Audiophools

On Sun, 25 Jun 2006 22:02:16 -0400, "Paul E. Schoen" Gave us:

Silver cladding and electroplating is commonly used in High power, high frequency transmitter circuitry on coils, etc.

Remember "skin effect"?

A manufacturer would not spend more money (or a consumer for that matter) on plating something in silver if there wasn't truly a major electrical engineering benefit derived from it. A fine example is HF tank circuits. It is used in teflon wire manufacture because it tins VERY EASILY and mil spec and NASA LIKE THAT FACT.

Ever try to tin TPC PTFE wire? IT SUCKS! The teflon does something to the tin, and it refuses to wet unless the hottest conditions are provided, and that is not good.

Good thing we have highly activated fluxes to work with.

I'll still take silver plating over tin or bare copper ANY DAY.

Won't see it much in mag wire as magnet wire makers feel that the largest usage of their product is low frequency power transformation, and semi-HF switcher transformation. Litz helps in power transformers, but silver plating doesn't seem to do much for low turn count applications. The litz is the right stuff though, because all the "skin" surface area available is increased. Essentially, one gets more wire than one bargains for. :-]

Variable gauge, high wire count Litz configurations would be the ideal speaker feed.

STFU. Weren't you going to cite that? Oh...

Tim

So, what is the skin depth at 20 kHz? How does that compare to the thickness of typical plating?

True. But then all one needs is larger diameter copper to compensate for its higher resistivity. Increasing the conductor diameter will increase its self inductance, but do you really think that this change is going to be significant?

On Thu, 29 Jun 2006 17:03:13 -0500, "Tim Williams" Gave us:

ESAD, fucktard.

CRC, dipshit.

On Thu, 29 Jun 2006 16:52:07 -0700, "Paul Hovnanian P.E." Gave us:

Dang.. couldn't find the chart!

audio stuff...

Cool 50kW Transmitter output stage view here...

Silver plating is like 11 microns for the good stuff, IIRC.

The really good stuff is "clad" not plated.

A large gauge multi-stranded silver plated wire is going to have the same proportion more silver in it (on it) as the smaller gauges. It does make a difference.

Forget about the amazing technology -- look at their valuable marketing strategy for buying in quantity:

Elevator (individual) $20.00 Elevators - Porcelain cable isolators (Set of 8) $159.95

Considering their target market, I think it should have been: Elevators - Porcelain cable isolators (Set of 8) $160.05

I have another cool audionut idea.

I think that we should point out deleterios effects of ionizing radiation and space rays on the quality of sound. After all, ionizing radiation ionizes particles, producing unwanted electrons in the wires (ie electrons not moved by the amplifier).

That creates a noise effect in the wires, which adversely affects believability of sound. It may render even the most expensive cables ineffective in improving crispness and believability.

Thus, I propose to sell silver plated lead shielding for audio cables, that could be grounded on both sides of the cable.

The ad would say something like this:

``___ brand expensive cables do not help? Perhaps ionizing radiation is to blame. Try our lead shields for cables, blocking unwanted electron release''

Actually the opposite. Chris

You're right. Its ln( D/r ).

But then, if I think about it, increasing the radius 'r' of a conductor to compensate for lower conductivity will also increase the center to center distance 'D' by approximately the same amount. This assumes that speaker wires will be constructed with similar insulation thickness. Ignoring proximity effects (which my transmission line* formula doesn't include), the line Z will be the same.

r.

resistance.

I found the formula:

Sd (effective) = sqrt( 2 / ( w * u * c ) )

where

w = wavelength u = 4*PI*10E-7 (permittivity of space) c = conductivity c of silver is 63.0E6 mho/meter

so I get:

Sd = 1.39 mm for Silver

Effective skin depth being the depth of a current traveling at the conductor surface and zero through the rest of the conductor that would give the same I*R drop.

The interesting thing is, given the above equation, the increase in skin depth for copper is proportional to the square root of the ratio of the silver to copper resistivity ratio. This is about 11%, so the copper skin depth is 5% greater.

This means that a copper conductor will have to have a 5% greater radius to maintain the same resistance per unit length.

Unless its Litz wire, plating the individual strands doesn't seem to make much sense. The current will travel on the surface of the bundle. If it is Litz wire, then the 5% increase in radius for unclad copper applies.

Or perhaps you could mention the detrimental effects of 60 Hz free-space magnetic fields, which are present almost everywhere. The solution would be a special, $900 headband with a couple of magnets just above the ears, made with the *RARE EARTH* element neodymium, to align the local field. There is already a lot of superstitious rubbish about magnets anyway, which can only help the marketing. Of course, those in the UK would require larger magnets to correct the 50 Hz fields.

Wouldn't that be smaller magnets? Anyway, your idea is cool and, as we know, shiny magnets are known to cure diseases. So head mounted magnets could, possibly, cure some gullibility.

``Are you too gullible? People take advantage of you? Spending too much on snake oil solutions? Then you need out gullibility correcting magnets. Applied to your head just above the ears, these amazing magnents not only change orientation of 60 Hz magnetic fields, helping with crispness of sound, but they also affect the gullibility centers in the brain, improving your decision making''

On Tue, 04 Jul 2006 14:16:03 GMT, Ignoramus5009 Gave us:

Only $695.00 US per pair. Where's P. T. Barnum at when ya need him...

resistance.

I think i like this version of Roy. Slams willful stupidity even harder and proves no need for profanity.