DIY Silver Interconnects?

[Leef DaLucky]

In Preparation of my inevitable Rotel upgrade, i'm beginning to look at various Interconnect possibilities. My Dealer says he'll be able to furnish me with the "house crafted" cables, at a decent price. I, however, opened up Pandoras box by starting to do some research on IC's and found myself interested in a couple points:

a) after looking through (NAME REMOVED BY ADMIN). i kinda agree with the silver-plated copper concept. It just seems to make sense.

b) after listening to the various testamonials written over Dougs' silver magic digitals i'm even more convinced.

so the big question is:
After spending all this cash on upgrading components, is there a way to make silver plated IC's and save myself some dough?

I know Aud19 experiment with some last summer, and i've already found most of the DIY interconnect sites. But most are reluctant to mention silver coax.

so why is that?
The first cable i investigated was tha belden 89295 (? whatever the teflon one was). and it just seems like a sliver plated conductor would be the next logical progression.

Thanks for any advice you can offer.
Cheers,
Mikey

P.S. i'll most lilkely be getting a 1068/1075 combo. this will run with a Paradigm 40/20/470 combo that I've already picked up.

[aud19]

To be honest Leef, if I could go back in time I think I just would have ordered through Doug. (I'm pretty sure I mentioned something along those lines at the end of that thread.) Other than the satisfaction of doing it yourself.. I could have got arguably better, (at the very least equal) cables for roughly the same amount of $$ and with none of the work, through Cat Cables. Just my $.02 Plus I would have helped support this great Forum in the process...

Jason

[Lex]

Leef, the thing is, you have to separate out whether you are talking about digital or analog, fact or fiction. I'm not going to give away all my knowledge, but I will tell you.

1. Silver coated copper is great for Video or digital, "almost" as good as solid silver,but not quite, not so good for Audio in most applications, possibly due to skin effect, sometimes inferior dielectrics commonly associated with silver coated copper. It's ok for video because video signals tend to travel on the surface anyway, thus, on the coating.

2. Foil shielding is not good for analog audio, but necessary for video 75 ohm applications. A company that would try to take a single 75 ohm cable and sell it to you for audio and video, is well, not the kind of company you'd want to give your business to.

3. The reason a vendor, whoever he is, whether big business or wanna be big business such as the one you mentioned, that is now not mentioned, use silver coated copper is for one reason, COST. If they can sell you on the benefits of silver coated copper and pay maybe 15-20 times less per foot for it as a vendor selling solid silver, then the've tripled, maybe even quadrupaled or more their profit.

4. I guess that's the same reason some online company would list a search page under cat cables on Alta Vista, then redirect you to their web site on a page that only has a link to them under a message "click below". Any way to make a buck.

Doug
CATCables.com

[Leef DaLucky]

not quite, not so good for Audio in most applications, possibly due to skin effect, sometimes inferior dielectrics commonly associated with silver coated copper

Fair enough Lex, that's all i needed to know.
I was just curious why silver hasn't been more widely implemented.
And i was looking for a nice pet project to stave off the current bout of "Upgraditis" fever I'm going through.


Thanks for the advice from both of you.
Given the fact that you guys know your stuff, i'll have to rethink this stategy.

Cheers,
mikey

[Hank]

Oh Lordy, I know better than to make a comment in a "sound of cables" thread, but the devil made me do it.
I'm not convinced that solid silver wire is better sonically than pure copper wire. Silver plated copper wire is MUCH more expensive than copper wire (or coax, I should say). That's why you don't see much silver plated copper interconnect product. Regarding silver plated copper being sonically superior to good pure copper, I dunno. One European guy says on his web site that he thinks silver plated copper sounds inferior to good copper, becaue it has a harsh/shrill edge. That said, I've been wanting to build some silver plated copper coax interconnects and let friends try them out. I found a source at an INFOCOMM show, but couldn't quite get them to sell me spools of coax. They were afraid that I'd be competition to their retail subdivision. Yeah, right - single Texan takes on a corporate division. Hmmm...maybe they should have been afraid... :evil:
That's my input and I won't go further. Wire comparisons will be battled over long after we're dead and gone. :B

[Eric S]

Hi Mikey,

I created a web page that details my efforts to create some DIY silver interconnects that were designed by someone else - sorry, Lex, no disrespect intended :B I've listed all of the parts suppliers and other informational web sites and have included some impressions, both with my ear and my LCR meter.

http://www.facstaff.bucknell.edu/esantane/movies/ics.html

Lots of luck with your ICs, but most of all, have fun making them!

Eric