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Silver Wire

Has anyone here ever changed out their speaker's internal wiring to silver? Either solid-core or braided? I'm aware that some high-end cables use silver, and some people even do preamp wiring in silver. 

I'm working on a speaker project and I was wondering if there are any benefits in doing the wiring in silver, maybe even building the crossover with it. Depending on the gauge, it could add up to $70 to the cost, not insignificant, but rather minor considering the total cost. 

From what I gather, the bass won't be affected much. but there could be significant improvements in the midrange and treble. 

Any ideas? Comments?
dragunski
hazyj
90 posts
 
First, you need to know how to remove solder and resolder well enough to proceed.

I won't answer your question directly, because mine will be just another opinion. I will say you can't disregard the quality of the wire you're replacing. You want to be very careful not to replace wire with worse electrical properties than what you replace (e.g. resistance, capacitance and inductance). I'd strongly suggest you measure each wire you remove for all these properties and not replace them with anything that has worse values of these properties. What is worse? That might be a separate thread. We'll see.
hazyj
90 posts
 
dragu- I realize I misread your question a bit, but maybe i lucked out by still answering a related question. sorry.  i'll revise a bit ...

If I was doing what you're doing, i wouldn't care if it's copper or silver. I'd go with the wire that has the best of the electrical properties mentioned above. That would include the quality of the soldering. Also, if it was me i'd try to keep the gauge the same or bigger (if not too cumbersome) and if possible go with a wire geometry that might lower inductance significantly while keeping capacitance within reason.
dragunski OP
113 posts
 
I expect to have to learn to solder at higher temperatures. And to use heat sinking near heat-sensitive components on the crossover.

I'd expect the silver wire to have less resistance than the copper, but measuring first is not a bad idea.  
213runnin
914 posts
 
Some speaker manufacturers use silver wire in their speakers, such as Tannoy, which also uses silver plated copper wire.
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