based on experience with the different arms or simply theoretical?  Further thoughts from you would be greatly appreciated!

thanks and happy holiday

j

@rauliruegas , that is a bit different but, I get your point.

@jw944ts , The 3P is the glamourous arm but the 2G is a better design. It has a much better bearing topology. The problem for you is going to be the weight. Your suspension can only take so much mass back there. With the VTA gauge it might be too heavy. You best check the specs of your turntable carefully before you jump. I would call Oracle and make sure they are compatible. 

Dear @mijostyn  : No, it's not that his systemrequires silvertonearm wire. What I'm trying to say is that his system is a good quality one and if he decided for silver the system improvement will be higher than with cooper wire and the 3P tonearm is a good choice too.

R.

REED 3P remains my first choice

@rauliruegas , what about his system requires silver tonearm wire?

Anybody interested in what tonearm the OP is getting?

@jw944ts , What are you getting? Hopefully good solid bearings this time? If so the tonearm will make much more of a difference than the wire. The one you have is....problematic to say the least. A Kuzma 4 Point nine would be nice or a Reed 2G if the Oracle can take the weight. A Schroder CB would be perrrrfect. I use one a Sota. An SME if you can get one.

I’d rather listen to a silver or copper plated turd than to silver plated copper.

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

I met a few like that, of course it was always impatience that proved copper clad is just fine.. I've never heard one out of the box that sounded good, BUT I make a better one by far than I could EVER afford.. My 200.00 DIY will match a LOT of very expensive phono cables.. Good copper is hard to beat too. Copper and silver wire in a nice combo too. Silver on the + and copper on the --.

Considering most Carts are wound with copper. There is silver too. BUT most is copper.. Nickel silver and white gold is pretty popular too..

Regards

@jw944ts 

+1 for Silver - it provides better dynamic performance and improved details and as a result the image becomes more lifelike and with more precision placement of artists. Also the micro details they convey bring out more of the venue acoustics (i.e. echoes and reverberations)

The one piece silver harness on my Audiomods tone arm provided a significant improvement

If you can get them to attach Absolute Harmony RCA plugs then go for it - they are amazing with the silver wire

Regards - Steve

I’d rather listen to a silver or copper plated turd than to silver plated copper.

Of course it can. You can plate anything even people.. The French did it at in the late 1800 to early 1900s. You can electroplate a turd. Probably sound better than some cables.. Just sayin'

I use OCC copper with silver mill spec clad. It just takes a 1000 years to break in.

So we are clear it's no easy task to break in silver anything in a phono stage. There is a reason a lot of phono stages are voiced with copper. 1000 hours just to sound good. The signal going through a complete phono stage, beginning to end is the lowest of all. It takes a long time to break in.. plane and simple. Don't believe it.. Who cares, your wrong.. 50 years tinkering with phonographs.. Some thing you just learn from others who have done it 60 years before you or me..

It pays huge dividends to condition yourself or send it to someone that does just that break in phono cables. Tonearm wire to the RCAs and ground wire used.. Balanced if you look at the circuit on a tone arm..

Why a ground wire on a phono RCA cable, TOO?  Balanced maybe.. Just something I read somewhere.. :-)

Regards

For reasons I cannot cite, I don’t think silver can be plated w copper. In any case, I get the joke.

What about copper plated silver?🤣

Either way, litz wiring is a plus. I don't care for working with it though.

+1 for Erik.

Silver or copper but not silver-plated copper, please.

@tablejockey +1 for sure!

yes/no, bad/good, maybe/definitely

audio forums...a place to increase doubt

I like silver all the way. Much better definition and attack. At least silver plated copper minimum. 

I find Silver better in general, but copper isn't bad.  What is bad:  Silver plated copper.

Electrons are very choosy . 

Silver will be more tingly.  Copper will be warmer sounding. 

Dear @jw944ts  : With out doubt you must go for the silver . The ones that could tell you other thing has not the kind of room/system you own. 

Regards and enjoy the MUSIC NOT DISTORTIONS,

R.