"the only time i've felt it was treble heavy/bright was when using 100% silver core ic's. not sure why?? as others use silver core ic's with the pwd and have different feeling/results."
Simple explanation: The silver is broken in these IC's.
Everyone ready to learn something? Now for the Technical Explanation:
I have been designing and manufacturing cables since 1996, but not anymore. My brother helped with the technology since he is a metallurgical engineer. I hold several patents on cables.
It turns out that the reason that one IC sounds good has nothing to do with the resistance of the conductors. In fact, some of the best sounding ICs have powdered carbon for the conductors, which has very high resistance. They obviously have their length limits...
The thing that makes or breaks a typical IC is the crystal-lattice in the metal conductors. The more uniform the lattice (less fractures) and the more pure the silver, the better the SQ. Polishing the outer surface is also beneficial. This is why gold and silver are both good choices for ICs. They are both ductile materials, indicating a well-organized crystal lattice. However silver is a lot more finiky than gold. This means that the silver drawing, casting and annealing processes must be correct and tightly controlled, or the silver wire is "broken" from the get-go. Also, the cable fabrication process must also be carefully planned in order not to further damage the crystal lattice and compromise the sound of it. The good news is that even "broken" cables can be somewhat repaired by doing a good slow cryo-treatment process on it. The best possible scenerio for silver is to do all of the conductor fabrication process correcly, then spool it on really large spools, then fabricate the cable with bending it a minimum amount, and finally cryo-treat the whole cable.
Just take a piece of "fine" silver and bend it a few times and you will feel it harden, indicating millions of fractures in the lattice. It should be "dead-soft" to be used in an audio cable.
Most high-volume cable manufacturers do not understand this. Even their silver right off the spool is broken. Usually, its only the knowledgeable boutique hand-fabricators that get this right IME. If you ask the right questions, you should be able to determine if the manufacturer knows what they are doing with silver.
Steve N.
Empirical Audio
