silver vs copper speaker cable trivial?

Archived from groups: rec.audio.high-end (More info?)

Hi all,

I recently constructed a pure silver solid core/ptfe insulated speaker
cable. The aim was to upgrade emotionally a bit to the microphone
cables I normally use.

I once tested various DIY cables, coaxes, cheap and expensive cables to
notice very slight differences in sound. Slight in: can I discern the
klarinet player somewhere in the middle of the orchestra ?

To my amazement the silver things actually have a significant impact on
the sound. It is NOT harsh or whatever, but nice and clear.

So maybe the cable thing is not totally trivial.

The usually small effect in sound with good and bad copper may also
have something to do with the extreme quality #45 SET amp in parafeed
mode. It does 20 -100000 -0dB without feedback.

Any comments?

Hubert Pellikaan

Archived from groups: rec.audio.high-end (More info?)

hubert pellikaan wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I recently constructed a pure silver solid core/ptfe insulated speaker
> cable. The aim was to upgrade emotionally a bit to the microphone
> cables I normally use.
>
> I once tested various DIY cables, coaxes, cheap and expensive cables
> to notice very slight differences in sound. Slight in: can I discern
> the klarinet player somewhere in the middle of the orchestra ?
>
> To my amazement the silver things actually have a significant impact
> on the sound. It is NOT harsh or whatever, but nice and clear.
>
> So maybe the cable thing is not totally trivial.
>
> The usually small effect in sound with good and bad copper may also
> have something to do with the extreme quality #45 SET amp in parafeed
> mode. It does 20 -100000 -0dB without feedback.
>
> Any comments?
>

You better go the Steve Hofmann site with your vivid imagination, you are in
good company then. And you constructed the whole story here, didn't even try
to test. Right?
I can see that from your 1st sentence. Are you saying U use microphone cable
on the speakers or rather speaker cable on the mike lines?
And your imaginary silver cable will have the same clearness as the copper
cable, not harsh. Why should it sound harsh or whatever? It will sound
identical, but because you would have paid a gross amount of money, you
believe that the silver sounds better, otherwise you will not look too
smart, won't you?

--
ciao Ban
Bordighera, Italy

Archived from groups: rec.audio.high-end (More info?)

On 26 Aug 2005 00:42:50 GMT, "hubert pellikaan" <hubert@feyecon.com>
wrote:

>Hi all,
>
>I recently constructed a pure silver solid core/ptfe insulated speaker
>cable. The aim was to upgrade emotionally a bit to the microphone
>cables I normally use.
>
>I once tested various DIY cables, coaxes, cheap and expensive cables to
>notice very slight differences in sound. Slight in: can I discern the
>klarinet player somewhere in the middle of the orchestra ?
>
>To my amazement the silver things actually have a significant impact on
>the sound. It is NOT harsh or whatever, but nice and clear.
>
>So maybe the cable thing is not totally trivial.
>
>The usually small effect in sound with good and bad copper may also
>have something to do with the extreme quality #45 SET amp in parafeed
>mode. It does 20 -100000 -0dB without feedback.

No, it doesn't - not at half-power.

>Any comments?

Try it again, when you don't *know* what's connected. There's a $5,000
prize waiting if you can still hear those differences.
--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering

Archived from groups: rec.audio.high-end (More info?)

hubert pellikaan wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> I recently constructed a pure silver solid core/ptfe insulated speaker
> cable. The aim was to upgrade emotionally a bit to the microphone
> cables I normally use.
>
> I once tested various DIY cables, coaxes, cheap and expensive cables to
> notice very slight differences in sound. Slight in: can I discern the
> klarinet player somewhere in the middle of the orchestra ?
>
> To my amazement the silver things actually have a significant impact on
> the sound. It is NOT harsh or whatever, but nice and clear.
>
> So maybe the cable thing is not totally trivial.
>
> The usually small effect in sound with good and bad copper may also
> have something to do with the extreme quality #45 SET amp in parafeed
> mode. It does 20 -100000 -0dB without feedback.
>
> Any comments?
>
> Hubert Pellikaan


Two comments:

- the comparison between two mic cables (apparently some posters did not
read carefully - MIC CABLES) is most valid when both cables are the same
construction except for the material in the conductor AND the same
length - ie. otherwise identical.

- many here would prefer DBT, or will doubt that you heard anything that
wasn't a self created illusion.

- ok, THREE comments: what output transformer are you using? As Lord
Pinkerton noted that is unusually good response for an output tranny.
BTW, Lord Pinkerton, I have in my possession a pair of output
transformers that pretty much do that trick but at ~100 watts or so...
so it can be done. And keep in mind that a 45 SE is about 3-5 watts max,
so finding iron that will go down is easy enough, the trick is going
up... which parafeed helps with... but I am wondering which iron is in
that amplifier - oh, depending on the rest of the circuit, the amp could
be pretty darn low in distortion.

_-_-bear

Archived from groups: rec.audio.high-end (More info?)

Hi,

thanks for the compliment!

It is in fact a output transformer made by automatic electric in
schagen (the Netherlands) it was made with very thin magnetic material
and used in parafeed. It reaches 130kHz -3 dB; this is at the end of
the speaker cable, in paralel with the speaker.

It does not distort much, altough I did not measure it.

Hubert Pellikaan

Archived from groups: rec.audio.high-end (More info?)

Some comments:

- yes I did know what cables were used, I hooked them up! The result
surprised since it was unexpected and of a different kind then I would
think. I will try to give a description this week.

- Yes, the resistance may have an effect on speaker/amp communication,
altough the mesured frquence response was measured at the end of the
cable and in parallel with the speaker.
Output resistance is significant with SET's also in parafeed.

Hubert

Archived from groups: rec.audio.high-end (More info?)

On 31 Aug 2005 00:06:15 GMT, "hubert pellikaan" <hubert@feyecon.com>
wrote:

>Some comments:

About what? Please *quote* the text to which you're referring.
>
>- yes I did know what cables were used, I hooked them up! The result
>surprised since it was unexpected and of a different kind then I would
>think. I will try to give a description this week.

The result doesn't surprise me at all. Try it again when you *don't*
know which one is connected.
--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering