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Why Palladium in cables, wiring, etc. . .?

There seems to be a growing aura around Palladium. A perfectly good noble metal, Palladium came to popular fame during the now very dubious episode of cold fusion, proposed by Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Ponse. But the word Palladium itself has a much older and classical origin. A Palladium was originally a statue bearing the likeness of the goddes Pallas, and only much later it referred to buildings inspired by the neo-classical style of Andrea Palladio. Today the word bears both connotations of classical understated elegance as well as hinting at quasi esoteric neo-science and mysteries. Hence it is easy to understand why savvy marketing consultants may warmly recommend that products and brands aspiring to prestige may be named after the metal.

Yet, when it comes to discovering a physical reason why engineers may opt to actually employing this fine metallic element as a conductor in interconnects, chords, wires and electrical contacts, things become rather murky and unclear. For example, SilverSmith Audio now advertises some of its products as containing Palladium. And the newest iteration of the Dodson 218 DAC, by virtue of the company having been purchased by SilverSmith, now sports internal Palladium-alloy wiring.

What is it, besides its resistance to tarnish and corrosion, and the obvious aura in the name, that is causing such engineering choices? Palladium's disconcertingly high index of resistivity does not seem to justify its selection. Per the list below, Palladium is 6.65 times as resistive as
Silver, 6.28 times as resistive as copper, almost 4 times as resistive as Aluminum, and
approximately 10% more resistive than Iron. The good news is that Palladium appears
to be a little bit more conductive than Tin, and almost twice as conductive as Lead.

Resistivity:
Silver: (20 °C) 15.87 nO·m
Copper: (20 °C) 16.78 nO·m
Gold: (20 °C) 22.14 nO·m
Aluminum: (20 °C) 26.50 nO·m
Rhodium: (0 °C) 43.3 nO·m
Zinc: (20 °C) 59.0 nO·m
Nickel: (20 °C) 69.3 nO·m
Iron: (20 °C) 96.1 nO·m
Platinum: (20 °C) 105 nO·m
Palladium: (20 °C) 105.4 nO·m
Tin: (0 °C) 115 nO·m
Lead: (20 °C) 208 nO·m

Any ideas?
guidocorona
gregm
3,409 posts
 
Marketing apart (i.e. "the new kid on the block" so to speak), Palladium has been used in connections.

Now, whether the resistive loss energy is counteracted by a balanced signal transfer -- I don't know. The only thing I can say is that between a copper IC & a palladium (0,8 mm), IC as per Jade's "tape supported conductors experiment", the palladium was definitely slightly less "loud". The high frequencies sounded... well, there was energy there, some slam, and the detail while acceptable was not "in yr face"... Overall, rather vague, I know -- but the palladiums are not mine anyway.

BTW, JD (jadem6 -- one of Agon's resident master tweakers:)) said soemwhere he'll be experimenting with palladium...
guidocorona OP
4,298 posts
 
Thank you all! Keep the interesting info coming. In the meantime, here is a tidbit about Titanium. If I am getting my conversions correctly, Titanium is almost 4 times as resistive as Palladium and almost 26.5 times as resistive as Silver.

Titanium electrical resistivity (20 °C) 0.420 µO·m
dazzdax
599 posts
 
There is a lot of "cable neurosis". Cables are intended to fine tune a system and to bring out the full potential of a system. A cable can only sound as good as the system in total. A balanced sounding system will benefit from good cables, but a system that is not "match" appropriately will not sound better with even the best cables in the world. If a system is well matched, it doesn't really matter which brand of cable one is using. The only important thing is that the cable is of high quality and has been engineered appropriately.

Chris
acresverde
401 posts
 
GC

If your comment regarding the resistivity of titanium had to do with the mention of the Pure Note Titanium cable, note that only the jacket of this cable is titanium (as I understand it).
jadem6's avatar
jadem6
1,074 posts
 
I have been told by powers much smarter than I that for the best overall electrical performance, a palladium/silver alloy has proven through testing to be the best possible metal. These tests were conducted strictly on electrical characteristics on a large cross section of test standards for the electrical industry.

Resistance is just one aspect to concider, and in "our" relitively short cables, this may not generate the best sound. It might have a low resistance if all silver, but resistance does not define sound.

The reason for audio people exploring palladium is no doubt because of its success in industry for electrical transmission when alloyed with silver. It's only natural to assume we audio nuts in search of the Holly Grail would try palladium, platinum, rhodium and what ever is next.

jd
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