Mic cable silver or gold for recording?

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jerzeysk8board

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Will I hear a difference between silver mic cables and gold plated ones for recording? Ill be using it for vocals and guitar. Please help and tell me the quality difference
 
jerzeysk8board said:
Will I hear a difference between silver mic cables and gold plated ones for recording? Ill be using it for vocals and guitar. Please help and tell me the quality difference
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You won't hear a difference.
 
I have the shittiest whirlwind cables, some mogawi, and some blue cranberry cables and i don't think theres a big difference between any of them.
 
jerzeysk8board said:
Will I hear a difference between silver mic cables and gold plated ones for recording? Ill be using it for vocals and guitar. Please help and tell me the quality difference
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It depends. If you spend a lot of money on them, then you will probably hear a difference. No one else will, of course, but if you spend enough money on fancy cables, your imagination will create an audible difference for you. It's called the placebo effect, and we're all susceptable to it.
 
at work (circuit city entertainment dep) we had a monster cable guy come in and essentially quiz a coworker about all the bullshit myths and fairy tales that monster cable uses to keep their reputation up. i'm glad the guy didn't talk to me because i wouldn't be able to sell myself out about their fucking turbine cut connectors and gas injected shielding.. anyway, now we get 65% off retail instead of 60%. they're almost reasonably priced at that point!
 
the idea that there is no difference between cables is just not right. While I dont believe in the "audiofool" nonsense I see floating around boards these days, I can tell you emphatically that there IS a difference between standard copper/star quad wire and a material such as silver. not a small difference either.


My gig(well, other than the Army thing)is classical location recording. I started out using canare star quad.(very good cable BTW). one day my friend(classical cellist) said he had something for me to listen to. I walked into the room not knowing what to expect, and heard what I thought to be two different mic sources. not at all. the only thing that happened was that he swapped out the cable(one ridiculously expensive"high end" for a silver coated copper cable with teflon shield). When I asked what happened I was floored to find out that cables made such a difference. Now once you get up in the "BS" realm of audiophilia and audio snake oil..there are a lot of things that those peddlers/pimps will throw at you to trick your mind into believing there is a difference when there barely is none. I bought into the myth and spent too much money.....but...

Is there a difference between reasonably priced canare star quad)copper) and reasonably priced teflon coated silver??absolutely. I much prefer silver wire in my cable runs and will use nothing but these days. Tighter bass, better high-mid detail, and clarity than with normal copper. So while the differences between 1 WELL MADE cable and another WELL MADE cable may not be there...two cables made with different materials will of course sound different! Just like mics with nickel diaphragms will sound diff. than ceramic...

and FWIW, the difference between my POS monster brand cable and the canare star quad was jaw dropping..

cables do make a difference ..that being said, 1 well built cable is a well built cable!if you want a different flavor, try silver coated copper with teflon jacket...you dont have to spend thousands either. I roll my own now, and spend about 1$ per foot for the stuff I use.
 
BigRay said:
the idea that there is no difference between cables is just not right.
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There is a difference between cables, just not in the sound, and it's gonna take a whole lot of convincing for me to believe that one manufacturers copper wire sounds better than another manufacturers copper wire.
 
treymonfauntre said:
at work (circuit city entertainment dep) we had a monster cable guy come in and essentially quiz a coworker about all the bullshit myths and fairy tales that monster cable uses to keep their reputation up. i'm glad the guy didn't talk to me because i wouldn't be able to sell myself out about their fucking turbine cut connectors and gas injected shielding.. anyway, now we get 65% off retail instead of 60%. they're almost reasonably priced at that point!
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I stopped buying Monster awhile back - hype, hype, hype.
 
BigRay said:
Is there a difference between reasonably priced canare star quad)copper) and reasonably priced teflon coated silver??absolutely. I much prefer silver wire in my cable runs and will use nothing but these days. Tighter bass, better high-mid detail, and clarity than with normal copper. So while the differences between 1 WELL MADE cable and another WELL MADE cable may not be there...two cables made with different materials will of course sound different! Just like mics with nickel diaphragms will sound diff. than ceramic...
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There is an obvious basis in physics for the difference in sound between mic diaphragms made of different materials. There is much less basis in physics for a difference in sound between two cables made of different materials. If the cables have significantly differing capacitance, it is possible that they could interact with some mics and mic pres in non-linear ways, but that shouldn't be a factor in a well-designed cable of any material.

Let us know if you can reliably detect the silver cable when neither you nor the person running the test knows which cable is which - in other words, a double blind test. Otherwise, as I said above, we're all susceptable to the placebo effect.

BTW, I like star-quad cable too, but that's because of its better reliability and its ability to reject noise, not because it "sounds better".
 
ez_willis said:
There is a difference between cables, just not in the sound, and it's gonna take a whole lot of convincing for me to believe that one manufacturers copper wire sounds better than another manufacturers copper wire.
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Note that I said between silver cable and copper. Silver cable sounds different than copper. Period. If you dont belive me, check it out....I encourage you to do so.


Let us know if you can reliably detect the silver cable when neither you nor the person running the test knows which cable is which - in other words, a double blind test. Otherwise, as I said above, we're all susceptable to the placebo effect.

