Could increased conductivity of a cable make a system sound "louder" ?

[Wakefield Turntables]

I swear to God that when I have copper cabling in my system that it seems to sound quite. I wonder if this is a real phenonomen and if it could explain why I seem to loose detail when playing vinyl? :scratch:

[Audio Al]

I see you are back already :)

Did you only go around the block :lol:

" I'm off WALKABOUT "

Welcome home ;)

[Tarzan]

I see you are back already :)

Did you only go around the block :lol:

" I'm off WALKABOUT "

Welcome home ;)



Yay!

[Effem]

I see you are back already :)

Did you only go around the block :lol:

" I'm off WALKABOUT "

Welcome home ;)

Only went to the off licence and back :lol:

[YNWaN]

I swear to God that when I have copper cabling in my system that it seems to sound quite. I wonder if this is a real phenonomen and if it could explain why I seem to loose detail when playing vinyl? :scratch:

Quite what - you mean quiet? When I have silver cables in my system the tonal balance seems slightly skewed toward the upper mid, lower treble - some might interpret this as louder I guess...

It isn’t actually any louder though.

[MartinT]

I swear to God that when I have copper cabling in my system that it seems to sound quite

It seems to sound quite what? Oh, you meant quiet ;)

Despite silver having better conductivity than copper, I cannot believe that you would be hearing the difference in conductivity as a volume difference. It's much more likely to be construction, insulation, braiding, shielding etc.

[Wakefield Turntables]

Yes i mean quiet, bloody predictive typing!

[Wakefield Turntables]

Quite what - you mean quiet? When I have silver cables in my system the tonal balance seems slightly skewed toward the upper mid, lower treble - some might interpret this as louder I guess...

It isn’t actually any louder though.

YES! I think you have hit the nail on the head. Thanks.

[Wakefield Turntables]

I see you are back already :)

Did you only go around the block :lol:

" I'm off WALKABOUT "

Welcome home ;)

I still pop in and read new posts daily but I decided not to comment as often and not to get involved in the politics which come with the forum.


Only went to the off licence and back :lol:

Yeah, I went for a nice bottle of single malt and lost a few days.... ;)

[Effem]

Yeah, I went for a nice bottle of single malt and lost a few days.... ;)

Good man :thumbsup:

[wee tee cee]

I run jumper lengths of TQ black on my speakers with the temple mono blocks velcroed onto the cabinets. The other night I decided to run double jumpers (two lengths of TQ in each connection)......well the pre runs the same volume as before but two notches lower on the pot. Pretty sure the frequency extremes have benefited also.

Lower Impedance maybe?

[Reffc]

Greater conductivity on the shield usually yields a higher S/N ratio as less mush is coupled with the low level signal conductor, so detail can sometimes be perceived to be better defined as a result of lower noise floor.

Silver gets talked about a lot, especially for HF issues, when it is not correct to discuss a conductor in isolation to its' dielectric where interconnects are concerned. Triboelectric effects can be more marked between some conductors and insulators, which result in more HF distortion in some cases. Silver mated to PTFE is a classic example of poor choice of dielectric for silver as it has just this effect, yielding more free electrons to the PTFE, raising the charge in the teflon. This can result in ringing at HF. PTFE is perfectly acceptable (in fact its rather good) when mated to copper though.

The conductivity of the signal conductor is not as important as the conductivity of the shield, as it feeds usually into a high impedance receiving circuit, but the junction between cable and connector is important. This should be as low impedance as possible (ie avoidance of cold solder joints or poor mechanical coupling for obvious reasons).

[walpurgis]

Silver mated to PTFE is a classic example of poor choice of dielectric for silver as it has just this effect, yielding more free electrons to the PTFE, raising the charge in the teflon. This can result in ringing at HF.

I'm sure you base your observations on sound data Paul. But I have silver/PTFE interconnects that sound very good indeed and no hash high up (whether they measure as well as they sound I couldn't say). I did note you said "can" not 'will' result in ringing at HF.

[Arkless Electronics]

NO.

[Reffc]

I'm sure you base your observations on sound data Paul. But I have silver/PTFE interconnects that sound very good indeed and no hash high up (whether they measure as well as they sound I couldn't say). I did note you said "can" not 'will' result in ringing at HF.

Phillips actually did a lot of research in this area and their chief engineer, Bruno Putzeys (Philips Digital Systems Labs) set up experiments to measure microphonic impulse responses from Teflon/silver cable. His conclusions were that due to the contact charge properties between the two, ringing in the upper audio band was evident from his test results. This, he reasoned, could explain the "brightness" attributed to silver/Teflon cable geometry. Whether this is meaningful in terms of audible listening tests rather than lab measurements is another story, but it's one of these areas where evidence seems to support the match being less than ideal. If it sounds ok in your system, then the tests are meaningless as long as you like what you hear.