Corrosion of speaker cable by finger contact

[Ruediger]

Recently I came about the advice to work with gloves only on speaker cables.

Doing the unshielding and bananas/screws with bare hands shall smear the blank cable with skin fat. Accelerating corrosion massively in that area.

I've got speaker cable of 40 years in a box. When I look at some decades old endings, yes that looks ready to cut away. But was it time and oxygen or actually fat..

Does this impact an AWG10 or 11 cable significantly / over time?

 

[tineared]

There is no reason to wear gloves when handling any audio wires.
I suggest not listening to anyone who talks about "skin fat"

 

[CD2]

There is no reason to wear gloves when handling any audio wires.
I suggest not listening to anyone who talks about "skin fat"

That is presumably a translation artifact. Skin *can* impart traces of oil. I don't know enough chemistry to say if that has any effect on copper.

But basically, if the ends of a speaker cable look really funky, there is no harm cutting them off and stripping some insulation to make new ends, but the main benefit will be better-behaving wire for easy insertion in terminals. I would not bother with gloves! Just get a good mechanical connection and you will be fine.

 

[egellings]

Even if the fingers leave a residue, it's too tiny to matter.

 

[DSJR]

SOME old copper cables, even mains leads, can go dirty and pretty horrible looking. Stripping back can show this 'corrosion' goes the entire length of the cable. No idea how the mains cables are affected in terms of conductivity, but the conductors sure as heck can look awful!

 

[Alan O]

Depends where you've previously had your fingers, surely?

 

[tineared]

Depends where you've previously had your fingers, surely?

 

[egellings]

Depends where you've previously had your fingers, surely?

True, but I'm assuming fingers are not excessively dirty.

 

[pablolie]

tightly coupled copper contact areas do not tarnish.

 

[mhardy6647]

Acids (or other oxidizers) are the (nominal) issue. Some oils can form peroxides, so there's that.
But... yeah...no; shouldn't be a problem in any practical sense.

 

[Coltr@ne]

there is no harm cutting them off and stripping some insulation to make new ends,

I hope it's not a $4,000 Kimber, otherwise it'll be a little heartbreaking.

 

[TimF]

Corrosion and corruption of the medium. You are after all also an electro chemical device with insulating and conduction materials. Long lived, too. I don't recommend trimming off a bit of your finger to expose raw nerve ends. Regarding voltage, I wonder what are individual sensitivity is to voltages and micro voltage. The finger is a marvelous monitoring instrument.

 

[Ruediger]

I see, that warning came at least partially out of the snakeoil realm.

 

[RexrothPigeon]

I see, that warning came at least partially out of the snakeoil realm.

snake oil will absolutely corrode your cable contacts (euphoniously, I'm told)

 

[Chrispy]

LOL never in 50 years plus have I used gloves to make such connections, what a load of horseshit.

 

[JSmith]

JSmith

 

[Bland_username42069]

You wouldn’t spit into your car’s fuel tank so why are you smearing your speaker cables with body oil.

Or something

 

[Ruediger]

My grandma told me stories of soldiers using tank fuel departments as toilets. They went along fine as I heard.

Well, I wear electronic work gloves when doing speaker cables for the simple reason of protection. My speaker cable is all silver-line for 2 decades now and can be a bit stingy.

Smearing stuff on male/female plugs with different coatings could make for a more interesting topic. But I guess nothing to degrade there either. If so it would be the bad match of materials in the first place.

 

[Roland68]

Recently I came about the advice to work with gloves only on speaker cables.

Doing the unshielding and bananas/screws with bare hands shall smear the blank cable with skin fat. Accelerating corrosion massively in that area.

I've got speaker cable of 40 years in a box. When I look at some decades old endings, yes that looks ready to cut away. But was it time and oxygen or actually fat..

Does this impact an AWG10 or 11 cable significantly / over time?

If copper reacts upon skin contact, it's to sweat, not grease. This should be avoided.
Excessive skin contact should also be avoided, as copper is mildly toxic to humans.

Regardless, the strands of speaker cables should always be crimped with ferrules before being screwed/clamped into the connectors. This prevents oxidation.

 

[CD2]

I see, that warning came at least partially out of the snakeoil realm.

Surely somebody is selling special cable-handling gloves! Music is more musical, space is spacier, and my cat had kittens after I ...