Topic: Custom cables redux. Silver clad or no?

[ycoop]

About to pull the trigger on a GAK cables 15’ XLR snake, but can’t decide for the life of me between silver-clad or mini-quad copper. Ted has told me the silver is slightly less flexible though the silver is a better conductor. What are the ramifications of the silver cladding in terms of the signal chain?

[capnhook]

Going on 7 years, and never had a Ted silver-clad techflexed cable fail, if'n you're worried about reliability.

[morst]

I've never noticed if a signal passed through a cable made of silver, if you're worried about the sound quality of copper.


You know it's mostly the skin effect, right?

[ycoop]

I've never noticed if a signal passed through a cable made of silver, if you're worried about the sound quality of copper.


You know it's mostly the skin effect, right?

I’m not familiar with the skin effect (though I just did a brief google search and see how silver cladding makes a difference.) I figure if he offers the silver cladding than there is some reason for it. I don’t want to hamstring my future recordings for a bit more flexibility if it noticeably effects the sound.

[morst]

Just remember that when you record amplified music, almost every sound made is using copper.
 

[morst]

I just searched this site for SKIN EFFECT to see if it's come up. Got 2 non-joke results besides this thread.

It appears the 1192 is not SPC.  Which IMO does have an impact on the overall sound of the cable.   

Yes, it's SBC (Soft Bare Copper).  From a purely mathematical point of view, Silver Plated Copper will have lower loss than Soft Bare Copper of the same geometry, but you'd have a very hard time measuring that difference.  People will tell you that due to the skin effect, the current will run on the surface of the wire and that by plating the wire with Silver, that current will run through the conductor with the higher conductivity.  Well, they are right in terms that there is a difference, but what they are not telling you (or failing to realize?) is that Soft Bare Copper's conductivity is nearly that of Silver (59,600,000 Siemens/meter for Copper vs. 60,010,000 Siemens/meter for Silver).  So for 24 AWG copper, you have about 25.67 ohms/1000 feet vs. 25.49 ohms/1000 for solid silver.  But you don't have solid silver.  It's only plated to the depth of about 2/10,000ths of an inch and the skin depth at the highest audio frequencies is about 10 cm, so plating the copper with silver only reduces its resistance to about 25.66 ohms/1000 feet (a savings of only 10 milliohms per 1000 feet of cable).  Not only that, but your 1804 cable uses 28 AWG wires, so you are looking at over twice the resitance  at about 64.9 ohms per 1000 feet, even with the silver plating.So, does the silver plating make a difference?  Yes, it does.  Can you tell the difference?  Probably not.  The fact is that the larger 1192A cable is the one with the performance advantage if you just look at the electrical specs.  It has less than half the signal loss and over twice the signal bandwidth by virtue of the fact that it has less than half the series resistance per unit length, yet nearly identical capacitance per unit length of the 1804A cable.That's the reason I was asking if you chose the 1804A for the smaller diameter.I'm not trying to talk you out of liking your cables.  I'm just trying to understand what influences people's buying decisions when it comes to cables.  Personally, I run some super cheap cables and I can't tell the difference between them and the expensive stuff.  Thanks for sharing your thoughts, momule.  They are appreciated. +t

and then this one:
http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=170606.msg2116108#msg2116108

[DSatz]

Skin effect is a real thing at radio frequencies, but not remotely relevant to the audio frequency range for any practical length of cable. It takes thousands of miles before it matters even a little bit at 20 kHz.

Whenever you see "skin effect" mentioned as any part of the justification for the price of baseband analog audio cable, it's time to say "thank u, next" and move on.

--best regards