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Are silver coated cables a bunch of hype?

I'm looking to upgrade some cables (digital coax/comp. video), and I've seen recomendations re: Canare. Originally I looked into a few silver coated copper cables. I spoke to a tech at Canare cable and he said none of their cables are silver coated, and that silver made no difference when it came to signal transfer. Is a good quality copper cable as good or better than a silver coated cable? Does the silver coated copper have a cheaper copper grade/purity to cut cost when adding silver? Thank You, Chrisrn.
chrisrn
redkiwi
1,092 posts
 
I could be wrong, but I thought I read some years back that one of the key reasons for coating copper with silver was to eliminate problems of copper being corroded by certain formulations of Teflon. I know that Teflon/Copper cables exist, so perhaps it is either a small issue or different formulations of Teflon present more or less of a problem.
albertporter's avatar
albertporter
4,949 posts
 
Redkiwi, good to see you again. Hope you intend to stick around.
twl
3,251 posts
 
Redkiwi, I have read that silver oxides are still conductive, so that they still sound good after being oxidized, whereas copper oxidation is not conductive/less conductive, and adds bad sounding artifacts. So this could be a good point for using some silver coating. At one time, when wires were inexpensive, this was not a problem because if they had corrosion/oxidation, you just got new ones. But at several thousand dollars a set, we don't want to just go out and buy new, when any oxidation takes place. So for long term use, silver plating may have its advantages over plain copper.
theaudiotweak
2,804 posts
 
I like the sound of pure and simple copper. Melding of two different metals never seems to become as coherent as a solo one..
redkiwi
1,092 posts
 
And it is good to see you are still here Albert, and Jadem6 on this same thread too. I have been too busy work-wise to visit here recently, but hope to rectify that. Twl, you are right in your observations on conductivity and it had not occurred to me that this was also a reason for coating copper with silver, but it makes sense. I have some old Straightwire Virtuoso cables that have corroded quite badly where they are terminated in the RCA plugs. I can see it, and believe I can hear it too - unless they really were that bad to begin with...
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