Heat effect on silver...?

Question

Hello there people,I was wondering if someone could help me out.What would be the effect on 99.99% silver wire if you put thesilvercable in a oven at 250 degrees Celsius for 1 hour and step down with 25 degrees Celsius every half hour. I am asking because i have an interest in HIFI and music and im takingpart in a bulletin discussion about making silver hifi cables.  A fewof us have made these cables and found them to sound much supperior tocopper (this is rather well know within hifi circles and elsewhere imsure).  But now someone has come up with the idea of heating andallowing to cool under the conditions above and say that it soundsbetter.  Now i did a little bit of mettallurgy at uni but dontremember too much so need help.  Anything like that size of grains and quality of grain boundarys allhave an effect on sound quality.  Infact a lot of expenive hifi cablesthese days are drawn v slowly to try and give a single gain of copperor silver and therefore remove the effect of grain boundaries.Thanks for any help Paul

Michael Dahms · Accepted Answer

Internal stresses might be reduced.Michael Dahms

David Deuchar · Answer

In pure silver 250°C is enough to anneal the wire at least partially. Effect of this on audio cables practically zero as for most such ideas. How about cryogenic treatment this is supposed to be good as well.

Anthony Q. Bachler · Answer

Annealing tends to have a positive effect on conductivity at low frequencies( all audio is low frequency).  So long as the annealing doesn't causesurface oxidation which can inhibit conductivity at low freqs. andcompletely ruin it at higher frequencies.

TC · Answer

Sounds like voodoo metallurgy.IN the case of Fine Silver(99.99), annealing the wire, assuming that is ishard, will reduce electrical resistance (improve the electricalconducitivity several percent).  Will this improve the quality of the sound?If reduced resistance improves sound quality, why not just use largerconductors that would outweigh any small deviations in resistivity of thewires?Can the quality of the sound be measured or is this just opinion of awell-tuned ear?Cooling down in steps from 250C will have no effect on electrical propertiesof the wire.There may be an issue with decoposition of silver oxide , but im not sure ifsilver oxide forms at 250 C ...  look at a phase diagramIf you believe grain size is relevant ( I don't), start with higher puritysilver and anneal the crap out of it to produce large grains....this wirewill be very very soft and may be difficult to handle.

Bushy · Answer

Spend your money on a decent crimper or a soldering iron if you want to improve your sound.

The difference you get in the showroom system is a specially prepared noisy skinny cable with hiden removal of the shielding and high resistance joints compared to a thicker cable that you could make yourself out of a couple of bits of fencing wire and still get improved sound.

If you increase the thickness of the cable to a 4 inch busbar, then you will have much lower resistance than you could afford to buy in silver.

Hope this helps, Peter

Heat effect on silver...?

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