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Triaxial pure silver wire

Sir.Byrd

Sir.Byrd

Lunatic Member
Anyone ever use triaxial silver wire to make ICs? I picked up two ~1 meter lengths, and two ~ 2 meter lengths for basically nothing, and I can't find any info about this wire online. What makes it unique (or seemingly so) is that it is pure silver, as best as I can tell. I am pretty sure of this, because when you cut through it and look really carefully at the ends, they are not any different in color like tinned or plated wire of similar gauge.
Furthermore, if anyone has had experience with this or similar cable (but non-silver), should one use the outer braid as a conductor, and tie the inner braid and the center conductor (which is stranded, weird), or should I leave the outer braid unconnected, or tied to the ground of one end? The center conductor just seems too small to be of any use.
This wire seems like it has promise, being only 3mm in diameter or so (haven't measured it yet) it is very flexible, unlike other high-end IC I have used.

Also, I am considering using these plugs with the wire, as they have a very small exit diameter, which would match nicely with the size of the wire. Also, they match my RCA jacks.
http://www.partsconnexion.com/product7462.html
http://www.partsconnexion.com/prod_pdf/cardas_68757.pdf
 
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I'll be watching this, Will, because I have some Vampire silver interconnect that I'm thinking of using. Looking forward to your listening impressions when you've had some time with them.

About tying shields to ground: I've built quite a few interconnects, using shielded cable of different construction and used it to connect different gear. I have yet to find any instance of any signal detriment from not connecting shield to ground, or, either singly on one end or at both ends. My house and the few other places I've used these interconnects haven't been places where a huge amount of RFI or EMI would be assumed. I can't recall anyone posting that they connected their conventional interconnect (shield tied to one end) backwards and the signal was affected. I really think there is little difference if the shield is well constructed.

Byrd, hope that doesn't create more indecision but I think you're not going to F'up no matter which way you proceed. Good luck!
 
westend said:
I'll be watching this, Will, because I have some Vampire silver interconnect that I'm thinking of using. Looking forward to your listening impressions when you've had some time with them.

About tying shields to ground: I've built quite a few interconnects, using shielded cable of different construction and used it to connect different gear. I have yet to find any instance of any signal detriment from not connecting shield to ground, or, either singly on one end or at both ends. My house and the few other places I've used these interconnects haven't been places where a huge amount of RFI or EMI would be assumed. I can't recall anyone posting that they connected their conventional interconnect (shield tied to one end) backwards and the signal was affected. I really think there is little difference if the shield is well constructed.

Byrd, hope that doesn't create more indecision but I think you're not going to F'up no matter which way you proceed. Good luck!
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I have noticed and improvement in hum rejection when running silver solid core with the shield connected at the send end but only with low output moving coil signals. The terminations were Eichmann plugs. In other situations I can't hear any differences.
 
Aside from physical strength and durability, the small diameter of the center conductor isn't a factor in conveying the signal from source to pre amp or pre amp to power amp. Since this connection typically is a high impedance one there is essentially no current so gauge isn't really a factor.

For best rejection of lower frequency EMI/RFI (such as from power lines/power cords) tying the shield to ground at both ends is most effective according to information from BJC.

Sometimes such wire is silver plate over steel. You could try to check that using a magnet.
 
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Not that I think that it matters, but you might want to re-check the silver content of your wire. If the wire has a TEFLON dialectric, then it is probably copper but silver plated. It was common to silver plate copper when TEFLON dialectrics were used. I believe there is a chemical reaction between copper and TEFLON and the silver plate was used to neutralize this affect.

TRIAX, where I come from, is used as a guarded connection. This is used for low leakage measurements. The (very small) leakage path is from the center conductor to the shield. The leakage is usually in the nA, or pA range. What a TRIAX cable offers is two shields. The inner shield is not ground. The inner shield is a buffered center/hot conductor signal. Only the outer shield is ground.

For phono, I always thought the best setup would be to run a balanced/floating signal from the cartridge and ground the outer shield only.

If you wire both shields to ground on your TRIAX wires, you will get more shielding. This might/will help if you have an electrically noisy environment.

Correction: Silver plating is used for high temp applications (over 125 deg C) because tin plating can dissolve, leaving the wire difficult to solder. Silver has better temperature stability.
 
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Okay, so could I use the inner braid and center conductor as hot, and the shield as ground?
There isn't a whole lot of noise if any that I can detect in my system, even with cheap ICs with no shielding.
But I figure if I use the outer braid as a shield, but connect it at both ends, why not just use it as a conductor by itself?
 
Sir.Byrd said:
Okay, so could I use the inner braid and center conductor as hot, and the shield as ground?
There isn't a whole lot of noise if any that I can detect in my system, even with cheap ICs with no shielding.
But I figure if I use the outer braid as a shield, but connect it at both ends, why not just use it as a conductor by itself?
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Sure you can.

The likely outcome would be a larger capacitance per foot though. If you imagine the cable as being a very long capacitor, visualize the capacitor plate surface area. You can run the hot down the inner shield, but you'll have a larger capacitor plate right next to another large capacitor plate. For phono, this isn't the best arrangement.
 
Wouldn't be using these with a turntable, just line level from my preamp to my amplifier(s) or from my CD player to my preamp.

So what would be the best arrangement? Using the inner and outer braid together on ground, and the center conductor as hot?
 
Sir.Byrd said:
Wouldn't be using these with a turntable, just line level from my preamp to my amplifier(s) or from my CD player to my preamp.

So what would be the best arrangement? Using the inner and outer braid together on ground, and the center conductor as hot?
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Yes, considering the currents involved and the impedances, I'd go with tying the two grounds together. I think a lower ground impedance is best.
 
Okay, I can do that. They way the original ICs were hooked up was that the center conductor was hot, the middle was ground, and the outer was ground but it had a spade hooked up to it, like in a phono set-up.
But I cut off those connectors because they were just nickel plated at best, and were extremely tarnished.
 
Ran it through my magnetizer/demagnetizer with no effect.
Seems like it is the real deal.
I don't think it is an alloy because it is very bright. I will look at the ends with a magnifying lens soon and see if I can see any deviation in color.
 
Okay, finally built a pair of ICs with this stuff.
Turns out only my shorter length was triaxial, the longer length is just coaxial.

They turned out really well but I struggled with them for about 1 hour.
I'll get photos up eventually.
They don't sound worse than what I already had (which was somewhat fancy) but they are very thin and flexible, which is a big plus in my system.
 
Sir.Byrd said:
Okay, finally built a pair of ICs with this stuff.
Turns out only my shorter length was triaxial, the longer length is just coaxial.

They turned out really well but I struggled with them for about 1 hour.
I'll get photos up eventually.
They don't sound worse than what I already had (which was somewhat fancy) but they are very thin and flexible, which is a big plus in my system.
Click to expand...

Not sounding worse is good, but the real question is: Do they sound better?
 
Dunno yet, but the criteria was something cheap that performs as well as "audiophile" ICs but doesn't have death-grip RCAs and isn't inflexible.
 
Had to compromise when I made these, since the wire was slightly too big, I had to solder the ground to the back of the barrel, then secured everything by soldering a third of where the back screwed into the front. Not exactly reusable, but oh well, should be nice and solid, nothing will pull on the inner connection.

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