Topic: Mil Spec Silver Cable Question

[Lil Kim Jong-Il]

I don't think anyone is chosing the teflon cables for their cost.  Most people are paying more per length for the SPC wire than the canare.

This thread started with such a simple question.
 

[thegreatgumbino]

You guys are confusing issues here.  The silver clad mil spec wire is perfectly fine for our applications, as demonstrated most notably by the Audio Magic Hyper Conductors line of cables.  This is the basis of design for all the silver clad copper cables found on TS.com.  Of these the BBee, Hydra, Dogstar, Busilver, Hi Ho Silver lines, there are hundreds of users that have been using this material for 3 to 4 years without issue.  This demonstrates it's success rate.  Granted, there are users that abuse their cables and have issues.

I'll just echo what Matt and others have said here.  Chris may have not had a good experience with this type of wire, but plenty of others have.  Not knocking Chris or diminishing his personal experience, but I don't agree with the generalization that milspec silver cables are fragile. 

I think Matt may be off base a bit with the idea that the Hyperconductors have demonstrated the usefullness of mil-spec silverclad/teflon cable in our applications -- I think they've been demonstrated not only by them but also by all the silver-clad cables sold and used on ts.com.  I don't have my records here right now, but I think I personally sold 3500-4000' of cables, meaning several hundred pairs of cables. 

Not off base at all.  That's the point I was making.  I just started with the point that Audio Magic was a true manufacturing/marketing approach.  They charged a lot more for the end product as a result.

My point was directed towards the success of the TS.com lines of cables I mentioned above.  It's hard to put together thoughts on a smart phone though.

[twatts (pants are so over-rated...)]

For the twenty cents a foot I would rather by the Canare Star Quad.  It is designed to be used as audio mic cable, it is supple and can be coiled easily and has a proven track record.  If mic cable fails just once in a session you know it will be the one session you "had" to have.  I am going to eliminate that chance of failure for twenty cents a foot.  As usual, YMMV

I ran Canare 4x for a long while.  It was great. 

I switched to DogStars and love the change.  The DS are much lighter and coil much tighter.  Less weight in the bag is nice.

But as you say, YMMV...

+T!

Terry

[Todd R]

I think Matt may be off base a bit with the idea that the Hyperconductors have demonstrated the usefullness of mil-spec silverclad/teflon cable in our applications -- I think they've been demonstrated not only by them but also by all the silver-clad cables sold and used on ts.com.  I don't have my records here right now, but I think I personally sold 3500-4000' of cables, meaning several hundred pairs of cables. 

Not off base at all.  That's the point I was making.  I just started with the point that Audio Magic was a true manufacturing/marketing approach.  They charged a lot more for the end product as a result.

My point was directed towards the success of the TS.com lines of cables I mentioned above.  It's hard to put together thoughts on a smart phone though.

Those smart phones don't make you sound more intelligent? 

Got ya, Matt.  I just wanted to make the point to people considering buying some home grown silvers here that they are just as robust as the AM Hypers, and also that the ts.com silvers almost definitely have more happy users among tapers than do the original AM Hypers.

[boojum]

For the twenty cents a foot I would rather by the Canare Star Quad.  It is designed to be used as audio mic cable, it is supple and can be coiled easily and has a proven track record.  If mic cable fails just once in a session you know it will be the one session you "had" to have.  I am going to eliminate that chance of failure for twenty cents a foot.  As usual, YMMV

Better???    ;o)

[Lil Kim Jong-Il]

    You know what I was saying.

[rowjimmy]

This has been an educational thread (debate CAN be enlightening) as I prepare to build myself some new interconnects and mic cables.
+ts to the lot of ya.

It is built to work, even if your A4-Intruder is on fire and going down. (I actually had a 1000' roll of A4 wire...).

btw, the A6 was the Intruder and it took a lot (or pilot error) to bring those bitches down. Good thing too, cos my Father flew one for more than a decade in the Navy.

[it-goes-to-eleven]

I state the obscenely obvious:  not all "mil spec cable" is the same. There are a huge number of variations.

The aircraft cable with the insulation problem is NOT teflon cable..

The ebay cable referenced at the start of the thread... I don't know wtf that is. The MIL number on it is one I'm not familiar with. It is Not the M27500 series cable many of us use.

[Nick's Picks]

thats right.
the a6 was the tandem side by side and the a4 was the smaller tandem (front/rear) ?

[rowjimmy]

thats right.
the a6 was the tandem side by side and the a4 was the smaller tandem (front/rear) ?

Yes and no. The A-6 was a 2seat (side-by-side) but the A-4 was a single seater. The excepting being the a-4 trainers...

[Todd R]

I state the obscenely obvious:  not all "mil spec cable" is the same. There are a huge number of variations.

The aircraft cable with the insulation problem is NOT teflon cable..

The ebay cable referenced at the start of the thread... I don't know wtf that is. The MIL number on it is one I'm not familiar with. It is Not the M27500 series cable many of us use.

Definitely true that it isn't all the same.  This seems to be the same stuff though.  Here's some info on it:

http://www.dscc.dla.mil/Downloads/MilSpec/Docs/MIL-DTL-27072/dtl27072.pdf

Looks like it is a cross-reference to mil16878, which I think is in turn a cross reference to m27500.  I didn't dig into it too much, but this certainly looks like fairly typical milspec silver-clad copper cable with teflon insulation on the individual conductors and teflon tape on the outside.

[Nick's Picks]

what I always look for in my cable is the strand count.  everything else is 2nd.

[stevetoney]

FWIW, and I know this is probably not worth anything given all the experts that have been contributing to this discussion, but the picture of the cable at the start of this thread looks identical to the cable that I have in my Audio Magic Hyper Conductors, which I bought from sleepypedro for $160 which means that they were probably significantly more expensive than that new.  These are FANTASTIC cables.  While the Audio Magics definitely have some nice preps inside the connectors to prevent the wires from coming loose at the posts (everything's epoxied solid inside the connector) the connectors are your run-of-the-mill Neutrix...so I dont' think there's really anything special about the Hyperconductors compared to what Jaledu bought in the ebay auction.

Nobody's mentioned this in any of the previous threads, but for all this discussion about the merits of this cable and whether it's worthy of use in the field, from where I'm sitting having paid $160 for a pair of 15 footers, $26 for a 100 foot reel is a DAMN great deal and it doesn't freaking matter if the stuff is less field worthy than a rubber sheathed cable. 

For that price (which is less than the cost of the copper stuff), just make yourself a couple of spare sets and just throw the old shit away when these start looking ratty or if there ever is an issue come up with the wires. 

The bottom line is that this is GREAT stuff and it sounds fantastic...and for $26 freaking bucks!!!

[willndmb]

so as a basic rule, what is a "good" silver cable made up of
___ strands
___ outer covering
___ awg
___ # of conductors

or are they all BASICALLY the same?

[Nick's Picks]

19+ strands
teflon outer (or tape, but the thicker the better)
24awg
2+ conductors