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In Reply to: RE: stranded wire???? posted by Lew on December 06, 2016 at 20:21:27
"Anyway, I also don't see how ordinary stranded wire of a given gauge would be much different in band-width from solid core wire of similar gauge."You are absolutely right. The effects he is talking about are minuscule at audio frequencies. Unfortunately some "audiophiles" who lack technical understanding will latch on to fine technical points when it suits them, ignore the tiny magnitude of what is being talked about in comparison to other factors at play in the context under discussion, and then promote their particular "fad" as the true road to nirvana.
Intelligent discussions of the issues involved here, including the skin effect, the relative conductivity of stranded versus solid wires, etc., can be found in articles available on the internet. I came across this one near the top of the list when I googled for skin effect.
Chris
Edits: 12/07/16Follow Ups:
Hey,
I am with you on the skin effect being trivial at audio frequencies and I do prefer solid core wire. Unfortunately for many uses it becomes problematic. I don't use #10 solid for speaker wire due to its rigidity and when you get to the finer sizes it becomes quite fragile. A single #28 will eventually break if flexed however 4 twisted strands of #34 will be quite durable.
This leads into another issue with stranded wire and that is the strand to strand junctions that occur. Unless you are using Litz wire or wire in an oxygen free environment the copper will oxidize over time and copper oxide is a nasty conductor. Silver plating the copper helps this immensely since silver oxide is a much better conductor but now you have introduced dissimilar metal junctions which according to many are also bad for audio. (I also seem to recall some wire manufacturer claiming to remove all oxygen from the wire during the process of extruding the insulation over it to prevent the oxidation)
I am curious as to your thoughts on any of this.
dave
Dave, re stranded wire, remember that, unless there's something pathological, the strands are equipotential, so the thing about "interstrand diodes" is not really significant.
Grounding systems are the other half of all of the audio circuits in the amp.One can do two things:
(1) try to provide a ground with ZERO resistance. While this is impossible to do, the closer you come to this, the less
effects ground wire quality and bandwidth-- will have.(2) Realize that no grounding system is perfect, and will not
actually have zero resistance, so you provide top-quality wiring for grounding also.The sonic result is very gratifying....
Copper is best used as solid unless it is silver or tin-plated because copper corrodes and makes copper oxides, which are actually poorly-connected partial diodes-- which smear music. You don't want these "new" extra parts rubbing against each other! They are a distortion-generator.
Silver-plated copper in multistrand can deliver truly outstanding results
because as you noted, silver corrosion doesn't form a distortion generator-- instead it goes on conducting very well.Silver plating over copper can exhibit distortions from the two
dissimilar metals, but if the wire maker is very good, this isn't a factor, as bonding can be excellent. It can also be bad-- it depends on the wiremaker.Pure silver in solid form has a slight H.F. lift- it isn't necessarily neutral. Adding somewhere between 1.5-to-3% gold into the hot-melt furnace
can effectively allow the gold atoms to fill-in spaces between the silver
atoms, making the wire a superior conductor even though gold is a lesser
conductor than silver. The finished wire is superior to either, and VERY linear.This kind of wire absolutely outperforms everything out there-- in multistrand, it is at its very best.
Really good wiremakers exist today-- we're all very fortunate that
some people forged ahead and designed expensive, boutique wires for audio.Some of them developed the best wire technology that ever existed. Today,
it's available to all of us. It's a large sonic advancement.--Dennis--
Edits: 12/10/16
Hi Dave,
I must admit to being skeptical about most of the claims of noticeable effects resulting from diode junctions between dissimilar or oxidised surfaces, etc. Would there, for example, actually be any significant potential difference across the junction in any case? If not, it is hardly going to matter whether it is a diode, or non-linear in any other way. If we consider some poor contact between two adjacent strands in a multi-strand wire, then the potentials at side-by-side points on the two wires would in any case be essentially equal, and so no significant potential difference between them.
It seems to be a little bit like worrying about whether a diode connected in parallel with a piece of wire will affect the signal transmission properties of the wire. The answer is no, since the potential difference across the diode will be essentially zero, so it never has any possibility of injecting non-linearities into the signal.
