Serious Question About Silver vs Copper Conductivity for Power

@guakus ,

I don’t know if a difference in sound can be heard, from say a power amp, whether the conductors of a power cord are copper or silver. (Interconnects and speaker cables, are a different story.)

Things that can make a difference in a power cord:

The wire gauge used for the conductors.

Solid core or stranded wire conductors.

Geometry, how the cable is made.

Shielding.... Can be good and can be bad. Depends on the application, the equipment it is used to feed.

The type and quality of the connectors used.

As for the speed of current through a conductor, in a circuit. It’s travel is very slow. As slow as molasses.

You may find these exchanges of some interest.

kijanki

4,284 posts

06-07-2022 at 07:27pm

2x200W amp might take from mains close to 1kW during peaks. The problem is that peak supply current won’t be expected 8A, but rather close to 40A. It is because current is drawn only for very short time (millisecond pulse) at the peak of full wave rectified sinewave. It applies to most of LPS. Power delivered with such short pulses not only creates larger voltage drops in house wiring, but also heat-up amp’s power transformer, that has to be oversized (higher copper losses and higher core losses for eddy currents and hysteresis).

https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/329443/current-through-the-smoothing-capacitor-in-bridge-rectifier

jea48

3,875 posts

06-07-2022 at 08:04pm

 

@kijanki

+1

 

Please explain what happens if the power transformer’s secondary winding voltage is lower feeding the rectifier, due to a quick AC mains VD event, and the electrolytic capacitors voltage is higher. Just going from memory the rectifier will not conduct and the caps do not get recharged for that "(millisecond pulse)" in time.

 

Jim

kijanki

4,284 posts

06-07-2022 at 08:46pm

@jea48 You are right - there will be no current thru rectifiers until capacitor voltage will drop below rectifier supplied peak voltage. Theoretically it is possible to build LPS where capacitors keep average instead of peak voltage, but it requires huge inductor in series (in order of Henries) made with thick wire and AFAIK nobody is doing it. One problem is lower rail voltage (average instead of peak) while the other is dependency on the load current.

http://www.r-type.org/articles/art-144.htm

 Circuit wire gauge size matters.

.

@jea48 Thank you sir!  Finally, a reasonable response. If there was an award, you win it. :)

To answer some of your questions.  The power cable's geometry will be a total of 20 strands of 28awg solid silver, each 20 separately insulated in Teflon.  All braided into a hyper-litz geometry. 7 will go to hot, 7 to neutral and 6 to ground.  The braid and insulation is meant to be its "shield." It doesn't have an external mesh like other cables.

This power cable will be coming off a Shunyata Research Venom V16 distributor which uses their Alpha HC cable from the wall.  The wall socket is an Audioquest NRG Edison that is housed within Furutech's internal and external socket shield.

This is connecting to a Powered Speaker.  The speaker has two single-ended, linear, mono amps. One for left and one for right. The power board and cross over for the right channel is built into the right speaker and its drivers jump directly off that board. The Powered Speaker connects to its Passive brother via a similar cable as the power cable will be. 20 solid silver 28awg each insulated in Teflon and braided in a hyper-litz.  The difference will be 10 for the positive (right) and 10 for the negative (left) and using banana plugs instead of an IEC C7 and NEMA 15 Amp plug.

Obviously, the cables jumping off the crossover will be copper. Maybe one day, out of boredom, I will consider buying a few short runs of this same silver wire and change out the internal cables. I have already rolled the OEM fuse for Synergistic Research's Purple fuse.

@guakus You've answered wrong question. I wasn't contesting whether there's or there is no difference when you upgrade the power. I was mentioning that non-conducting materials in power cords are far more important while silver or copper absolutely make no difference.

@czarivey

I will find out in a few weeks whether or not that is true (for me and *this* particular system at this particular location.)

Based on your suggestion, you’re saying that a filtered copper cable will be superior to a braided silver cable? Both these cables use Teflon as the insulating dielectric. The gauges are similar. The copper cable uses three 14awg stranded conductors insulted in Teflon. the geometry is a simple twist, but has a massive filter attached. The silver cable uses twenty 28awg solid silver conductors, each strand is individually insulated in Teflon and braided together in a hyper-litz. It splits out as 7 braided strands for hot, 7 braided strands to neutral and 6 braided strands for ground.

@guakus

I would not build your power cable with these 28 gauge, solid silver conductors. The combined gauge per leg is only 20. Not enough! Also, using solid core this thin will be prone to break over time and handling. Not safe. I would also place in a proper outer jacket for safety in the event of a break or Teflon breach for safety.

Lastly, the sound will lack weight, body and bass. It just will. Not a good idea for all of these reasons in my estimation. Food for thought.