It's good enough for toe rings, good enough for fancy necklaces, good enough for serving tea from a fancy serving tray to old ladies from Newport, good enough for tooth fillings, but not good enough for Mr. T, engagement rings, or rapper's "grilles".

But is it good for re-wiring speakers? That, my fellow tweakers of non-methapmhetamine variety, is the question.

Has anyone done it? And did it help?

Would a length of Monster Cable XP, or 16 Gau. speaker wire do almost as good? As good?

I'd like to tweak my Dahlquist DQ-10s with beefier wire if possible. If it helps, and isn't just psychoacoustic poetic waxing, I'd consider my Boston Acoustics A150s, and DCM CX-27s, and AR 94s.

I've read tweaks on the AR-94s, and supposedly, the silver wiring, along with some x-over tweaks, make them phenominal.

Anyone have sources for the silver wire? And know what cost is?

just musing here. I find it amusing to do so.

90% of the surplus wire I get is silver plated, but the insulation and stainless braid sheilding make it useless for most consumer purposes, so I usually toss it. The next time I have any good quality shielded silver plated wire, I will make it available for tweak -*test*-('")ing.

That´s great, Larry, just make sure I´m the first to get it.

Jorge

Uh, make him the second...

Silver needs to be sealed in a vacuum to prevent it's oxidizing, so if it were gold plated silver core then it would be perfect. The oxidation impedes the flow of the electrons over the wires surface.

That's theoretically true for both copper & silver, but neither pre-fab speaker cables or bulk wire for DIY cables suffer serious degradation from oxidation in actual practice. I'm not losing any sleep over it.

Agreed. Although it does have a tendency to tarnish faster when exposed, I have used (surplus) silver plated wire on every thing from fork lifts to tractors to hot rods, and found that it had a tendency to outlast plain insulated copper in almost every circumstance. Farm & construction equipment that sits outside in the dirt, dust, oil and weather, is brutal on electrical systems.

On the other hand, some of that longevity may be due to the insulation techniques used for some of the material I acquire.

Just some thoughts on this topic.

If I remember correctly. Silver oxide has a higher index of conductivity than elemental silver. So as it ages, it should actually improve as a conductor.

Here is a story about rewiring speakers.

I had a pair of Mourdant Short MS 30I speakers, which were excellent sounding $500 bookshelves. I had an inferiority complex about them since I was using these speakers with 4.5K of Quicksilver tube gear, and a 2.5K Proceed stack. After all, $500 speakers had to be a weak link. So I opened them up one day, deciding that if I tweaked the innards, it would be an improvement.

The inside was wired with generic 16 guage or so wire. I ordered beefier silver wire from a high end DIY parts site. Well I got the speakers re-wired, and began the break in process.

You know what? They sounded like crap. The tonal balance got terribly skewed, and they never came around. I ended up ripping out the wire, and returning them to stock. The lesson I learned is that the speaker crossover components are voiced to the design. If you change parts, be prepared for a long term experiment. You will experience a change in sound, but not necessarily an improvement. You may have to go through several combinations before you find the right mixture of parts.

Regards,
Mister Pig

Mister Pig,

Very good points there.

I've read where certain speakers benefit from it, but as always, one must see for themselves. After much thought, I've reconsidered- some speakers I just wouldn't touch, as they are fine as-is, others could use a bit of help, so I'll experiment on those. Hopefully the wire will push those in the right direction...

There's a statement I can appreciate. Along the same lines as changing the cam in an angine to get more horsepower. Mild changes may help, but if you make a major change, you'd better have the pistons, carb, manifold, etc. to go with it.

Silver oxide is not as good a conductor as silver. Check out this dialog on the subject of silver oxide as a conductor

That is an interesting read. It looks to address the isues in a straightforward way. I can see no issues with it.

Regards
Mister Pig

Would seem to me that if a cable is well designed, the silver would not be exposed to air. Of the limited amount exposed at either end, regenerating the silver from silver oxide is relatively easy.

You can always put your stereo in a glove box.