And in a case like an interconnection wire between tube stages in an amplifier, the impedance of the wire is utterly insignificant compared to the input impedance of the stage it is connected to, and so things like the skin effect, the possibility of non-linearities from diode junctions, and so on, is even less important than in a higher-current application like a speaker cable.
If these alleged effects actually occurred then they would be measurable. As far as I know, there are no substantiated reports of such things occurring. Of course some audiophiles want to have it both ways; they will invoke the alleged "science" of diode junctions at oxidised surface interfaces in order to justify why they spend astronomical sums of money on super-pure cryogenically-treated wire or whatever, but will then instantly reject science when anyone suggests actually trying to measure the effects they are talking about...
I think some "high-end" manufacturers have perfected the art of pulling money from the audiophiles' wallets while they pull oxygen out of the wire.
Chris
To be clear, I never mentioned diodes or micro diodes or suggested any technical reason as to why. I am more interested in thought into the "if"
I do know that I have some switch contacts here for an attenuator that are on bare copper circuit boards and after about three weeks they become noisy. (I presume from oxidation) If I disassemble and clean the contacts I am good for another three weeks. Obviously the potentials involved here are much higher than that in adjacent pieces of uninsulated wire but it is clear to me that a gold wiper on a copper pad can become noisy. This project was to test a circuit board layout prior to putting up the serious coin for the hard gold plating required for the contacts but it was the noise that got me "wondering"
And in a case like an interconnection wire between tube stages in an amplifier, the impedance of the wire is utterly insignificant compared to the input impedance of the stage it is connected to, and so things like the skin effect, the possibility of non-linearities from diode junctions, and so on, is even less important than in a higher-current application like a speaker cable.
I see this as a very slippery slope. If we adhere to the above thought, a piece of wire cut into 100 pieces and resoldered back together must also be inaudible in a high impedance circuit. I realize that is as extreme as saying an inch of wire.... but if we are going to explore we need to look at the extremes in order to find reality which typically lies somewhere in the middle.
"I see this as a very slippery slope. If we adhere to the above thought, a piece of wire cut into 100 pieces and resoldered back together must also be inaudible in a high impedance circuit."
Well, OK, let's consider this example further. I must admit I have a hard time thinking of any reason why the 100-segment soldered wire would be audible in this context (connecting to a high-impedance next stage). What kind of effects do you have in mind?
Are you thinking of something that could also be measured? If so, we could try to estimate the order of magnitude of the effect, and then try to decide whether it could be audible.
Chris
Are you thinking of something that could also be measured? If so, we could try to estimate the order of magnitude of the effect, and then try to decide whether it could be audible.
I end up teetering from the middle to both of the extremes on this one where I say I'm not sure if it were measurable and as lew mentioned people are quick to hear a difference and then measure a difference and attach the two points with a very scientific looking crayon.
My guess is it would be audible and that would be the first thing I would look into determining. I don't want to fall off the ABX cliff nor do I want to dive into the chasm of we cannot measure everything we can hear. I am not interested in the black or white arguments since they never universally hold water I just like exploring the 80º azure grey waters inbetween a puddle in in Flint Michigan and the bottom of the Mariana Trench.
dave
"My guess is it would be audible and that would be the first thing I would look into determining."Hi Dave, your philosophy seems very reasonable and open-minded. But I am still curious; I cannot think of any particular reason why one might expect that a 100-fold snipped-up interconnect lead that has been resoldered together would be likely to behave audibly differently from an unbroken lead, provided it is feeding into a high-impedance following stage.
Can you give any pointers to what sort of effects you have in mind that might give rise to sonic differences? I can see how it might offend the eye, but why the ear?
Chris
Edits: 12/09/16
I think it would be worse into a low impedance stage. A 100 soldered connection wire will probably have measurable higher resistance than a single wire the same length. A low input impedance will cause more voltage drop.
"I think it would be worse into a low impedance stage. A 100 soldered connection wire will probably have measurable higher resistance than a single wire the same length. A low input impedance will cause more voltage drop."
