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Sansui Loudspeaker Cables

H

his047

New Member
Many years ago (in the 1970s) I worked as a help for the Danish agent for Sansui. During that time, I heard for the first time about Audiophile cables: Sansui sold (Gold-?) loudspeaker cables at the ridiculously high price (for the 1970s ands my budget as a starving student) of around £100 for a set of 2 x 3metres.

Do any of you have any information about thses cables?
 
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I was young and happy as the apple boughs were green....
I may have misunderstood: but Gold certainly were a part of the mix....
 
Gold plating on the connectors reduces corrosion effects, but gold WIRE? No reason for that, horribly expensive for less conductivity than copper by a decent margin.

Note that the chart above lists gold as #3 in conductivity.....

Copper wire tinned with ordinary solder is quite good for corrosion protection, which is why tinning the ends of speaker wire is a good idea. Corrosion at the contact point will do all sorts of bad things to the sound coming out of the speaker. Tinning the ends prevents corrosion and the possibility of stray strands shorting things out, too.
 
moefuzz said:
Even though AU has 140% better electrical conductivity than 24k Gold,
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You've mixed up the chemical symbols. Au=Gold,Ag=Silver,Cu=Copper and that's why it doesn't make sense and the reason for the back and forth. Silver actually does not oxidize very easily. It reacts faster to sulfur. The famous black tarnish is silver sulfide, which coats the bulk mass with a thin layer that insulates it from further reaction. Silver sulfide has some peculiar properties but it conducts electricity worst than untarnished silver.

BTW: The 'skin effect' does not apply to audio frequencies. It relates to data communication cables in frequencies that are magnitudes higher than 20Khz. Every time there's a cable discussion - someone brings in the 'skin effect' which is totally irrelevant in the context.
 
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My understanding is that things requiring surface to surface contact are gold plated because although not the best conductor, gold does not tarnish - so conductivity remains largely constant over time. Whereas silver, copper and so on DO tarnish/corrode/oxidise and this will cause problems in electrical and electronics use where surface to surface contact is required. Welded or soldered connections used with these materials is a different matter.
Other constraints to the use of these materials is related to their physical properties and most of all cost.

I'd like to have a set of solid Rhodium speaker cables, but the WAF on these is non-existent. :rolleyes:
 
I haven't seen the cables but it doesn't surprise me. A lot of the manufacturers had the accessories but for me as a kid, the shops only had Monster Cable or some other popular brands. I'm big into collecting the accessories, with boomboxes and Walkmans they offered a ton of cool stuff like tiny mixers, mics and extra speakers. With component equipment, it's usually more matching components and not as many of the other pieces you need for your system, I did recently score a Vintage Sansui Clock and Lighter and they are both plated in gold so who knows? Marantz used to advertise as "The Gold Standard" in the late 70's, I wonder if that kept Sansui Gold Cables out of the USA Market?
 
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This was for sale in Australia but it doesn't look seventies to me.
IMG_3077.JPG.1f12b031a10fe48dd3a7c1dda91f1d4b.JPG
 
RCA Plugger: I recently picked up some seventies Monster Cable (with a nice pair of AudioStatic ES300s attached) It looked a lot like the cable you pictured, so perhaps your cable IS the Sansui cable I hear about.
BoneYard: that cable looks like it is rather unexciting: I also think it looks a little corroded or like there has been chemical reaction between sleeve and copper.
HPMGuy: Niels Larsen, the bloke behind DACT and a number of designs for Primare (the 928, no less, among them) used to sell a series of cables in Denmark. These were made out of Silver and Gold mixed together. These cables were very expensive but also very well regarded in Denmark. Ortofon also use a gold/silver mixture in some of their SPU cartridges.

But I am still intrigued about the Sansui cables, which, as I said, were my first encounter with high-end cables. I would just like to know more about them...
 
Hyperion said:
I'd like to have a set of solid Rhodium speaker cables, but the WAF on these is non-existent. :rolleyes:
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Tromatic said:
I wonder how much a set of those would go for.
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The Price of Rhodium varies from around 50% more than Gold, to 10 times that of Gold.

Today:-
Rhodium Price per Ounce $25,850.00
Rhodium Price per Gram $831.10
Rhodium Price per Kilo $831,096.80

I'll let you work out what a useful length set of speaker cables would cost. :rolleyes:
 
I just found Bluesky's thread as well (thanks Bone Yard for the reference to SC 1525 which lead me there): it answers all my questions. Now I just have to find some of those cables!
 
Hyperion said:
The Price of Rhodium varies from around 50% more than Gold, to 10 times that of Gold.
Today:-
Rhodium Price per Ounce $25,850.00
Rhodium Price per Gram $831.10
Rhodium Price per Kilo $831,096.80

I'll let you work out what a useful length set of speaker cables would cost. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

I'm holding out for the gold-plated rhodium wire with solid silver RCA's. Go big.
 
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