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RE: Gold toxic to silver?

Posted by js101 (A) on March 22, 2015 at 09:47:13

In Reply to: RE: Gold toxic to silver? posted by Sondek on March 22, 2015 at 09:27:54:

As long as customers are making an informed decision on silver+gold alloy, and not buying it simply because "gold is better" or because "silver needs fixing," if they truly read the post and understand what is going on, then more power to them. I just would hate to see anyone getting tricked into making an uninformed choice. Chances are, the silver/gold cable is going to sound a bit different to someone who has read that page already. It comes down to efficiency, too - to get the same level of electrical performance, you might need twice as much 5% gold alloy silver as you would pure silver - which, in a speaker cable, might be a serious issue. A 15awg silver/gold alloy wire could potentially perform like an 18awg one (half conductivity. Crystal Cables for example are very small gauge as speaker cables go, their entry level stuff is 21-22awg for a speaker cable or less; throw the gold into the mix and you lose 20% IACS, making it more like a 24awg speaker cable:

http://www.soundstage.com/revequip/crystalcable_piccolo_micro.htm

I can't name too many 24awg speaker cables but even the most staunch cable haters agree that speaker cables have some limits as to how thin they can be:

http://www.audioholics.com/audio-video-cables/speaker-cable-gauge

It stops being a subjective appreciation thing and starts to be a case of the amp not being able to drive the speakers as intended. So, adding gold to an already thin cable makes a bad problem even worse, all under the auspices of improving the cable's performance.

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Analog Engineering Associates

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