Stumbled upon yet another "science vs. ears" dustup on ecoustics regarding cables. The usual name-calling and finger-pointing. The usual "impedence over 50 feet is .32 ohms either way you moron" attacks and "I'm going to hold my breath until I turn blue" and "you're just a shill for xxx" defense. So this guy "rotten rottie" comes up and just puts the hammer down on the whole lot. I mean the only was response was a feeble "i think rotten just won." Here a
link and here's the nuclear-option post: (BTW "Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics!)
Folks, the level of contraversy here is kind of nuts. My background is a masters in mathematical science and an undergraduate minor in space physics. I was certified by IEEE in 1975 as a relay engineer. In relaying you impose a carrier wave on top of the 60cycleAC current to prevent bad things like system blackouts. The key calculation is a series of 0 sequence numbers that tell you how a wire and load are going to distort frequency under changing load conditions. There are differences in each of these wires due to the orbital structures of the atoms that compose the wire. The dspf orbital configuration. The conductor that produces the least distortion is aluminum. If you go look it up on the periodic table You will find that it has a dsp-5 structure. The fewer orbitals the less opportunity the electrons have to change energy levels and introduce distortion in the wave pattern that is being sent electically down the wire. The problem with aluminum is that at room temperaturesits resistance is relatively high resulting in IsquaredR losses which reduce the sound level you want and increase the damping factor which reduces clarity. The cure is to supercool the conductor. At room tempertures, nickel and copper will have the least distortion because they have dsp-6 orbitals. Silver has dsp-7 orbitals. That is roughly double the number of energy levels that aluminum has and about 33% more energy levels than copper. Just like the spectral adsorption lines in the sunlight for each of these metals the changed energy levels will color the electric current as it goes through the wire. Elements in the same row as gold have a vastly more complicated structure becasue the structre at that point includes f orbitals for a fdsp-8 structure. What you are saying is that you happen to like the changes that are made in the electric current becasue of the energy adsorption characteristics of a particular condutor. Things really get complicated becasue the same element can have different valence values. For example copper has two stable states Cu+++ and Cu++. Each of those will have a different effect on how the conductor sounds. The detailed explanation lies in the Schroedinger wave equation and the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. So on a pure physics basis copper is going to produce a truer signal than any of the others but it may produce characteristics that are the result of transfer of energy in a manner that is not pleasing to the ear. No conductor is going to have output exactly identical to the input. I am using Sonic Link Maroon connectors between my preamp and amp to kill excessive brightness in the high end. That brigthness occurrs due to the design of the tube circuits on my phono preamp and preamp being oversensitive to 10k and higher frequencies. If you are familiar with the Shure test record the violins have shreaking sound in the top frequencies. The nickel reduces the intensity of the high frequencies.
When I first got out of the army in 70 I went to work in Ford's racing engine program. We used to joke that here are two ways to go fast: cubic inches and cubic dollars. The high dollar solutions are not necesarily better than the lower cost ones. For that discussion read Art Salvatore's blog at www.high-endaudio.com. Go to recommended components and then to speaker cables. This man ran one of the highest end audio store in Toronto for twenty five years. His discussion of good old Polk basic speaker wire will lay it all out for you. Yes speaker cables do sound different becasue of their different atomic structures that are the mechanism to transfer thae elctrical energy along the wire. Each one sounds different becasue they are different. What they do is magnify or minimise aberations that are introduced by your components elsewhere in your system.
