Silver wire mod

[OldiesButGoodies]

JimP loaned me a pair of interconnects he modified with silver wire piggibacked to the negative side of the signal (outer) and I was impressed by the improvement,  so today I modded my fav Harmonic Tech cables with 24 gauge solid core super soft 99.99% silver wire  (not that expensive on ebay - I think I paid $25 for a 25' spool).  I used yellow heat shrink (3mm) as a jacket and silver solder to match.  Everything improves,  but bass/midrange seem to get an extra boost with this particular cable.  Will continue experimenting.   Pepe.

IMG_2054 by Jose Sifontes, on Flickr

[MacGeek]

Pepe-that is interesting to me.  There is usually more wire used for the shield than the positive and your experiment suggests even more helps.  I wonder if it's the silver or simply more wire that helps

The HVAC pros recommend the return vents in a forced air system be larger in cross section than the supply.  Might there be a correlation?

[OldiesButGoodies]

I started trying to unravel the math on this;  it can great very complicated quickly.  The resistance side is easy.  The capacitance and inductive reactance of introducing a new wire on only one side made of a material that has significantly different magnetic characteristics (with different skin effect behavios as well because of size/gage) and is more conductive make it very tough to figure out what is really going on.  But the effect is very pleasant to my ears.   According to JimP,  who has way more patience than I do,  he tested doing dual runs of silver as well but it did not sound as good (and is twice as expensive). 

I think your theory could be true - adding a piggyback solid core small gage copper could change the sound in a good way as well. More experiments needed.

I also have several expensive cables that have always sounded too bright to me that I would like to test with a silver piggyback wire and see what happens.  Pepe.

[Jim Pittsburgh]

Yep,  I tested every combination of one, two, three and even four runs of silver on a pair of the newest  Monster M1000 RCA cables. The idea germinated/ started when I made contact with a guy that makes/ sells silver wire RCAs and will let you demo them. As weird as it sounds (pun intended) his RCAs seemed to actually change the timber of the music to the point that it sounded like pieces were missing or it was moved up an octave.  Discussion ensued and I ended up buying silver and trying to modify my own.... 

Spent a decent amount of time playing music and listening to each of the different combinations for over a week or so.  (much to the chagrin of my wife) The single silver to the negative was clearly better than any other combo. Two silver on the neg did not produce any sonic differences that I could hear. The most runs that I had on my RCAs at any point in time was a total of four; two to the positive and two to the negative.... and that combo was a PITA to solder and sounded like crap lol 

I''m using a nylon wire cover. Would really like to find a way to shield the silver..... Open to suggestions.  I'm using the single neg silver runs on the RCAs for my turntable ( phono pre to receiver) and from the dbx CD player.

Jim

[ataudio]

Would really like to find a way to shield the silver.....

Teflon plumbers tape.  I forgot the brand but there is one mfg selling a thicker/premium version.
Try wrapping the silver wire and see what happens.

[schwarcw]

Jim, did you try using copper wire as well as silver?  The negative open drain is used by many cable manufacturers. 

Try using aluminum foil to shield the silver drain wire.

[OldiesButGoodies]

As an side,  8 months ago I did not believe in the value of expensive interconnects. I mocked audio reviewers that claimed cables as having "a sound of their own".    To me, the expensive cables looked cool,  that is it.  These series of experiments in my setup has changed my mind.  The sound can change dramatically for the better AND for the worse with different interconnects.

[Jim Pittsburgh]

Your not the first friend that accused me of being a bad influence!  lol   

[RnR]

Good to hear Pepe -- I have been wanting to demo some good cables between my amp/pre to see if there is a positive improvement.  Now I have some reassurance

[Anders]

You know I use to sell audio equipment and cables and I never sold anything that was not an improvement.
Cables can make or break a good audio system.
One cable I used to generally recommend was Cardas 300B.

[scorpio333]

Bringing a nearly 4 yr old back up...wondering if you guys who have tried this are still using them or moved on to something else.

I recently upgraded my generic speaker wire for Sewell Silverbacks. Nothing fancy and NOT silver, but they made a noticeable difference and I consider them an improvement. I'm not a cable guy, I've always just used what I had on hand.

Since the cable from my pre to amp is just one meter I figure this wouldn't cost a bunch and may improve things.

[Jim Pittsburgh]

I still use the addition of a silver wire to the outside ring / negative side of the RCA. I tried every possible combination of adding one or two silver wire and without, did multiple listening sessions and like it best with the one silver wire to the negative side of the RCAs. A few people have found that they pick up some noise if the silver wire is not isolated, but I hear nothing in my vintage system. In talking to the guy from ClearDay Cables he was very adamant that using only 99.999% pure silver was important as was polishing / treating the outside of the wire before you cover it was important. I used NevrDull . He also said that using silver solder was important.... Just passing this info along. Your results may vary lol

[scorpio333]

I ordered some wire and silver solder. Yikes that stuff ain’t cheap. Needed anyhow to try some caps in the Jolida 1102. When I thought of replacing the coupling caps and was poking around in there, I remembered Jolida uses silver wire in their stuff.   

[OldiesButGoodies]

Bringing a nearly 4 yr old back up...wondering if you guys who have tried this are still using them or moved on to something else.

I recently upgraded my generic speaker wire for Sewell Silverbacks. Nothing fancy and NOT silver, but they made a noticeable difference and I consider them an improvement. I'm not a cable guy, I've always just used what I had on hand.

Since the cable from my pre to amp is just one meter I figure this wouldn't cost a bunch and may improve things.

Still using it after so many years.  The interconnect gets a bit more sensitive to EMI after this mod but net-net it is worth it IMO (just need to dress the cable properly and keep them away from power).

[scorpio333]

I done did the mod and really like the results. The process was a pain, I did it again I would buy new plugs. i used 24awg 99.999% silver wire and teflon tubing. Swipe Never Dull on the wire and push it into the tubing. If you need to go more than 3 feet, FORGET it.

I inly did one cable from the phono pre to amp. I have a 1' RCA coming from the TT to a SUT which has built in RCA's that go to the pre. I may try adding a section to the 1' RCA.

The results for me was similar to Pepe, tighter mids and bass. I also got better detail in the highs, background vocals are separated from the main vocal, cymbals shimmer. I did get some added noise on one cable, moved it around a bit and since then no interference.

There's not a whole lot of info out there on this mod that I could find. I did run across this in an ebay ad and it gave me a headache trying to read:

Valab Ultra-Pure Single Crystal Copper/Silver Hybrid Analog Interconnects - 1-meter Pair

As you sell in following pictures, this interconnect is actually made by non-compromised design and materials.

Features of this OCC / Silver Hybrid analog interconnect:

1. Two multi-thread "UP-OCC"  (Ultra Pure Copper by Ohno Continuous Casting Process) single crystalline copper conductor for positive signal transmission. OCC Copper wire was made by Furutech,  a pioneer high tech Japan company.

2. You can understand more about UP-OCC here:  http://www.musicpoint.nl/Furutech/furutech_occ.htm

3. One 0.5mm diameter solid cord pure silver for negative signal transmission. OCC cable sound quite transparent and natural but lack airy tremble! So this cable use solid cord silver wire on negative wire to compensate OCC limitation.

4. Airy damping design, most surface of conductor was insulated by air, which  will have lowest dielectric constant, and in consquence, this cable have minimal internal capacitoance. Music siganl will not lose during transmision.

5. Carbon housing rhodium plated tellurium copper analog RCA Connector. This RCA connect use hollow shape tellurium copper cental conductor pin for siganl transmission. This innovative design will keep most music siganl details.