They should be the same materials …ergo all-copper for both.
I clicked on your pic … 23 € for 3 m length pair? Everything is built to its pricepoint = Quality build cables would add a zero to the price.
my take:
- I dunno what they are actually made of at that suggested dodgy build and low price-point.
- You have already explained that one appears to be a mismatched ‘mystery metal” and not copper, that already suggests a poor and cheaply built must-to-avoid IMO. That “silver” finish is not silver at that price-point = likely the cheapest tin they could find.( …Cu Speaker cables with a legit Ag coating = do your own research on their sonic signature strengths and warts.
- hence they appear to be anything BUT copper at that lowly price-point , and no way IMO they are audiophile-grade OCC copper.
Suggest you move on .
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No, I am not buying it, it just caught my attention and so I asked. I think I have seen this kind of pairing elsewhere.
thanks.
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Electrical wire/cable is most always coded in a way to identify polarity. Sometimes its color, printing, or a ridge on the sheath. I think that is all there is to it.
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Positive and ground are really the same thing. It's just a convention which is positive or negative. A circuit goes in both directions in each of the two wires. Therefore both should be electrically the same. Anything else is BS.,
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Electrical conductors sometimes use copper for the hot leg and aluminum for the neutral and / or ground . This is true when they pull raw wire through conduit and when they put terminals on receptacles. The aluminum is cheaper, has a higher melting point, and the task is considered less critical to the purity of the voltage. Often amps have a 4ohm tap, an 8ohm tap, and a common tap. The common tap is ground. Same idea. Not saying I agree with it, just offering this as a matter of explanation.
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I wouldn’t use it, but It’s probably copper Red and Aluminum black. It’s cheap and helps when plugging things in. Like everyone else, I used lamp cord a hundred years ago and one side was smooth and the other had a line or lines on it. Sort of the same idea.
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Chinese don't have anything OCC it's just a scam.
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Better quality cable is identical wire quality, only the connectors are red and black. This ensures that you match the polarity of both channels.
This gives you the best bass response.
That's all.
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Marketing tactics meant to fool the gullible.
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Short answer: I don't know.
However DIY enthusiasts on this forum experimented quite a bit with different materials in Helix builds and do use better quality (bare silver or Ohno Cu wire in teflon tube) for one and stranded Ohno Cu for the other. I've been experimenting with these and they are a real improvement, although I didn't try different alternatives within the design.
Bottom line: I would not discard it makes a difference until I hear them, despite not understanding why this is so (I'm an engineer BTW, so quite familiar with the basics of alternating current).
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@lewinskih01 I know cables do make the system sound different, subtly sometimes but it is there. The strangest thing is that it does not even need to be in the high-end expensive equipment, but rather how certain modules react to it. It is from my experimenting also. But good cable is a good cable always, this goes without saying it.
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Just make your own speakers cables there are plenty of formulas to try. BTW most manufactures use Mogami wire anyway.
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Shocked that nobody here knows the answer. Lots of wrong answers. Aluminium is my favorite one.
Lamp cord and bulk cheap speaker cable have been marked this way for decades. It is sold as copper wire. The silver colored one is usually made into the negative since copper seems to be reddish. The silver colored one is Sn coated.
Nobody has ever bragged that this is superior in my experience. it is generally less espensive to just just one red wire and one white wire then it is to mark the insulation. I know when I was young I learned quicly to make sure the wires were coded in some way so you didn't have to get out a meter to figure out which wire was which. Some really cheap wire wasn't marked.
Jerry
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@zazouswing
I would like to see evidence that some contractor actually did that. It is true that over the years there have been different theories AND LAWS regarding what they use for conductor in wiring, but I have never heard of any contractor or Licenses electrician mixing it up like you suggest. I’m not sure it would even meet code.
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Because most of us do not buy cheap China cable. 😉
Shocked that nobody here knows the answer. Lots of wrong answers. Aluminum is my favorite one.
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From reading the Amazon description, both conductors a pure copper. The insulation on the negative appears to be white, the positive looks like it has clear insulation.
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Aluminium is my favorite one.
Really? Aluminum for speaker cables? 🤦♂️
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More audiophile nonsense
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I remember decades ago buying spools of speaker cable at Radio Shack . One leg had a silver look. Strictly to identify + and - . Don't think it's any more than that.
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@ron_hartman .. but marking the cable, instead of marking the cover is a strange way of identifying it, would not you think? And I wonder if this indeed is a copper, and not something else as the substitute. Nevermind the lamp cord, but this is the cable for the entirely different application altogether.
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