AudioQuest Wind High-end Cable Review

[Kal Rubinson]

What do you guys think about silver coating? Silver does have a slightly higher conductivity and lower resistivity than copper (link). Some people use those figures in combination with silver's resistance to oxygenation (theoretically creating a longer-lasting cable) and the "skin effect" to justify silver-clad cables, silver solder, etc.

Really? Referring to silver, Anne Marie Helmenstine, Ph.D. says:
"Although it is the best conductor, copper and gold are used more often in electrical applications because copper is less expensive and gold has a much higher corrosion resistance. Because silver tarnishes, it is less desirable for high frequencies because the exterior surface becomes less conductive.

 

[DonH56]

Anybody who has ever had to polish the black off the family silver can dispute its "resistance to oxygenation"...

 

[Jinjuku]

What do you guys think about silver coating? Silver does have a slightly higher conductivity and lower resistivity than copper (link). Some people use those figures in combination with silver's resistance to oxygenation (theoretically creating a longer-lasting cable) and the "skin effect" to justify silver-clad cables, silver solder, etc.

You want to also know what silver is a better conductor of? Noise.

 

[infinitesymphony]

Hey, I'm just the messenger, I don't own any silver-clad cables. Also I meant to write oxidation, not oxygenation -- thankfully cables don't need to breathe.

I was just recalling some of the justifications for the use of expensive conductor materials, which I didn't think we'd covered in this thread. Here's a sample of what's out there:

https://bettercables.com/pages/why-we-use-silver-in-our-cables

 

[Kal Rubinson]

Here's a sample of what's out there:
https://bettercables.com/pages/why-we-use-silver-in-our-cables

And, yet, they say "Silver has one key advantage over copper and that is that silver oxide has exactly the same performance (resistance) as bare silver."
Another link from a chemist: "Indeed, pure silver has an electrical conductivity of 6.30 × 10 7 S/m whereas silver oxide (Ag2O) is a p-type semiconductor [18], whose conductivity is inferior by 10 3 S/m. "

 

[scott wurcer]

There are numerous industry uses of silver plating having nothing to do with audio. Silver plated copper wire was standard for wire wrap, there are a number of subtle issues with doing reliable wire wrap. Gardner Denver really hosed everyone for years with patent royalties.

 

[DonH56]

I am not a chemist nor a materials guy. What I recall from my ancient courses is that oxidation lowers conductivity by filling the valance bands and locking up the carriers so oxidized wires will always have slightly more resistance than unoxidized. That said, I can't imagine any of this matters for audio.

My memories of wire wrap are painful (one DRFM had hundreds if not thousands of chips all wire wrapped by a small gang of beleaguered EEs and techs). We had silver-plated and bare copper wire; I have a vague memory of going to bare copper because the silver-plated wire was too expensive, harder to work with (silver tended to get sheared off during wrapping), and an even vaguer memory of discussions on how silver tarnish could more readily creep under the connections than copper oxide. That is, for the latter, I remember there was a big debate, but do not remember the outcome. I was a green snot-nosed fresh EE then, far from the green snot-nosed old fart of today.

 

[beagleman]

Are we not, in a way, going off into the Ether, about all these tiny alterations and changes or conductors?

I mean most of us have maybe 5-20 ft of cable at most. There simply is hardly any degradation, especially at audio frequencies, no matter what one uses......

 

[Mnyb]

Resistansen is what it is in signal cables R is not a big factor . Ive owned those carbon fiber van den jul cables , conductivity was worse than basically any metal , they worked to . Despite their downright faulty design .

It does not matter much how you accomplish R, L and C . There are a lot of tales on how different metals sounds different all all of them are bs .

Is it not already established that skin effect transmission impedance and other hf effects don’t apply to audio frequencies.

 

[Kal Rubinson]

Are we not, in a way, going off into the Ether, about all these tiny alterations and changes or conductors?

Of course.

 

[DonH56]

Are we not, in a way, going off into the Ether, about all these tiny alterations and changes or conductors?

I mean most of us have maybe 5-20 ft of cable at most. There simply is hardly any degradation, especially at audio frequencies, no matter what one uses......

Yes, the Marketing Ether...

 

[mhardy6647]

Anybody who has ever had to polish the black off the family silver can dispute its "resistance to oxygenation"...

Silver tarnish is actually mostly due to envrionmental sulfur (silver sulfide).
https://www.canada.ca/en/conservati...onservation/understanding-silver-tarnish.html

 

[GDK]

Silver tarnish is actually mostly due to envrionmental sulfur (silver sulfide).
https://www.canada.ca/en/conservati...onservation/understanding-silver-tarnish.html

My government at its finest.

From that link: ”The following activity is for heritage professionals who want to learn about tarnish on silver.”

 

[mhardy6647]

At my age and given my fairly classical education, I think I qualify as a heritage professional.

 

[Killingbeans]

Silver tarnish is actually mostly due to envrionmental sulfur (silver sulfide).
https://www.canada.ca/en/conservati...onservation/understanding-silver-tarnish.html

Same thing with copper. The pretty green/blue color of the Statue of Liberty is all copper sulphate.

 

[Sharpi31]

I used to play with different diy cables - everything from pure silver solid core, that industry silver plated copper PTFE stuff, plus belden coax etc. and did believe I could hear a difference. Nowadays I put that down to expectation bias. For the last few years I’ve been using vandamme starquad for balanced/unbalanced interconnects and some very cost effective tinned copper silicon/pvc(?) coated dual core cable (designed for marine power applications) for loudspeakers. I like the tinned stuff - it solders and crimps really well, doesn’t appear to oxidise nearly as much as raw copper, and is very cost effective. If I’m running cables through walls/floors I want it to be good in 10yrs time....

 

[carewser]

My government at its finest.

From that link: ”The following activity is for heritage professionals who want to learn about tarnish on silver.”

As a Canadian I shake my head at the shit this country wastes taxpayer's money on, it's no wonder we're going broke

Now back to your regularly scheduled programming

 

[liquidlino]

I remember sometime back someone tested a high end cable against a coat hanger, with no differences found. Granted, it was a very high quality coat hanger.

That test was for a digital signal though, not analogue. To debunk the insanely priced "pro" or "audiophile" digital cables. Same article also debunked "CD Transports". Basically any CD player is capable of exact bit reproduction of the data on the CD drive. If they couldn't then $20 computer cd drives would have produced garbage data and computers would have crashed. Only the DAC matters really, and these days it costs next to nothing to have DACs that outperform any audible noise, jitter etc. So only three things left to make meaningful difference: amp, speakers and room correction/EQ.

 

[GuidoK]

Is it possible to measure the capacitance of this cable @10khz (or in that region)?
(maybe with and without batteries?)
This is a value which is very important for using interlinks as phono interlinks due to the very high inductance of some MM/MI cartridges and it's very easy to get audible effects from this.
Personally I think capacitance @10khz (or thereabout) should be measured/included in any elaborate cable review. Vinyl records are currently the best selling physical music medium so there is a chance this cable is used for that (vinyl isn't the niche market anymore it was 25 years ago)

Of course the susceptibility to mains hum of this cable makes it not very suitable for a phono interlink in the beginning as signal strenght is up to ~-65dB compared to line level signals.

 

[zoran-grbic]

This is a review and detailed measurements of the AudioQuest Wind RCA "PSS Silver" cable.

Hmmm, I don’t know how, but not much has changed between then and now...

What actually flabbergasts me is that there are people who really spend that much money on a fake cable, while REW is... free?