Agreed. But feeding into a high impedance, say 100K, it could be no more than about a 1 part in 10^5 effect, I suppose, at most. And even then, it could, I should have thought, be compensated, if need be, by a slight turn of the volume control. But what actual degradation of the sonic quality might occur? I can't think of anything that would be anywhere near being audible.
Chris
hey... was away from the weekend.
I cannot give a technical explanation but I think there are plenty of anecdotal reports. How much merit you give to those reports is another topic and we quickly get trapped between the all wire sounds the same of iy has the same L C and R.
I can give one anecdotal story about a "wire test" that I had full control over. A number of years ago I took two pair of identically wound SUT's to RMAF one pair wound with silver and the other pair wound with copper. The inductance of the two pair were identical as was the HF behavior out to 100Khz.. the first resonant node of the two may have been a few khz apart 150Khz vs. 155Khz but aside from the posiiton of that peak, the waveforms were identical. Due to the lower resistivity of silver, that unit did have slightly lower DCR and that was the only measuable difference.
We did the swap a number of times with various groups of people and nearly everyone voiced a difference. The preference for one or the other remained pretty consistent from one person to the next and it was split maybe 70-30 in favor of the silver. I was actually called a liar by one person because he insisted that I had the copper and silver mixed up and the thing that stuck with me was how clear the differences were independent of who liked what.
Now taking this little anecdotal and trying to pull something from it gets ugly since many people insist that the AB swaps were not controlled and the data not collected in an acceptable manner. Others simply look at the obvious difference in DCR and formulate their story as to why. I personally think the results were consistent and repeatable enough to stand and completely discount the possibility of the DCR difference (or transformer behavior at 150Khz) being the cause. So all I can take form it is a firm belief that silver sounds different than copper and I have no idea why.
dave
You mess around with wire. You decide based probably upon one or two experiences that you prefer solid core to stranded wire, all else being equal. You then wonder why that is. Then without any data you design and carry out what Einstein called a thought experiment, except we are not Einsteins. This method of deduction leads you to think up a possible explanation that may have no relevance at all to what you heard or thought you heard and may not even be happening in real life. Nevertheless, you write it down somewhere, and it gets read by other people. They tell their friends, and after a while, your pure conjecture based on no evidence and shaky theory becomes gospel truth.
I have known people who use Romex 10AWG wires as the speaker wire and touted as the best $ spent.
Well, I usually leave them alone without any comment.
Actually, Romex 10AWG wire sounds as decent as any stranded speaker wire on a crappy system and can't find a fault of it's own.
.
.
.Thou shall not stand where I type for I carry a bottle of Certified Audiophile Air and a Pure Silver Whip.
Does that mean it's not bad for video, RF, data streams?
This "micro diode" farce has been going on for years. yet to date nobody has modeled said diode. What for example is the forward voltage? Because we know that once the forward voltage is exceeded, the diode is basically just a small value resistor. Millions of analog audio, video, and RF switch circuits are based on this principle.
So if diodes can be made by wire strands touching each other, why has none of this been documented and quantified in accredited circles?
I would like to make a few comments if i may.
silver plated copper wire the silver oxidizes but still conducts to a certain extent but its not good ask the many many people who have a certain phono stage that uses silver plated contacts how there equipment sounds after cleaning them. Silver oxide is not good!
besides litz magnet wire the BEST would be tin plated copper! and IMO sounds better then silver plated wire.
just some thoughts
Lawrence
Hi Chris,You are incorrect as you often are, on the finer points in audio.
One can see this right away, through your Moniker. The "OTL" in your cpotl Moniker, I believe, stands for OTL amps.
NO ONE I know in highest-end audio uses a OTL tube amp. The high end in tube audio is SET, with highly efficient speakers, of at least 98 dB, to capture DYNAMICS with an under 4 Watt SET amp, which is the limit on power versus performance / best sonics. But, alas, I contend very FEW ever know how to build the 2 or 3 Watt SET amp right.