Im not much of a tech guy and get bored easy with data sheets and dissertations. I use my ears for every decision I make. Like I said above, I encourage you to check it out. I am absolutely sure I could pick out the silver cable as opposed to the star quad. There is a pretty big difference in sonic character. Your own tests would show you more than any test I do. Klaus Heyne has said there are differences between cables, Jim Williams, William Wittman, and many others. (who can explain in detail about their findings, but me, being a musician/recording guy and tech. stupid, cannot).Ive heard differences myself, so I am certain they exist. Mind you what I am mainly talking about is Silver VS Copper and NOT variations amongst differing copper cables.



From Mr. Jim Williams(www.audioupgrades.com) im no expert, but he is.I asked why the difference between copper and silver...

Here are two possibilities:
First, silver is the best electrical conductor. Many think gold is, but it's fourth on the list. Silver, copper, platinum, gold are the order of conductivity.

Now silver is 7% more conductive than copper, does that mean you hear 7% more music?

Don't ignore the insulation. Teflon is inert. Mylar and other soft plastics are not. This is why [teflon] is put into your body during surgery as it won't react chemically.

Teflon has been proven to be the best insulator for wire. That's why RF cables use it. Other materials react with electron flow, especially at high frequencies.

A 3-braid of military surplus silver/teflon 20 awg wire sounds better than Kimber's PBJ teflon/copper wire that sells for $4 per foot.

Now this is a guy who makes a living modifying audio gear, and has had years of experience tuning his ears to nuances in sonics. If there are no differences, then why does he use silver / teflon in his shop as opposed to copper?? Looks?
 
The ironic thing about all this endless debate about the differences between lengths of conductors, all of which, unless massively misengineered, act and sound exactly the same, is that the important parts of the signal chain that really do make a difference are ignored...because it's so much easier to argue about oxygen-free copper versus gold-sputtered RCA jacks than it is to attack the existing problems of technique and acoustics.
 
Once a person has great monitors in a great-sounding room with great sounding channel strips, preamps, ribbon mics, etc. they can worry about more esoteric cable construction, and yes, it can make a very noticable difference at that point.

Until then, however, one is much better advised IMHO to use the extra money towards upgrading the much weaker links in the chain like bargain "studio monitors", bad room acoustics and layout, econo-mixer preamps, and cheap Chinese LDCs, and not blow the wad on fancy schmancy cabling to hook all the econo-studio stuff together.

All that said, however, there is one other point to consider that relates only indirectly to sound or budget. If you're talking about permanent or semi-permanent wiring - e.g. wiring a patch bay or a project studio setup that will reamin fairly static in configuration (not a lot of moving of cables around) - it's generally a good idea to match metal coating types between the plug and the jack. That is, if your jacks are gold-plated, match them with gold-plated plugs; and if your jacks are white metal-plated, match them up with white plugs too.

The idea here is not for sound quality (at least not short term), but the idea that the gold plating and the silver plating on mis-matched plug/jack pairs can in the long term corrode before their time because of electrochemical interaction between the two metals.

It's not necessarily a huge deal; one could go for a few years and not notice a thing, especially if we're talking things like patch cables or stuff that gets moved around a bit. But for connections that are relatively permanent, you could be taking a year or three in the long term long term off the high-performance life of your cables and connectors.

G.
 
lpdeluxe said:
The ironic thing about all this endless debate about the differences between lengths of conductors, all of which, unless massively misengineered, act and sound exactly the same, is that the important parts of the signal chain that really do make a difference are ignored...because it's so much easier to argue about oxygen-free copper versus gold-sputtered RCA jacks than it is to attack the existing problems of technique and acoustics.
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Amen!

G.
 
BigRay said:
Now silver is 7% more conductive than copper, does that mean you hear 7% more music?
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It depends on the impedances involved, but most likely, no. A 50' mic cable might be 4 ohms. Reduce that by 7%, and you get 3.7 ohms. Into a 1K ohm preamp, that will result in a difference in signal of .002dB. Even if were a 70% difference, that's only .02dB. Resistance doesn't matter much for mic cables. Capacitance and inductance are more important issues.

Teflon has been proven to be the best insulator for wire. That's why RF cables use it. Other materials react with electron flow, especially at high frequencies.
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That's possible. There could be a difference in cable capacitance. That should be measurable, since it would need to be in the .001uF range to make a difference.
 
????

Mogami gold or silver would be better for studio? Is there any difference in frequency or noise reduction?
 
BigRay said:
Note that I said between silver cable and copper. Silver cable sounds different than copper. Period. ?
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Silver is only 8% more conductive in bulk terms than copper! In terms of differences in signal loss, this renders silver's conductivity superiority almost irrelevant.

BigRay said:
Now this is a guy who makes a living modifying audio gear, and has had years of experience tuning his ears to nuances in sonics. If there are no differences, then why does he use silver / teflon in his shop as opposed to copper?? Looks?
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I couldn't say for sure, maybe endorsements?
 
I somehow dont think the teflon and silver wire he uses (bought in bulk from various places) is part of an endorsement deal. How about the simplest answer of all??Casting aside all the specs and geek data. It just sounds better...I encourage anyone who hasnt done so to listen. I have the soldering instructions, as well as various places to buy the material. Why not roll a pair and audition them?



ez_willis said:
Silver is only 8% more conductive in bulk terms than copper! In terms of differences in signal loss, this renders silver's conductivity superiority almost irrelevant.



I couldn't say for sure, maybe endorsements?
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So where are you getting this silver/teflon cable in bulk???
 
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