Do Cables Wear Out?

Spl: Oops, I also forgot to mention -- as long as we're mentioning at all, we might as well be comprehensive about it -- that vdH (and possibly only one or two other brands) offers wires made from amorphous metals, another manufacturing process (different from OCC) that is said to avoid microstructural crystalline boundaries. (VdH calls this technology "Fusion" because it uses an alloy, and combines it with their LSC carbon coating. I haven't heard these cables, though I've heard good things about them.) BTW, I should hasten to add that I'm no more technically qualified than most audiophiles to really know anything about this whole supposed 'crystal' business or what effect it may or may not truly have on wire sound, which of course hasn't stopped me from using LSC and OCC wires in my own system...

JPW: In other words, you have no idea how much "corrosion" a speaker cable would typically suffer over X years, and whether that corrosion would reduce conductivity enough to be audible. So your earlier statements were based on . . . what exactly? Nothing that I can see.

I and others have noted that even decades-old wire can have very little visible tarnish, let alone corrosion. Seems to me you're trying to invent a problem that isn't there.

Does anyone know if capsaicin extract treatment can restore original conductivity in tarnished silver cables? Or in other words, will capsaicin bind to Silver sulphide and dissolve it?

Pabelson - just because you can't see gravity does not mean that there IS no gravity. I can say with a degree of certainty that most copper based cables that do not have coatings on the copper to prevent oxidation WILL suffer sonic degradation over time that is audible. Try this for yourself - run some lamp cord to a pair of outdoor speakers - strip the ends and connect the speakers. Enjoy the speakers all summer long. In the fall, do some critical listening to the speakers, then cut off the last 3" of wire , strip the insulation back and listen to the same material again. You will be amazed at the difference. Obviously, there will be more difference in areas of high humidity vs low humidity, so if you live in the desert, Pabelson, I understand - YOUR experiment might take longer to produce audible results for you.

Huh, now we can use outdoor speakers to do testing of the audibility of corrosion in copper wires, when a much more accurate visual test is available to detect corrosion. Maybe the difference has more to do with the fact that you have cut off a small piece of copper and then the connection is better and you could have abtained the same result by cutting off the cable when new and not submitted to so-called corrosion.
Salut, Bob P.