Cable Asylum: Mr. Strassner's comments on conductor issues, like oxygen in copper. by Tekunda

I really hope that we can keep this thread on a purely technical level and that no one will suggest I breach rules by posting excerpts of a long phone call I had today with Mr. Strassner regarding the purity of conductor material.

I will try to repeat Mr. Strassner's comments on the issues of oxygen free copper and conductor purity as best as I am able to.
In Mr. Strassner's opinion as a scientist, who has worked with all sorts of conductors for most of his live as a scientis, there are other issue much more important for sonic quality then the level of OFC purity and how many zeros the copper purity has behind the comma.
According to him its the amount of so-called Ferro magnetic particles and overlooked many times by cable manufacturers. These Ferro magnetic particles change the direction of their magnetic poles forth and back in harmony with the phase changes of the electric current.
This will cost energy and if energy is lost in a conductor, the sonic signal is degraded. He found out through measurements, that it is devastating for the sonic quality, if a conductor does contain more than 3% of these Ferro magnetic particles. And this parameter is what he does test in his conductors.
He will not buy any copper material, if the wire wholesaler has not had the copper analyzed in regard of the amount of Ferro magnetic particles. His threshold is 3%. If a copper wire has more than that, it will not be used in his wires.
You can easily understand that manufacturers who do not test their wires for these particles, will have different sounding cables in every new batch of cables they produce, since the amount of Ferro magnetic particles differs quite a lot from wire to wire. If this is true what Mr. Starssner tells here, it will have rather big implications for manufacturers testing their cables for oxygen only, but not for Ferro magnetic particles.
That could also explain why some people like a certain brand of cables and some people have a completely different opinion. I only ask, could it be - of course we all know that cables are system dependant to a certain degree - but could it be that the reason why people sometimes make a negative experience with the same brand and level of audiophile cables, that they got a cable, where copper was used unknowingly containing more than the 3% of Ferro magnetic particles, so that the sonic quality of the same brand and product name of the cable, was different, not only because cables are somewhat system dependant, but to a much bigger degree, because the conductor material was inferior in this cable, although coming from the same company.

Mr. Strassner also said that everybody is welcome to discuss these issues with him on the phone.