1 foot solid silver conductor interconnect vs. 0.5 foot Mogami W2964 interconnect

[Ken1951]

Why would Hosa, who markets to professionals, make this up?

The answer to all your questions is: Money!

 

[Blumlein 88]

Why would Hosa, who markets to professionals, make this up?

It is profitable. That is why?

 

[DonH56]

Why would Hosa, who markets to professionals, make this up?

As a user of professional stuff and one who's been in and out of studios and a lot of live rigs I can say Hosa is not the choice of most professionals... Nor are professionals immune to marketing.

Edit: And that is a great example of egregious marketing hype.

 

[Mnyb]

There simply are no proof or plausible mechanism for different metals to have different sonic signatures ?

So if one hears a difference its not the metals .

Moat plausible sigthed bias/placebo “ i know what i heard “ is exactly why a blind test is needed . It’s basically a tell for an improper test .

Then geometry of the design shield or not ? But then one cable must be really weird and improperly designed ( very unlikely ). But absolutely nit the involved metals.

Why is everyone saying silver sounds brighter such misconceptions are socially transferable.

Another example are UFO’s for a while they where all flying saucer shaped. Simply because others reported such sightings. So thye al became saucers for a time

 

[Blumlein 88]

As a user of professional stuff and one who's been in and out of studios and a lot of live rigs I can say Hosa is not the choice of most professionals... Nor are professionals immune to marketing.

Edit: And that is a great example of egregious marketing hype.

Hosa is like one thin layer above bottom of the barrel. Not likely to see it in studios.

 

[Chrispy]

Why would Hosa, who markets to professionals, make this up?

Marketing departments never lie. Never.

 

[MoreWatts]

A question for the experts.

Is silver wire/cabling used in any industrial/professional applications besides home audio? I was thinking, for instance, in applications where weight/mass or volume are important. Does silver make a lighter or thinner cable for the same conductivity? For example, are the International Space Station, the Hubble/Webb Space Telescopes or space satellites in general wired with silver instead of copper? These are applications where payload mass and package volume would be critical.

 

[MaxwellsEq]

A question for the experts.

Is silver wire/cabling used in any industrial/professional applications besides home audio? I was thinking, for instance, in applications where weight/mass or volume are important. Does silver make a lighter or thinner cable for the same conductivity? For example, are the International Space Station, the Hubble/Webb Space Telescopes or space satellites in general wired with silver instead of copper? These are applications where payload mass and package volume would be critical.

This is covered in great depth by Kelly in:

https://www.waterstones.com/book/moon-lander/thomas-j-kelly/9781588342737

They used a copper alloy. The alloy was to increase strength so the wires could be thinner. There were extremely significant weight benefits from using thinner wire. They developed improved wire wrapping techniques to overcome early reliability (soldering had too many faults).

 

[MaxwellsEq]

This is covered in great depth by Kelly in:

https://www.waterstones.com/book/moon-lander/thomas-j-kelly/9781588342737

They used a copper alloy. The alloy was to increase strength so the wires could be thinner. There were extremely significant weight benefits from using thinner wire. They developed improved wire wrapping techniques to overcome early reliability (soldering had too many faults).

Apologies for a digression. I specialized in my later career on technology resilience and disaster recovery. A colleague mentioned Thomas Kelly's Moon Lander - thinking it picked up many of the themes I used to focus on.

It does, but it's more than that. It's a slightly technical read, but it's brilliant and fascinating. I suspect many on here would find it as interesting and informative as I did. A real, practical engineer's book

 

[olieb]

Is silver wire/cabling used in any industrial/professional applications besides home audio? I was thinking, for instance, in applications where weight/mass or volume are important.

The conductivity of silver is only 5.6% higher than copper. So the advantage in volume/cross-sectional area is very small. Even when this would be advantageous (coreless inductors, demodulation rings?) it is not used because of the price of silver.
The relation to mass is much more interesting. Silver is 17% denser than copper. So a copper wire with the same length and resistance would be lighter than the silver one. Anyway, you do not use copper in these cases but aluminium instead. An equivalent aluminium wire has less than half the mass (and is cheaper). This is used all the time (in voice coils for instance, or in high-voltage lines).

In many applications the resistance of the cable is not really important (you only need an electrical connection of some sort).
EDIT: Interconnects are an example for that.
Then the mechanical properties become most important: How thin can you make the wire? (See above the post of @MaxwellsEq )
Sometimes even gold is used because it can be made the thinnest.
EDIT: Or what is the complex impedance of the cable as a function of frequency?

