Serious Question About Silver vs Copper Conductivity for Power


Yes, I realize that this topic is going to bring out the sharks, but if I get at least one serious response, it will all be worth it.

I understand that silver conducts 7% faster than copper.  I also understand that using a dielectric insulation like Teflon is best at keeping the wire from overheating, stopping signals entering and stopping signals from leaving the conductor. I understand that a certain amount of math is involved in selected gauge of wire depending largely on how much power the component is going to take, and how much the amperage is (20 or 15).

My question is regarding certain features applied to either silver or copper conductors that may or may not have an advantage over one or the other.

I have the Kimber Kable P14 Palladian.  This uses 14awg copper conductors insulated in Teflon.  Then it adds a massive filter that attempts to mitigate the standing wave ratio to as close to 1:1 as possible. I had Kimber’s Ascent power cable prior.  It’s identical to the Palladian, except the filter. I have heard the difference between using those two cables.  Apparently, mitigating the standing wave ratio lowers the noise floor significantly. However, any filter that chokes the signal and will slow the electrical current.

As I understand it, the amplifier works by opening the rectifier to allow the capacitors to fill with energy that the system will draw from.  Being able to keep the rectifier open and fill the capacitors as fast as possible, reducing lag time, has the effect of creating more realistic and detailed sound.

With that said, changing to a power cable that uses pure silver insulated in Teflon, will ensure that power is delivered potentially faster.  Although, the silver power cable will NOT have a filter.  Therefore the standing wave ratio will not be mitigated and the electrical signal will not be choked either.

So, would the amplifier benefit from faster electrical current or slower, but cleaner electric current?  Since this signal isn’t directly applied to sound, the concepts of “colder” or “warmer” sound should not apply.

Can someone help me out without poking fun at the question?  Additionally, I am not interested in having a cable-theory debate.  If you don’t believe cables make any difference, I will not debate or have discourse on that topic.


 

128x128guakus

@guakus ,

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. 

Are you building, making, fabricating, this cable?

Teflon insulation should not be solely the insulation used to insulated power line conductors from one another. Example, insulate the hot conductor from the neutral conductor and safety equipment grounding conductor. You can use Teflon for each parallel run of the hot and the neutral paralleled conductors but you will need to use a rubber or equal covering over each paralleled group of conductors.

As for the EGC, (Equipment Grounding Conductors), it's a safety ground. It does nothing for sound. Just use an insulated stranded copper conductor.

As for the individual 28 gauge solid silver wires. For AC power, jmho, that is too small. I would think the wire gauge would have to be at least 16awg.... Maybe 18awg. 

Here is a Web Link to a wire combination calculator.

https://www.wirebarn.com/Combined-Wire-Gauge-Calculator_ep_42.html

Note: 7 , 28awg conductors in parallel only equals 20awg.

7~ 18awg = 10awg

5~ 18awg = 11awg.

Agreed. Not a cable any cable company should be selling based on the safety issues clearly evident here. Not trying to be difficult here OP. Just not my nature. Rather, trying to nicely make it clear that this design is not safe or prudent in my opinion. I have built many, many cables over the years. 

@guakus said:

I gave the company my system’s specifications before the cable was built. The cable is rated for 100w at 15 amps.

100W / 120V = 0.83 amp.

1800W / 120V = 15 amps

 

Maximum ampacity for 20awg copper wire = 1.5A  (Power transmission line)

https://www.powerstream.com/Wire_Size.htm

 

Folks like @holmz and yourself see any discussion of cables making a difference as an invitation to shame and belittle.

He hasn’t offered any real scientific facts that matter. Talking about 60 vs 120 hz is just name-dropping scientific data that has no bearing on the question.

He completely removed his credibility when he focused on my "7% faster" comment as "magical." So I posted the scientific journal that explained it. I could keep going, but what’s the point. It’s just an on-going shame-game to you folks.

The reality is, you folks have made up my mind. You don’t have the knowledge nor the experience to answer the question

I am not responsible for emotional feelings, and you are reading in shame and belittling on your own.

You started off saying that the silver is fast, and the teflon keeps it from burning… both statements are untrue.

We do not know if a “faster cable” is better, but 60 Hz (120 Hz) is pretty slow. The way top make a cable faster is by lowering the inductance and/or the capacitance.

  1. We lower the inductance with geometry.
  2. We lower the capacitance with geometry and the dielectric.
    1. Teflon has a high dielectric constant (k), so we are going the wrong way. You need something more towards k=1 to lower capacitance.

If you are going to buy the cable based upon emotion, then just buy the thing and be done.

If you want to buy the cable based upon theory then it gets difficult as we need theories and metrics. The metrics for the cable did not appear to be provided, and the EE theories are not considered to be overly easy.

The third way is to some up with an alternative hypothesis. This was offered previously, and namely it was , “the output only depends on the smoothness of the DC power supply.”
One could measure the DC power supply, while the amp is in operation.

Or we just by how it sounds, but that is covered in psychoacoustic theory. And it is laden with bias.

 

As for the criticism of word choice on "faster" electrical conductivity, consider this: "Silver is sometimes thought to be the best conductor because its electrons can move faster than other elements—which is attributed to the polarity of crystals and their structure."

^Freer^, is probably a better word, than faster in that website quote…

 

Lastly; when people are trying to offer you help and solutions to your question, then accusing them of causing you offence is not helpful in adult conversation. Either explain where and how you were triggered so that they can work on their delivery, or try and read the post without inserting your own emotions.

Have a good day sir.