Speaker Wire material


Could someone please explain this to me. I have heard that using speaker wires made out of different materials will have different sounds such as using silver would sound differnt than say using copper. I have a background in electronics and don't quite understand this. If both wires have the same load carrying capacity (silver being a better conductor the wire could be smaller diameter than the copper) what would cause the the sound to be differnt. When it comes down to the physics of it aren't you just pushing electrons along the wire?
rowa54e
Trying to use physics to explain the differences between copper & silver wire will not change the fact that they do produce a different sound. If I recall, Glen Croft said that the use of all silver wire in a component would produce an undesireable sound. However the combination of both copper and silver wire is more desirable.
The two metals do sound different too my ears. Real Silver has more of a silkiness to the top end. So far that's the biggest difference I notice.
SLV:

Consider the mass balance of the oxide to the unoxidized metal... You will see that this means that the electronic behavior of the oxides cannot be significant. (same applies for other "skin" effects" arguments)
SLV thanks for the reply I would think that the oxidaton of the materials would be insignificant unless you had just corroded pieces of crap. I agree with you on the impedance however on the average length of the speaker cable I again would think that the impedence disparity between the two materials (agreeing that they both would be of good quality) would produce a difference that would be audible to the human ear. I would expect that it could be seen if connected to an oscilliscope, but could it be heard?
ROW: You might be interested in the listening tests of cables that Stereo Review conducted in the early 80s. It can be downloaded from this page:

http://bruce.coppola.name/audio/wisdom.html