Serious Question About Silver vs Copper Conductivity for Power

And, in case anyone was in doubt, it makes no difference if the power traverses the cable 7% faster.

@clearthinker to be fair to the OP, it is spruicked in the literature of many of this sort of gear, using words of speed and fastness… and all sorts of things that help them, sell the gear as “being needed.”

I certainly have spent more than I ever thought I would on a power supply, and I could spend more on a battery for it, as the front end preamp and phono amp uses 12V… So the last thing I would do is put on a fancy 240v cable to it with a darn good (and proven) reason.

@holmz   As to manufacturer's hype, we all need to keep our bullsh** detectors turned up full, otherwise we and our wallets are just cannon fodder..  Most people know that electricity travels at something approaching the speed of light, so a 7% reduction in the time to traverse a 6 foot length of wire will not be very long at all in audio terms.  In this discussion, we are only keeping a capacitor topped up of course.  You just can't beat good old common sense that regrettably appears in very short supply these days and not just in audio.

For those nervous types who are obsessed by the risk of noise, I concur about DC battery supplies.  These are particularly useful with preamps as you say, where the oomph required is much less than for power amps.  But unless you are an electrical engineer, you need to buy an amp with built in provision for a battery supply, and this restricts choice unacceptably for most.  I wonder if there s a place for a well-engineered all-in unit to do the job of inputting to an amp designed to take only 240v AC.  Battery supply kills off all noise issues except for the very severely obsessed.

@holmz As to manufacturer’s hype, we all need to keep our bullsh** detectors turned up full, otherwise we and our wallets are just cannon fodder.. Most people know that electricity travels at something approaching the speed of light, so a 7% reduction in the time to traverse a 6 foot length of wire will not be very long at all in audio terms. In this discussion, we are only keeping a capacitor topped up of course. You just can’t beat good old common sense that regrettably appears in very short supply these days and not just in audio

@clearthinker

Yeah but it is not 7% faster, it is 7% more conductive.

• And even if we were to say it was 7% faster, throwing in some PVC or Teflon slows the field down by 1/SQRT(k), so using an insulator with a lower dielectric constant (k) defines the speed. But alas the conductor material does NOT define the speed of electricity, nor the speed of light, or any other EM field.
• And if we were to imagine some massive high amperage burst during a uS, then the inductance probably comes into play much quicker than the silver versus copper conductivity.

As others have pointed out going from a 14ga copper to a 14ga silver is 7% better for lowering resistance, but going to 12ga or 10ga is a lot more benefit than 7%.

Than as ​​​@mitch2 sort of implied, the current flow through a 20ga cable seems like it going in the opposite direction of the OP’s hypothesis of dumping massive short current bursts into the amp.

I use an effective 20ga for ICs, and they seem OK… however I would be using a “store bought” power cord over a 20ga power cord.

The mention of the 20ga power cord solution has me thinking that we have been expertly trolled… in masterclass fashion.

For those nervous types who are obsessed by the risk of noise, I concur about DC battery supplies. These are particularly useful with preamps as you say, where the oomph required is much less than for power amps. But unless you are an electrical engineer, you need to buy an amp with built in provision for a battery supply, and this restricts choice unacceptably for most. I wonder if there s a place for a well-engineered all-in unit to do the job of inputting to an amp designed to take only 240v AC. Battery supply kills off all noise issues except for the very severely obsessed.

The old preamp was fine and has no noise issues.
The new power supply one was a package deal with a phono stage.

It sounds good, but I did not get it being obsessed with noise… It just looked good to have all the pieces in a stack, and adds some Feng Shui to make domestic bliss.

I am NOT getting a battery pack for it, but if I was to put it into, say, a camper or motorhome, then I easily could.

@holmz    Yes I should have said conductivity, not speed.  I am entirely prepared to accept your scientific explanation and I thank you for it.

But this element of the discussion relates to topping up large capacitor(s) in a power amp to replace power used by the unit in playing music.  If you employ a decent gauge of wire (as manufacturers put in the box for you), there is no way enough juice is not going to get to the cap(s), and no way sending 107 per time unit is going to be better than sending 100.  Indeed, the cap won't absorb anywhere near all the power that can run through the wire and will in fact draw a lot less than that.

The concern is entirely unwarranted and obsessive.

The mention of the 20ga power cord solution has me thinking that we have been expertly trolled… in masterclass fashion.

My thinking exactly! 😁

Mike