You LOVE to criticize me, at every turn, and you will open your mouth in such a fashion whenever you possibly can.
But you ONLY talk theory, whereas I feel it is the SOUND and audible performance what matters. You miss the fine points, and you are LOST in audio - due to your use of low efficiency speakers and the complex/ugly tube amps that need to drive them.
Oh well, we must respectfully leave room for everyone to be able to comment and express their views. But what I wrote herein is how I have felt about you, for many years. Its really a shame that you have never ever experienced a top-notch stereo set up. It could possibly be educational for you.
About the ONLY low-efficiency set up I can tolerate, is the complete MBL system, with their omni speakers, AND, including their solid state amps. But it must cost $500 K, complete. Lovely to me, to hear at shows, each time they exhibit.
Continue on, my friend.
Jeff Medwin
PS : How many people do we all know, who use SOLID 10 AWG solid copper wire for speaker leads?
Edits: 12/07/16
Hi Jeff.
I've been reading some of your posts recently and I have to wonder why you are obsessed with an amps bandwidth when you use a speaker that has no low bass and not very extended highs. The VOTT is well known to be a great mid-range reproducer but no amplifier will squeeze sound out of those speakers that they aren't capable of reproducing. Piling extra weight on the box won't extend the bass in the 828 cab and choosing different caps and wiring won't let those highs come through the 802/811 combo.
Dynamics, yes. Full range sound, no. So what's the point?
Not that someone in our age bracket should be concerned about frequency extremes anyway.
Hi,
No one, except ME so far, has ever heard a VOTT can do, with MY amp on it ! :-) I THINK I may have a " NEW Ball Game ", on hand here. But its difficult to be objective with your own builds. We will see, or hear in the near future !!!!
Its taken me three amp builds, last two years, to FINALLY become happy with my ALTECS. Two DC Type 45 amps, which had a broad, shallow mid range suck out, ( no one wants to acknowledge ), and now, this JJ 2A3-40 as a final and, at last, an enjoyable solution.
Kyle, even if we only hear narrow band, as we age, the amp has to be able to play the highs realistically and honestly, for us to hear the MIDRANGE properly.
I feel there are resultants on high, that come down the scale into the midrange. As we age, we hear those resultants, and judge easily what sounds real or canned.
I recall Bob Fulton, in about 1983 give or take, tell me about an 80+ year old woman on his Listening Panel, who couldn't hear a watch tick, and had 'nada above 5K. One day, Bob removed the fuse from is tweeter section's highest-playing driver, maybe, lets say, 32 K on up to 100K, and the Old Woman blurted out to Bob " What Happened To The Highs ".
See Kyle, we aging "experienced listeners" have hope !! :-)
Merry Christmas.
Jeff Medwin
I totally agree with you as regards the importance of a good HF response, even for those of us with old ears, but in the end, the speaker has to be able to reproduce those frequencies, not just the amplifier. Albeit, the amp has to be able to drive the speaker, of course. I am only saying that there are many discussions here, some led by yourself, that seem to pivot on the amplifier as the be all and end all.
The Fulton Premiere speaker, depending upon year and model number, had a frequency response of 12HZ to 100 KHz, and it was likely one of the widest bandwidth speakers ever engineered.
The saying " amps are the weakest link ", is not originally mine, but was that of Robert W. Fulton, to me, in many conversations. Just as was " an inch of bad wire can ruin the musical experience ". In both cases, IMHO, RWF was right on.
Jeff
Right on jeffery!! thats why I am building gm70 to power my large fultons :)
.
Dear Jeff,
You wrote, "NO ONE I know in highest-end audio uses a OTL tube amp. The high end in tube audio is SET, with highly efficient speakers, of at least 98 dB, to capture DYNAMICS with an under 4 Watt SET amp,..."
The part about "no one in highest-end audio" is preposterous. You really mean "no one with whom I closely associate myself and my work, and no one I deify". (Of course, I freely admit that I use OTL tube amps myself, so naturally I would be offended by your declamation.) Even assuming that Nirvana lies only in the direction of hyper-efficient speakers, who is to say that one could not use an OTL to drive such speakers. Such speakers are optimally high in impedance, which suits both SET amplifiers and OTL amplifiers just fine. I certainly do respect and am interested in SET amplifiers; why do you retreat behind such a gross generalization? It doesn't make you look good.
