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   

[RocknRoll]

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.