It's not a secret that a good chunk of our income comes from manufacturing rewiring kits for tonearms and in-site rewiring services.
Because we are quite well known on the market, we often receive enquiries about tonearms rewire, and almost all the time the 'do you use silver wires?' question fall on our shoulders. The ritual answer is 'No, we don't, followed by a lengthy explanation of why we categorically refuse to use silver wires in tonearms.
Now, for the benefit of a larger audience, we will write an even more lengthy explanation within this blog. Please bear with us because our reasonings and findings are very interesting.
You shouldn't use silver wires in your tonearm for many reasons. Still, the current belief fuelled by the folklore and magical thinking that impregnate audiophile forums and the web at large, and pushed by a plethora of sellers that care only to make a pretty penny out of the misinformation of the general public, is driving the use of 'silver' wires up. (silver is between quotes for the reason that will be clear later).
Is silver superior to copper?
Silver and copper are the two most conductive metals known to mankind, with gold following behind in third place. The conductivity of silver clocks is 63 x 10^6 Siemens/meter, higher than the conductivity of annealed copper, which stands at 59 x 10^6 Siemens/meter. Measured in ohms, the difference in the resistance (the amount of electricity lost as a current travels from point A to point B through a material) of 24-gauge, 1000-foot-long silver and copper wire is minor. The resistance of the copper wire is a mere 2 ohms higher and negligible for the few foot-long wires in a tonearm.
But, at face value, the silver wire wins.
Now consider this: Silver is more prone to the effects of oxidation, particularly in humid climates. Conductive metals (except for gold) react to water and oxygen and degrade over time into semiconductors, becoming much less efficient in moving electricity. While all metal wires degrade over time, silver's high degradation rate makes it a poor wiring option in many scenarios.
To partially overcome this problem, thick PTFE insulation is usually applied to the wire to protect the wire from air moisture. On average, a 30 AWG silver wire (0.05mm2 of conductor area) is 0.55-0.60mm in diameter.
Bear in mind that we are talking about tonearms' rewiring, and on average, the space that the wires have to go into is 1.5-2mm in diameter, a tight fit for our set of four (sometimes five if the ground wire has to share this space) of 30AWG wires.
Suppose instead of a 30AWG silver wire, you use 28AWG (0.08mm2) copper wire with a thin insulator like silk or PVC. In that case, you will have a wire that is 0.45-0.50mm in diameter that will fit your tonearm better and, in virtue of the larger area, gives you a much better conductivity, but if you don't care about the 0.01 ohms of added resistance by the copper, you can use a 30 AWG wire with an overall diameter of 0.32-0.35mm.
Looking at this perspective, copper wins.
Stiffness problems.
Silver, even in the annealed form, tends to be brittler than copper and, for this is often bridled, on top of that, you must add the thick insulator.
Anyone that had in hand a 30AWG silver wire couldn't fail to notice that the wire is way stiffer than the copper counterparts, and you don't want a set of stiff wires inside your tonearm, do you?
Below you can find a video we shot some time ago.
The story behind the video runs as follows:
A client contacted our service centre asking to rewire a Rega Rb300 tonearm recently rewired by a competitor.
The client spent a hefty sum (in comparison to the value of the tonearm) to have it rewired with the best of the wires our competitor had to offer: a custom-made full-length continuous wiring with 'Cardas' silver wire (Cardas is between quotes for the reason that will be clear later).
After receiving the tonearm, the client noticed that the tonearm could not track the records properly and sometimes even jumped the groove moving outward.
The tonearm, balanced, with anti-skating set to zero and swung inward, showed a clear tendency to return to the rest position.
Our competitor declined all responsibilities claiming that the tonearm was defective.
The culprit of this behaviour was the silver wiring that, due to the stiffness of the wires, was acting as a spring into the arm tube.
We removed the harness and installed our made from OFC Litz wires, and the problem disappeared.
Enjoy the video.
You have a silver wire… or maybe not.
The name that usually comes out when a customer asks for silver wires is Cardas.
I was really annoyed when another client asked us if we could use Cardas Silver Litz wires, and I decided to check if Cardas would be kind enough to sell some of those wires.
For anyone that might not know, Cardas is one of the most recognisable names when it comes to high-end hi-fi wirings and connectors.
I thoroughly checked out their website, but no signs of any silver tonearm wires; they sell very lovely tonearms' rewires, but all from copper (I wonder why not silver).
I decided to write to Caras asking if the product is available and the T&C for the purchase.
Josh answered me very quickly, and the answer was:
"Thanks for contacting Cardas.
We make bare silver wire in various gauges, which we sell on spools to other cable manufacturers. But we don't use it ourselves. We've never offered a silver tonearm wire.
All of my best,"
Screenshots of the emails are below.
Now a natural question arises.
Where are all those 'silver' wires coming from, fake Cardas or otherwise?
Further research found that the only source of 'silver' tonearm wires is from China, most notably via that scammers' heaven, Aliexpress.
Established that all, or nearly all, the 'silver' wires come from sellers on Aliexpress (sometimes Alibaba but mostly Aliexpress), a site that is known to give no customer protection and a nest of scammers (I got screwed a couple of times for some personal purchases two years ago and now I keep clear form them), are you sure that your 'silver' wire, costing a pretty penny, are made of N5 silver like claimed and not some low-grade alloy or, worse, plated aluminium wire?
The question remains unless someone takes the time, money and pain to have that 'silver' lab analysed.
I wonder if 'silver' wires aren't the 21st-century' fools gold.'