Investigating speaker wire: recommend two that sound obviously different

I’ll leave most of this alone except to say my jaw hit the ground when I compared Audioquest Type 4 bulk speaker wire to my 12 gauge fine strand lamp cord.

But the idea that tarnished silver ends will affect the signal is not true. It measures the exact same as untarnished silver, oddly enough. Copper and other metals do change, but not silver.
 
Well the pants are in and installed. Definitely looking better.
However I don't think this is going to be a cottage industry for me..

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They look nice. How do they sound?
 
But seriously, too many variables. Plus I changed amps. They are 12-gauge silver-plated military-spec OFC though, for people who get all hot and bothered by stuff like that. Aww crap I can see I already mentioned that upthread. Well the fact is I was already listening to the same cables just with different connectors and without the techflex. OMG you would not believe the degree of image specificity these cables are throwing thanks to the techflex. I'd better look and see which forum we're in now. Did I mention these are 12-gauge silver-plated military spec OFC? Oh crap we're in Cutting Edge. Off to read the rules now to see if it's okay to make fun of yourself here.

ETA: Okay, I'm not sure if it's okay or not, but humor appears (sadly) to be out of place here, which means I'm out of place here :(

I'll just report my own post and save everyone the trouble. Fact is, though, I love cables, and I love really nice cables, but partly or largely because of the way they look. OK, I just can't stop stepping in it, can I.
 
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I’ll leave most of this alone except to say my jaw hit the ground when I compared Audioquest Type 4 bulk speaker wire to my 12 gauge fine strand lamp cord.

But the idea that tarnished silver ends will affect the signal is not true. It measures the exact same as untarnished silver, oddly enough. Copper and other metals do change, but not silver.

Back to serious (but still very friendly, I hope): Can you provide any documentation for this? I really want to know about it. I tried reading up a bit but it isn't long before I run up against the limits of my own knowledge of chemistry. (My old chemistry-major roommate was always very frustrated with me.) From what I've read, silver sulphide has the properties of a semiconductor. But I need clarification. Here are some of the readings I've done just now:

Electrical Conductivity of Silver Sulfide
https://aip.scitation.org/doi/abs/10.1063/1.1700165#

Sulfide Corrosion of Silver Contacts during Satellite Storage
www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a196217.pdf

https://books.google.com/books?id=6YLL9197NfMC&pg=PA32&lpg=PA32#v=onepage&q&f=false

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_whiskers

Now, it's also worth mentioning that there are (for me, anyway) two entirely separate issues here: 1) does the existence of sulphide make a difference in the conductivity of silver (and silver-plated) connectors and 2) can these connections be made air-tight if so.

About Issue #2, I believe there are several ways of achieving this. First of all, a good crimping tool can produce a metal-to-metal contact (connection) which is virtually air-tight (and doubtless disrupts any plating at the same time). Secondly, the dual set-screws in the terminations I'm using clearly produce decent crimping, though the surface areas of the contacts are less; Third, solder is its own category, which has been discussed elsewhere on this forum at length (I have few issues with soldered connections except that my own skills could use work) and Fourth, it's possible that sealing the connection (e.g. with electrical tape and/or 'pants' as shown above) will eliminate or at least greatly reduce the amount of air infiltration. This (last) is generally my goal now, in conjunction with crimping.

For sheets & giggles, here is a photo of a seriously-compromised piece of silver from my kitchen along with one which has been well-maintained. Let's all hope that our connections never look like the upper one. It's somewhere beyond 'patinated'...

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But seriously, too many variables. Plus I changed amps. They are 12-gauge silver-plated military-spec OFC though, for people who get all hot and bothered by stuff like that. Aww crap I can see I already mentioned that upthread. Well the fact is I was already listening to the same cables just with different connectors and without the techflex. OMG you would not believe the degree of image specificity these cables are throwing thanks to the techflex. I'd better look and see which forum we're in now. Did I mention these are 12-gauge silver-plated military spec OFC? Oh crap we're in Cutting Edge. Off to read the rules now to see if it's okay to make fun of yourself here.

