Trelja - the manufacturer who challenged the audio community to prove the purity of their wire over 99.99% is Silver Audio
The rest of the story goes like this:
The shameful practice of claiming ridiculous and completely impossible levels of silver purity by various "high-end" audio cable companies has gone on long enough. Silver Audio formally challenges ANY high-end audio cable company claiming to use greater than 99.99% pure silver to PROVE their claim by making available, a notarized copy of their certification analysis including the name and location of the INDEPENDENT laboratory as well as the type of testing method that was used.
When we demanded proof from our FORMER vendor of their claim (to us) of "five-nines" pure (99.999%) silver, they were unable (and unwilling) to provide it. When another potential vendor claiming "six-nines" pure (99.9999%) stopped communicating with us after we demanded proof from them as well, that was when we became very suspicious that claims of six and even "seven-nines" (and still higher!) were nothing but blatant marketing fraud. In some cases, honest ignorance appears to be the reason behind some claims of ultra-high purity. In most cases however, desperation for a unique selling point is obviously the motivation!
In two years of dealing with scores of the same testing labs that certify metal purity for the aerospace and medical industries (where purity REALLY matters) we find over and over again the same result: There is NO testing method, not even ICP mass spectrometry, and most importantly, no clean room or handling procedure capable of reliably and repeatedly assaying any element beyond 99.99% pure. Even the silicon used in the semi-conductor industry (by some of the most critical and sensitive equipment in the world) cannot be assayed for purity beyond 99.99%! Some audio companies have, perhaps only naively, tested their metal only for gas impurities (oxygen) which is expressed in parts per million (ppm) and apparently tried to then express this figure as a percent of purity (by weight or volume?)! This conversion makes no sense and even if it did, the real contaminants of silver are not oxygen, but the trace elements of iron, copper, phosphorus and silicon!
Silver Audio does not purchase any lot of silver that does not test to 99.99% pure ("pure" silver is often less than 99.99%). Each lot is certified by an independent lab for ALL trace impurities by weight, DC resistance and ductility. The certification for each new lot is notarized and provided to Silver Audio and is available to anyone who requests it, though it is intended for our OEM customers who buy our wire. The only aspects of purity that we pay some attention to, since they MIGHT account for some performance difference, are the relative levels of silicon and copper. Otherwise, what really matters (and is measurable) is the method by which the wire is drawn and to what final temper. Silver Audio does use a very simple (but to our knowledge unique) trick in conjunction with well maintained, very high tolerance diamond dies to ensure an exceptionally smooth, dense, and clean final product. Otherwise, the lesson here is that what really matters is the cable design and how it is executed, not whether the conductors are 1/10,000 of one percent less pure than those of another brand of cable!
The rest of the story goes like this:
The shameful practice of claiming ridiculous and completely impossible levels of silver purity by various "high-end" audio cable companies has gone on long enough. Silver Audio formally challenges ANY high-end audio cable company claiming to use greater than 99.99% pure silver to PROVE their claim by making available, a notarized copy of their certification analysis including the name and location of the INDEPENDENT laboratory as well as the type of testing method that was used.
When we demanded proof from our FORMER vendor of their claim (to us) of "five-nines" pure (99.999%) silver, they were unable (and unwilling) to provide it. When another potential vendor claiming "six-nines" pure (99.9999%) stopped communicating with us after we demanded proof from them as well, that was when we became very suspicious that claims of six and even "seven-nines" (and still higher!) were nothing but blatant marketing fraud. In some cases, honest ignorance appears to be the reason behind some claims of ultra-high purity. In most cases however, desperation for a unique selling point is obviously the motivation!
In two years of dealing with scores of the same testing labs that certify metal purity for the aerospace and medical industries (where purity REALLY matters) we find over and over again the same result: There is NO testing method, not even ICP mass spectrometry, and most importantly, no clean room or handling procedure capable of reliably and repeatedly assaying any element beyond 99.99% pure. Even the silicon used in the semi-conductor industry (by some of the most critical and sensitive equipment in the world) cannot be assayed for purity beyond 99.99%! Some audio companies have, perhaps only naively, tested their metal only for gas impurities (oxygen) which is expressed in parts per million (ppm) and apparently tried to then express this figure as a percent of purity (by weight or volume?)! This conversion makes no sense and even if it did, the real contaminants of silver are not oxygen, but the trace elements of iron, copper, phosphorus and silicon!
Silver Audio does not purchase any lot of silver that does not test to 99.99% pure ("pure" silver is often less than 99.99%). Each lot is certified by an independent lab for ALL trace impurities by weight, DC resistance and ductility. The certification for each new lot is notarized and provided to Silver Audio and is available to anyone who requests it, though it is intended for our OEM customers who buy our wire. The only aspects of purity that we pay some attention to, since they MIGHT account for some performance difference, are the relative levels of silicon and copper. Otherwise, what really matters (and is measurable) is the method by which the wire is drawn and to what final temper. Silver Audio does use a very simple (but to our knowledge unique) trick in conjunction with well maintained, very high tolerance diamond dies to ensure an exceptionally smooth, dense, and clean final product. Otherwise, the lesson here is that what really matters is the cable design and how it is executed, not whether the conductors are 1/10,000 of one percent less pure than those of another brand of cable!