Now, I really do not give a rat's butt what you think about what I like in audio, so can you just go ahead and say what you meant by your allusion to bandwidth in a ground buss and how you think stranded wire might be superior to solid core in this regard? Thanks.
Hi Lew,Its taken me a long time, the last ten years, and over 60 years of audio listening, to get BACK into the high efficiency camp. I use a 515B and 802D, in a modded VOTT enclosure.
The less we mess with the signal, the better of a chance we have to keep it intact.
As soon as you "split phase", we have a degrade in the tube amp. That rules out P-P and OTL amps from being the best possible. As soon as we parallel tubes we get a choir effect. So Lew, these are the things that come to my mind, (and to my ear), when I hear and aspire to obtain a proper system.
Amps, NOT SPEAKERS, are the biggest turkeys and weakest link in audio. Darn FEW SETs, BTW, are listenable / acceptable to me.
Lew, have you ever heard any 2A3 amp, over time, in a carefully set up system, that Mr. Dennis Fraker built? Probably not. THEN, you would understand, where I come from !!
It took ME ten years, of going to RMAF shows each year, and listening to Dennis' builds, to figure this all out. My new present amp, BTW, I feel will GET me where I wanna be. It IS Dennis' design ideas, and it replaces two sucked-out midrange SET DCed 45 amps I previously self-designed, built, and used for 2015-2016 !!I am excited and pleased as punch.
Jeff
Edits: 12/07/16
in a ground buss?
There is much to discuss with respect to PP, OTL, speakers vs amplifiers, but I know very well where you stand on those issues, and I have no interest in trying to change your mind. Each of us has a bias, or several biases.
Jeff if what your saying is true about PP tube or SS why did Robert Fulton use it?
His best amplifier (locker amplfier) was a PP tube type!
I will also say that his knowledge and understanding was far greater then me you or most people agree?
Single ended does sound different not necessary better but different
best amp so far i used with my big fultons HK430!!!
I am almost done building a prototype of my gm70 pset driven by HK430's preamp
Lawrence
Fulton's 'locker' amp was a rather mundane AB1 rig, right down to its global dose of NFB.
cheers,
Douglas
Friend, I would not hurt thee for the world...but thou art standing where I am about to shoot.
Fulton: If it didn't play music I believe he would have never used this mundane lame amplifier like you say LOL
and you knew Robert how?
more interestingly, what would be your ideal amplifier? comparing to this lame ab1 amp Fulton used??.
Lawrence
It does seem rather useless to go into PP vs. SE. If you like SE, and are OK with the significant power limitations then go right on. One, I can't live with the power limitations, and 2, don't like the way it sounds...LOL Add to this all the silliness about it needing just the right PS to work well...it clearly is a lot more variable than Class A done with PP. I'll leave the religious fanatic objections, posed by folks who like SE presentation about 'splitting' phase where they belong, on the cutting room floor...:)
cheers,
Douglas
Friend, I would not hurt thee for the world...but thou art standing where I am about to shoot.
Robert Fulton struggled mightily to find amps. He had me build a tube amp, just the two of us, all-out.Robert and I agreed, had many conversations, that amps are the weakest link. If a Harmon Kardon 430 receiver is your current reference, so be it. Glad you are satisfied. I've had the dance and walked the walk with Fulton speakers, etc., and I am happier NOT using them in 2016.
With this November 2016 amp, I now get the best sound I've had, and am very pleased. It will get better as I refine the new circuit.
If you had my direct experience with Fulton, you may have come to my present conclusions. But no doubt - I still do LOVE Robert, to this day !!
Jeff
Edits: 12/07/16
> > Amps are the weakest link < <
Jeff,
What sources do you use and what is your preferred source material? Vinyl, CD, MP3, Reel to Reel? Does the front end not mean as much as the amplifier? I got out of vinyl because it can be a rabbit hole...just wondering about your thoughts on front end and whether it makes any real difference.
