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Why Palladium in cables, wiring, etc. . .?

There seems to be a growing aura around Palladium. A perfectly good noble metal, Palladium came to popular fame during the now very dubious episode of cold fusion, proposed by Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Ponse. But the word Palladium itself has a much older and classical origin. A Palladium was originally a statue bearing the likeness of the goddes Pallas, and only much later it referred to buildings inspired by the neo-classical style of Andrea Palladio. Today the word bears both connotations of classical understated elegance as well as hinting at quasi esoteric neo-science and mysteries. Hence it is easy to understand why savvy marketing consultants may warmly recommend that products and brands aspiring to prestige may be named after the metal.

Yet, when it comes to discovering a physical reason why engineers may opt to actually employing this fine metallic element as a conductor in interconnects, chords, wires and electrical contacts, things become rather murky and unclear. For example, SilverSmith Audio now advertises some of its products as containing Palladium. And the newest iteration of the Dodson 218 DAC, by virtue of the company having been purchased by SilverSmith, now sports internal Palladium-alloy wiring.

What is it, besides its resistance to tarnish and corrosion, and the obvious aura in the name, that is causing such engineering choices? Palladium's disconcertingly high index of resistivity does not seem to justify its selection. Per the list below, Palladium is 6.65 times as resistive as
Silver, 6.28 times as resistive as copper, almost 4 times as resistive as Aluminum, and
approximately 10% more resistive than Iron. The good news is that Palladium appears
to be a little bit more conductive than Tin, and almost twice as conductive as Lead.

Resistivity:
Silver: (20 °C) 15.87 nO·m
Copper: (20 °C) 16.78 nO·m
Gold: (20 °C) 22.14 nO·m
Aluminum: (20 °C) 26.50 nO·m
Rhodium: (0 °C) 43.3 nO·m
Zinc: (20 °C) 59.0 nO·m
Nickel: (20 °C) 69.3 nO·m
Iron: (20 °C) 96.1 nO·m
Platinum: (20 °C) 105 nO·m
Palladium: (20 °C) 105.4 nO·m
Tin: (0 °C) 115 nO·m
Lead: (20 °C) 208 nO·m

Any ideas?
guidocorona
tbg
5,263 posts
 
Kevziek, I am afraid you are being too simplistic. There is the fact that copper oxide is very resistive and silver much less so. I don't like palladium's sound and for that matter gold's sound, but neither oxidizes.

There are substantial differences in the sounds of various interconnects and no one has a handle on what material, what gauge, what geometry, what conductivity of the connectors, what termination, what dielectric, what length etc. are needed for the best sounding.

You may be making the usual non-sensical argument that wire is wire. Since few would agree with you, I wonder why you would be posting this.
zaikesman
3,017 posts
 
Tgb: I don't think that was Kevziek's argument, but regardless, since when is the expectation of agreement a prerequisite for posting one's opinion? Personally, I'm probably more likely to post my opinion if I think it it runs counter to the grain.

Anyway, though I know or have heard nothing about palladium's use in cables, I suspect DC resistance may not be a terribly important criteria in cable materials sound. I say this for three reasons:

1) Audio is AC, not DC. While I don't pretend to know the technicalities of all this, I do believe that AC resistance is determined by not just the conductor material but also by the geometry, and that it's usually higher than the DC resistance and is therefore more of a factor in determining a conductor's losses to heat. So when was the last time anybody noticed their system cables running too hot?

2) Even if we stipulate that conductor material resistance (AC or DC) is a factor for cable design, who's to say that lower resistance necessarily equals better sound? If the resistance is uniform with frequency in the audioband, then it seems to me other factors will be more important.

3) To point #2, all of my interconnects use carbon fiber as the conductor material, which is many times higher in DC resistance than the metals discussed here. I chose these cables because I think they sound better than any of the metal cables I've used, so it's clear to me that this out of context materials spec isn't a valid way to prejudge a cable's audio performance.
rja's avatar
rja
2,379 posts
 
Zaikesman,
Your post makes sense. Ultimately it's how the cable sounds not how it "should" sound. Just read the reviews of Silversmith Audio Palladium series cables. Seems Palladium can indeed sound superb. Don't know why, don't really care.
kevziek
323 posts
 
Tbg, I never made the argument that wire is wire. I question using a resistive metal. I should be free to post my thoughts just as you are yours, so your challenging why I posted this is out of line. Zaikesman, it is true that carbon fiber is highly resistive, but one needs to remember that it is not a metal; it is a totally different material and has its own particular sonic qualities that some like and other don't. As far as whether it is necessary to transmit signal with the lowest possible resistance, many designers would say yes, whether they are right or wrong, I can't say.
tbg
5,263 posts
 
Kevziek and Zaikesman, sorry I misinterpreted what Kewziek was saying. I guess I spend too much time reading on Prop Head on AA.

I once had the carbon First Wire and now use the non-metal Cerious Technologies interconnects. I had to abandon the First Wire because its high resistance was causing me ground loop problems. The Cerious does not have such high resistance.

My initial posting was merely to suggest one reason why some designers are using palladium wire and to mention my impressions of the "sound" of palladium.

I heard of a guy who was achieving quite low resistance by using liquid nitrogen poured into the channel between his amp and speakers that was filled with mercury. I never really understood why he used mercury as copper would have also approached absolute zero and no resistance. Too bad that the superconductivity at more normal temperatures proved impossible.
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