 

[audio_tony]

Out of curiosity, what could cause an RCA cable to have a high enough impedance to be an issue? Assuming standard conductor materials, gauge, and quality connectors, etc. (edit: reasonable length, like 10ft or less)

I’ve read that twisted and braided cables can have higher impedance. But I’ve always wondered if it could be significant enough to ever be an issue?

It's highly unlikely to ever encounter cables with a really high impedance, I just added that comment as an aside.

I do however have a really thick (it must be 8mm to 10mm thick) 1m long interconnect that has such high capacitance that it dulls the top end. It's a Chinese made cable that came with a bunch of various other stuff that I bought.

I've not measured the impedance of it though!

 

[somebodyelse]

Why would Hosa, who markets to professionals, make this up?

Because a subset of professionals don't believe they need to do controlled listening tests either, and are as susceptible to marketing waffle as other people. The same may be true of some at the company, or they may just be meeting customer demand - even Belden did that for a while IIRC.

 

[Speedskater]

At a gigahertz polished Silver plating is great. Because at that frequency, skin depth is so shallow that all of the signal rides in the plating, the Copper core only has mechanical functions.

Silver plating has been used in cables for very high frequency applications for a long time. So audiophiles that didn't understand way, thought it was a great idea for audio cables.

 

[Blumlein 88]

High voltage high current switchgear uses silver. There are a few reasons not related to signal quality in audio. And I do mean high current as in thousands of amps.

 

[olieb]

High voltage high current switchgear uses silver. There are a few reasons not related to signal quality in audio. And I do mean high current as in thousands of amps.

These are sometimes silver?

EDIT: in action

 

[Ken Tajalli]

I just dropped in.
Solid silver cables can be very expensive, but since I diy my own, solid silver cables can be very cheap indeed.
What sonic capabilities silver may have, I never found out!
But solid silver happens to be the softest metal I could get my hands on. Buy some from jewellers' supplies (they use it for repairs) and it costs very little.
So, If I was to make a solid cable, silver would be my choice. If I wasn't, then usually Mogami cables are fine & long lasting.
Which one degrades the signal? I suppose silver may be slightly better at lengths of few hundred yards or longer.

 

[DonH56]

These are sometimes silver?

No. Long lines are typically Al to save weight, or rather Al with steel reinforcement, never silver that I have seen or heard about. Al has a much higher strength-to-weight ratio, meaning longer lines between supporting towers, and replaced copper early on. Silver would be far too expensive and too weak without alloy or other support. Al has worse conductivity but the greater strength wins out, and for long lines voltages are very high (100's of kV) to keep current flow reasonable.

Silver in switches, e.g. silver contacts, provides benefits like greater resistance to pitting from arcing during switching and such. The wires are not silver, just the contacts themselves (usually plated silver over copper and/or nickel or other base material).

Some cables use silver but by and large it is very rare. The conductance difference is very small and the cost differential very large. It is also much harder to work and solder (connect) -- some military and space applications I worked on actually explicitly stated silver was not to be used due to problems making and sustaining good connections. As @Speedskater said, it has been used as a plating over copper for many years in some GHz+ applications, but I can only recall a few times I saw the entire conductor made of silver.

At audio frequencies the difference is negligible. Again, debating a 5% difference in conductivity between two of the most conductive materials available is like debating how well you can hear -140.0 vs. -140.5 dB. Sure there's a measurable difference, but it is inaudible, and just doesn't matter.

 

[DonH56]

A question for the experts.

Is silver wire/cabling used in any industrial/professional applications besides home audio? I was thinking, for instance, in applications where weight/mass or volume are important. Does silver make a lighter or thinner cable for the same conductivity? For example, are the International Space Station, the Hubble/Webb Space Telescopes or space satellites in general wired with silver instead of copper? These are applications where payload mass and package volume would be critical.

See my answer above. The difference between silver and copper is negligible for the vast majority of applications. The pure silver cables I have used were in a 100+ GHz radar system. The difference in weight and conductivity is not really a consideration between Ag and Cu except in very rare cases; if light weight is needed, Al can be used. Cables are typically copper, very HF cables may be plated with silver (though the outer shield may be nickel-plated for durability), and connections and board traces are often gold plate over nickel (for hardness) over copper. Boards and components for space or other harsh environments (e.g. shipboard) are often conformal coated to seal them from exposure.

 

[Nutul]

Seriously. I want to cry.

 

[Blumlein 88]

These are sometimes silver?

EDIT: in action

It is what DonH56 said. Silver plating ( I should have been more specific). Pitting and resistance to arc over. Though silver tarnishes, that tarnish is very soft and silver plating lets a heavily loaded contact push thru it where it might have pitting or not fully go thru copper tarnishing. At those high currents it matters.