Would silver cables beat UP-OCC copper?

Well, I just went into the rabbit hole and this is one large warren.  Going through my SC pile I dug out a set of Supra Ply with tinned ends and replaced the Tempo Electrics with them. I haven't tried them since I got my power conditioner, fuses, footers, etc. so it's been a good many years. 

By themselves and with proper jumpers, they injected too much smoke into the mix and were weak in the bass. Now, when being used in a bi wire set, they inject just enough smoke so as to take away the sharp outlines that the silver cables provide. Just enough to take away that you are there in the recording studio feeling to now being out in the audience. Every single thing I hear in with the silver cables is present, but not as prominent in the leading edge.

There's a kind of burnishing of the sound with small doses of honey that fleshes out voices, instruments and the like and is really captivating. Hearing that, I went and swapped out the Cabledyne Virtuosos with a pair of Zu Events and it was kind of a let down with regards to bass. Kind of hard to tell so I ran my CD burn in disc and will keep them in for a week or so to see how they fare.

What I intend to do is see if I can go with an all copper route with a nice bi wire set. This will be interesting since my JBLs are truly meant to be bi wired and this is just the start of things. All previous conceptions seem to be going out the proverbial window. It seems like Vandersteen was right when he said one must remove the bass cabling from the rest of the spectrum as it interferes too much with it.

All the best,
Nonoise

Talk about a 180. Listening to the cooper set up I was noting the pluses and minuses. It was when I put on a solo cello was when I heard the grossest event. The cello was playing dead center and as it played, some of it went about 1/3 of the way to the left when it always stayed nice and centered. 

I chalked that up to the stranded wire. There was also some sibilance in the upper mids where it never existed before. Enough of this.

When putting the Cabledyne Virtuosos back it (and not looking forward to using the Tempo Electric) I remembered the lower line of Cabledyne SCs that I had and put them in. It's their entry line of silver cables that also uses OCC stranded silver but in a lower tech jacket, sheathed in copper with BFA bananas. 

The last time I tried them in a bi wire set up was before I got my power conditioner, footers and before I switched the filter setting on my SACD player. It had an etched sound to it. Wondering how I was going to use two banana connectors on one input, I just unloosened the plastic cover on the speaker output as far as it would go and saw my opening: the bare wire insert was large enough to accommodate the banana so I put it in, tightened it down, and use the regular input for the other banana.

It's game over for me now. With OCC stranded silver in both cables of the same make and length, my speakers now sing with one unified voice, the likes of which I've never experienced. 

As Alex said, in A Clockwork Orange, "it's clear as a sky of azure blue: clear as an unmuddied lake." 

Now I know what coherence is. There's no sign of aggressiveness, glare, bite, etch, or forwardness. No leading edge to speak of. Just music that's full, detailed, balanced and natural. There's real silence when the music pauses.

I don't know why Cabledyne went out of business but that former Belden engineer who designed these cables knew what he was doing.

All the best,
Nonoise 

Listening to the copper set up I was noting the pluses and minuses. It was when I put on a solo cello was when I heard the grossest event. The cello was playing dead center and as it played, some of it went about 1/3 of the way to the left when it always stayed nice and centered.

I chalked that up to the stranded wire.

You honestly believe the location of an instrument shifted what, 10-20 degrees because of stranded wire?  You do realize that makes almost anything you write suspect?   Perhaps you could discuss how we perceive instrument location and how stranded wire shifted the image 10-20 degrees?


Are you familiar with Occam's Razor?  ... the simplest explanation is usually the right one.


Did it occur to you that you had a bad connection that worked its way loose? It wasn't stranded wire that caused the image to shift. It may have been a bad connection. That could have explained the other issues too.

Sorry, many faces of whatever, but the connections were tight. It was the image that was smeared. Notice in the quote that I said some of it went about 1/3 to the left, not all of it. In your eagerness to be a PITA you pounced before you looked. But being you, I don't expect you to say anything productive. 

All the best,
Nonoise

I have used QED silver anniversary cable for years in my system. Silver plated ofc copper. I find it provides excellent high frequency detail, yet retains informative tight bass frequencies. I use the biwire version of the cable. I see no reason to change it out as I’m happy with the way it sounds. Orton seems to like to use silver in the construction of some of their cartridges, the 2m silver and both the 2m bronze and 2m black.. silver plated copper wire. I use the 2m bronze, it's a fantastic cartridge.