ETA: Okay, I'm not sure if it's okay or not, but humor appears (sadly) to be out of place here, which means I'm out of place here :(

I'll just report my own post and save everyone the trouble. Fact is, though, I love cables, and I love really nice cables, but partly or largely because of the way they look. OK, I just can't stop stepping in it, can I.
Everybody knows that techflex makes cables sound at least 50 percent better. As far as looks go I just bought some Kimber 8TCs just because they look cool, and I got them pretty cheap. We'll see if they have any magic in them.:crazy:
 
Seriously though. Maybe I'll have a meaningful contribution to the thread after I compare them to my DIY techflex covered, Furutech FP-202G terminated, 10 ga ofc cables I'm using now.(actually have more in those than I paid for the spade terminated Kimbers). Stay tuned for my comparison of counterfeit and genuine article Furutech products. LOL!
 
I could add my counterfeit vs genuine Nakamichi connectors to the mix, except that I think they're all counterfeit.

(Genuine) Furutechs look amazing, and are probably out of my price range.
 
No rule is absolute in audio, but for the most part, I don't care for the sound of plated wires...

Good listening...
 
Back to serious (but still very friendly, I hope): Can you provide any documentation for this? I really want to know about it. I tried reading up a bit but it isn't long before I run up against the limits of my own knowledge of chemistry. (My old chemistry-major roommate was always very frustrated with me.) From what I've read, silver sulphide has the properties of a semiconductor. But I need clarification. Here are some of the readings I've done just now:

Electrical Conductivity of Silver Sulfide
https://aip.scitation.org/doi/abs/10.1063/1.1700165#

Sulfide Corrosion of Silver Contacts during Satellite Storage
www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a196217.pdf

https://books.google.com/books?id=6YLL9197NfMC&pg=PA32&lpg=PA32#v=onepage&q&f=false

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_whiskers

Now, it's also worth mentioning that there are (for me, anyway) two entirely separate issues here: 1) does the existence of sulphide make a difference in the conductivity of silver (and silver-plated) connectors and 2) can these connections be made air-tight if so.

About Issue #2, I believe there are several ways of achieving this. First of all, a good crimping tool can produce a metal-to-metal contact (connection) which is virtually air-tight (and doubtless disrupts any plating at the same time). Secondly, the dual set-screws in the terminations I'm using clearly produce decent crimping, though the surface areas of the contacts are less; Third, solder is its own category, which has been discussed elsewhere on this forum at length (I have few issues with soldered connections except that my own skills could use work) and Fourth, it's possible that sealing the connection (e.g. with electrical tape and/or 'pants' as shown above) will eliminate or at least greatly reduce the amount of air infiltration. This (last) is generally my goal now, in conjunction with crimping.

1) I believe I stand at least partly corrected.

2) I was referring to what I thought was a generally held understanding that silver oxide does not affect the sound like copper oxide does.

3) Silver sulfide may be a different animal, My understanding is that sulfur needs to be present for it to occur on silver. It may be present in hard boiled eggs and mayonnaise.
 
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I expect the differences to be system and user preference dependent, if perceivable to the user.
 
I've been using 10ga ofc with Furutech FP-202G bananas for awhile and have been pretty happy overall.(especially after I got the counterfeit plugs replaced). I recently aquired some used Kimber Kable 8TCs that were terminated with the postmaster spades. I removed the spades and put the Furutech plugs on the Kimbers, and spent some quality time with the stereo today and have to say that I'm very impressed by the improvement afforded by the Kimbers. I was always skeptical abouth the difference in the sound of cables until I experienced it for myself, but now I believe. The difference isn't night and day but it is noticeable.
 
My understanding is that sulfur needs to be present for it to occur on silver. It may be present in hard boiled eggs and mayonnaise.

Just to keep the matter clarified, there's a certain amount of sulphur / sulfur in the ambient air most places. That's the main thing that makes silver tarnish. So when we store silver valuables in sealed or semi-sealed compartments, we include chemical strips whose purpose is to absorb as much sulphur from the air as possible. Thus leaving the silver relatively pristine for longer periods of time, without treatment being necessary. Said treatments being principally chemical (two varieties, one of which actually reverses the deposition) and physical (polishing etc).

We can't really do this with our wires and cables, so the ideal (IMHO) would be to have the terminations sealed and air-tight.

I still say we need a cable forum around here!
 
Parts are almost all here for my Tubelab SE 300b amp.

