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In Reply to: RE: Interesting Factoid posted by gusser on September 3, 2012 at 15:15:35:
> > Since you are a new poster in this subject I have to ask my pet question.Actually I have been a public figure in audio (writer/editor/critic) for decades. I used to have enough sense to stay out of forum dialogues like this one, mainly to conserve my time, but my resolve sometimes weakens.
I am quite guilty of spearheading a few trends "forum scientists" don't like but trick wire is not one of them.
Personally. I am not really a wire guy. I have zip cord in my system at the moment that is so cheap it does not even have a tracer on one conductor. I have to whip out my Fluke to determine which ends are which and mark it with red and black tape. It could be from the dollar store.
I know wire matters but sometime I just don't really care--for my own stuff. For audio shows and manufacturing, I would not use the dollar store wire.
Actually, for audio shows we use rubber covered industrial 10 gauge that would be perfect for a floor polisher. This is with Western Electric horns...it is traditional to forego audiophile wire with these kinds of speakers because we don't need it. A lot of WE experts claim tin plated copper is the way to go.
I also HATE the idea of needing silver wire to be state of the art, but I respond by not really caring if my system is state of the art or not, even though I know silver here and there can help.
I actually have some excellent Audio Note silver litz speaker cable and did not use it when I boxed up a pair of precious Altec 756Bs last week. Instead, I used shielded silver plated teflon insulated 22ga with the shield and center conductor connected. Surplus aircraft wire.
Why? Can't really say. Guess I don't care. The stuff I used looks like nice wire.
I have been in audio a long time. I know what is good but I am beyond audio nervosa as regards my own setup.
---------------------There are in fact other fields where wire comes into play.
OFC and linear crystal wires were developed by the power transmission industry in Japan. They were looking at cumulative effects over very long runs.
Silver wire and silver plating has been used for many decades in RF, with the primary scientific consideration being resistance in the cross sectional volume of the wire in which frequency-dependent "skin effect" narrowing of the conduction path occurs.
The first silver wire I ever tried in the 1980s came from a guy at GE. I am sure they were meant for some kind of mil gear, probably tank coils, but I am not sure.
I think that if you search scientific journals for studies of conduction in mono and linear crystal wire, you will find some. I'm just an anthropologist, don't read this sort of stuff.
I mentioned a Korean researcher who is doing precisely this kind of work. He showed me a video of an ingot of monocrystal being formed from a pool of molten silver in a special atmosphere. The formed crystals are 5 x 2" diameter or so. He cuts it into wire by cutting slices with a plasma cutter then slicing an expanding spiral out from the center.
I have no idea what his findings are on electrical properties but the Korean government is paying for the work in a high tech incubator project, so he must have had a good plausible story.
The dialogue on wire in audio has mainly been on subjective effects and I think this is the proper concern of audiophiles. It really doesn't matter why it works, if it works. I call this "knowing that" vs. "knowing how" and for audio that is enough to make practical use of the knowledge.
Admittedly, we--or at least I--cannot provide the scientific data people want to support the sonic experience claims in wire, caps, and other areas. My favorite resistors for audio are still AB hot molded carbons (except perhaps in the first stage of a MC preamp) and I fully understand the ways in which these are lousy resistors.
Around the forums, what passes for science is to beat Dennis Fraker or whoever on the head and demand peer-reviewed journal article proof. This is a diminution of the role of the scientist.
What a real scientist should do is listen, try to control for prejudices and listen closely. If a difference is noted, then since they are scientists, go figure out what the heck is going on in the empirical realm.
Instead we get shouts of "IMPOSSIBLE!""Not worth my time to even try!" "PROVE IT!"
Theory quite often lags practice. Empirical experiments, and I consider careful listening to be such, may point up gaps in our understanding.
If you are waiting for a bunch of hobbyist audio nerds to come up with valid scientific proof, you will have a long wait.
Incidentally, most of the silver wire we use (and most manufacturers use) is in fact drawn to order. I don't know of any off-the-shelf sources outside of wire made for the jewelry industry and I don't know how pure that is. No, it is not cheap to do.
Cardas owns a wire company and he will draw silver now...many manufacturers are buying wire from him. Many of the major wire companies will do silver or whatever you want, IF the order is big enough.
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Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must remain silent -- Wittgenstein
Free your mind and your ass will follow -- Parliament/Funkadelic
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Follow Ups
- RE: Interesting Factoid - Joe Roberts 09/3/1217:24:23 09/3/12 (7)
- Skin effect! - gusser 11:35:32 09/4/12 (1)
- RE: Skin effect! - Joe Roberts 12:24:02 09/4/12 (0)
- RE: Interesting Factoid - cpotl 17:50:34 09/3/12 (4)
- RE: Interesting Factoid - Joe Roberts 18:27:56 09/3/12 (3)
- Addendum - Joe Roberts 18:50:47 09/3/12 (2)
- RE: Addendum - cpotl 19:34:31 09/3/12 (1)
- RE: Addendum - Stephen R 05:33:11 09/4/12 (0)
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