I had an interesting front-end experience lately.
Just take this for what it's worth!:
I decided I wanted to do another audio show, but wanted to
this time, play vinyl. Since the forest fire out here wiped everything
out including all vinyl and associated gear, I was starting over.
AND-- I was short on dough, but wanted world class sound-- .
What to do! First, I had been collecting vinyl at thrift stores and
antique parlors. Got some great music-- even some LP's that were both
great music and in playable condition! I have been collecting vinyl.
I had to clean it up- so I got some record-wash solutions and pads from MO-Fi-- I could afford those and scrubbed the records clean using these tools, and clean, filtered water from my new well.
I didn't have time to build a great phono stage, so I went with a well-designed kit, and modified it as it was assembled. Better wire, better parts, and some parts re-locations.....
I needed a good Turntable, but wasn't into acting like a rich fool--, so
I bought Pioneer's reworked modern version of the old Technics Direct Drive. I knew I HAD to have Direct-Drive-- I preferred digital to my VPI setups because, compared to Hi-Res digital, they sounded nice, polite, and no fun at all.
I was playing with the Pioneer when The Vinyl Junkie came over. He has mega-bucks in his system, and likes it. He said only one thing about the stock Pioneer TT: "it sure plays right up-front!"
Ah, Hah! My sentiments exactly. The thing can ROCK!
So, I decided to modify it until I liked it. It had a "soup-can" slight coloration, so I sent the tonearm to SME for a tonearm wiring re-fit. I also scored an SME headshell that was out of its box (cheaper!), and I got a nice set of SilverSonic headshell wires for it. I got gold-plated litz in the tonearm.
I then set up the tonearm's bearings, and set up with a new Clearaudio V-2 Maestro cartridge, and I found an old granite slab which had been part of an old waterwheel powerplant's switchboard.. It fit right under the TT plinth, and gave it a solid platform.
Although this was a budget TT setup-- it really sounds very, very good!
Anyone can do this, and it's a great-sounding front-end that will bring
your music to life.
--Dennis--
Interesting. I figure, if you had a great amp, those other things would not be that important.
The better the amp, the more obvious any other defects.....
Anyhow, good to see you're still here and still at it!
-Dennis--
I never make any claim that OTL amps are the "highest end" end in audio. And certainly SET amps are not the "highest end" in audio either.
I criticise when I see people making pseudo-scientific technical claims that are either incorrect or that are misleading on the grounds of the insignificance of the alleged effect. I put many of your claims about wire into one or other of those categories.
I don't know where you get the idea that I use low-efficiency speakers, unless your idea of high efficiency is very different from mine. I use Lowther drivers, which are a little bit over 100dB efficiency. In my book, that would qualify as high efficiency.
Since you seem to think that the bandwidth capability of solid 10 AWG copper wire is significantly lower than for silver-plated 37/26 stranded wire, perhaps you would care to enlighten us all with a quantitative estimate of the differences that would be expected in an audio amplifier?
Chris
FenderLover puts on funky moderator hat...Can we keep the argument to implementation of wires? Per the original post. Pretty soon you two will be arguing about the cars you drive. Wine you drink. Women you feel are pretty & ugly.
Thanks!
Hat removed...
8^)
Edits: 12/07/16
You are correct, 100%. I just got fed up at ten years of his nagging, and snapped a little. I am sure Chris gets fed up with my posting also. :-) Fun. I should ignore him.
I am re-doing the new 2A3 DC amp's driver stage shorter Rk wiring, for a third time, in the days and weeks ahead, to include proper multiple film cap bypassing, so the amp plays music linearly to my ear. THATs the next chore.... a big one. Executing the Rk bypass cap function PROPERLY and linearly. Its never one film cap, usually about six in parallel!!
Maybe I'll post a photo as it progresses some and gets interesting to view, or instructive.
Jeff
Photos are always nice. Worth a thousand (or more) words.8^)
Edits: 12/07/16
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