Did not see a follow-up to your initial post and wondered how you ended up? I don't own an SE amp now and have little experience with them so take this for what it's worth even though long past your initial post. SE amps may be more prone to sound quality changes from speaker cable, especially if it is a long run. Without feedback and nominal damping, resistance-per-foot of the speaker cable stacks up and could be a factor in how they sound. Might even be euphonic but worth considering. IMO if there was any amp you'd most likely note SQ changes via cabling, it would be an SE one.
 
Did not see a follow-up to your initial post and wondered how you ended up? I don't own an SE amp now and have little experience with them so take this for what it's worth even though long past your initial post. SE amps may be more prone to sound quality changes from speaker cable, especially if it is a long run. Without feedback and nominal damping, resistance-per-foot of the speaker cable stacks up and could be a factor in how they sound. Might even be euphonic but worth considering. IMO if there was any amp you'd most likely note SQ changes via cabling, it would be an SE one.
Thanks for checking up - in the middle of troubleshooting the tubelab board, I became way way overwhelmed with my masters education and ended up selling off the unfinished project

I am now running a JE Labs simple 2a3 amp build buy a hobbyist in Michigan in the late 90's (I think). So yes, I am running SET and I'd like to start putting cash away for a bit of Duelund 16ga cabling. I'm using their material for interconnects now and need to go through the trouble of shielding some phono cable.

It's unfortunate, but I'm at a point where I really need to limit my budget and that means I don't think I have the luxury of doing more extensive cabling shootouts like I'd hoped. Need to pay a mortgage, save for future kids, build a buffer account, pay off school bills, all that boring stuff
 
Here's what happens when you don't have the proper pants. I used electrical tape. Amateur Hour.

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But I only used the tape between the big heat shrink on the braid and the little shrinks on the plugs. I needn't have used any--the regular wire insulation would be enough. Not sure what I was thinking. Just didn't want any air to get in and tarnish the silver! I'll post the new, improved one when I do it. Are pants even necessary, he asks.

PS: The braid is the fun part, seriously.

Too funny, I made a set of speaker cables from Western Electric wire for @Redboy last month using that exact braid. I'd not seen this type before I found your post. It was a bitch to use but I liked that it was flat as the cables wind up neatly when finished.

You don't need proper pants but the right kind of heatshrink is critical. Next time try heatshrink that is adhesive lined. It stays put and the wire + braid does not squirm. Also, if you aren't already, use a lighter to seal the braid when you cut it. And, put your heatshrink on the braid before the wire feeds through. Easier to finish that way.

Doing these up nice just comes with practice and you could redo the above quickly. I've been doing braid over electrical cord for custom lighting for a long while and can whip these out in fairly fast. You start figuring out easier ways to feed, slide, repeat the more more you do it. This flat stuff though was tough on the thumbs.

Lastly, don't worry much about the silver tarnishing. That's the whole beauty of silver, the oxidation is conductive. There is some concern with the diode effect but that is more of an issue in an IC where the source signal is small. That isn't the case on speaker cables and if even measurable I really doubt it's audible.
 
Too funny, I made a set of speaker cables from Western Electric wire for @Redboy last month using that exact braid. I'd not seen this type before I found your post. It was a bitch to use but I liked that it was flat as the cables wind up neatly when finished.

You don't need proper pants but the right kind of heatshrink is critical. Next time try heatshrink that is adhesive lined. It stays put and the wire + braid does not squirm. Also, if you aren't already, use a lighter to seal the braid when you cut it. And, put your heatshrink on the braid before the wire feeds through. Easier to finish that way.

Doing these up nice just comes with practice and you could redo the above quickly. I've been doing braid over electrical cord for custom lighting for a long while and can whip these out in fairly fast. You start figuring out easier ways to feed, slide, repeat the more more you do it. This flat stuff though was tough on the thumbs.

Lastly, don't worry much about the silver tarnishing. That's the whole beauty of silver, the oxidation is conductive. There is some concern with the diode effect but that is more of an issue in an IC where the source signal is small. That isn't the case on speaker cables and if even measurable I really doubt it's audible.
This diode effect asymmetric distortion will affect inner detailing and other subtle portions, and can be ruinous in high efficiency/ low power systems.
 
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