Then why 99.99% of all audio ICs sold are made of copper? ...If silver is a better audio conductor, why more manufacturers aren't getting on it?
And how do we know that good silver (pure) is a better conductor; by listening, or by measuring (scientific numbers),...both?
Aside from the raw materials what's not discussed is the cable design which has a huge impact on the final cable. Each material does have its own qualities you can't deny that. In my own case I have never liked any product with silver in it. Sometimes its because of the obvious silver signature and sometimes I hear something that's off and only later I find out that there's silver wire used in the product. Silver plated copper doesn't bother me like pure silver.
david
I certainly can understand where you're both coming from regarding silver.
Since 2005, I've been having all my cables and misc electrical parts cryo-treated and in 2006 I started requesting having my cables double-cryo'd for even greater improvements. I've tried several silver IC's along the way and each time my findings were kind of like yours.
In 2006, I tried a pair of inexpensive silver IC's and though like the other silver IC's, their performance though good, just didn't quite match up to my then favorite copper Litz Audio Tekne's. The silver's went into a closest and over the next 8 years when coming across them a couple of times, I'd install them just to see if their performance might be better since my system's performance continues to evolve. But each time, they'd go back into the closet. I even tried to sell them once but no bites, so in the closet they stayed.
Fast forward to 2013, I was visiting Jena Labs web site and started reading up on their full immersion cryo'ing process where they take the object down to the Liquid Nitrogen's boiling point of -320.4 degrees F. Turns out all these years I've been having my cables and misc parts treated by what I now deem to be the inferior vapor cryo'ing process that always falls 30 - 40 degrees short of the -320 degree temp of liquid nitrogen.
Jennifer and Mike of Jena Labs are both former NASA contractors and have been cryo'ing for over 40 years now. Jena Labs is only 50 miles north of me so I contacted them about having cables cryo'ed by them and explained my previous and numerous cryo'ing experiences. Jena Labs explained the differences and in a nutshell explained how listening to cables cryo'ed via the vapor treated method was not much different than eating half-baked cookies. Because the vapor treated cables / metals were unable to receive the full benefit of the -320 degrees and also that via the much more popular vapor method, it is not possible to guarantee that the entire object is uniformly being cryo'ed at the exact same temp. They also explained that was why the 2nd vapor cryo-treatment offered an improvement over just a single-vapor-cryo treatment because the first treatment was only half-baked and the 2nd was a little more baked. But with the full immersion method, there is no benefit to a 2nd cryo'ing treatment. I assume they implied a fully-baked cookie cannot improve by becoming more fully-baked.
Jena Labs was visiting friends in the area so they stopped by to pick up my closeted silver IC's and a spare pair of inferior speaker cables. (I was not about to risk my primary cables at first crack). During that visit Jena Labs explained to me that silver simply was not as musical as copper and all of their bench tests proved that, as have some of their prominent engineering friends in the industry. Now Mike and Jennifer are fairly serious scientists or engineers (I forget which) and I'm not but I shared my opinion that since silver is a slightly better conductor than copper on the conductive metals chart, it's entirely possible it's a more revealing material and anything truly more revealing is indiscriminate about what it reveals (music and distortions) and I had a hunch that with an extremely low noise floor where distortions have been greatly minimized the silver's may actually be a more musical metal but they disagreed.
Anyway, I got the silver IC's and spare speaker cables back from the full-immersion process, burned them in and realized Jena Labs was right. Cables receiving the full-immersion process is indeed like eating fully baked cookies compared to eating half-baked cookies via the vapor-treatment process.
Realizing the rather significant improvements, I then had Jena Labs cryo all my remaining IC's and speaker cables and fuses too, including my very musical and favorite (copper) IC's which cost nearly 4 times the inexpensive silver IC's and numerous times since then have compared the previously inferior silver IC's to the previously superior copper IC's, leaving each pair in for several days at a time to ensure full settling in.
The point of this story, this now being several years since that time, to this day the inexpensive silver IC's easily remain my most detailed and musical IC's. I've also had the opportunity to compare a pair of copper IC's cryo'ed via full immersion that cost 10 x's more than my silver ic's and those coppers were actually a disappointment in comparison.
I suppose the second point of the story is that even scientific types can be just as fallible as anybody else and their experiences and tests can be just as limited but perhaps in different ways. Had I taken Jena Labs for their word based on their numerous tests between silver vs copper, well, I would never had known about the slight overall improvement my silver IC's provide. Ignorance is bliss, so big deal there. But had I taken them for their word, I would have never realized some musical improvements, sworn off silver cables forever, and suggested any my friends and colleagues do like-wise, thus potentially impacting silver cable mfg'ers business who themselves may not have been ignorant about silver's perceived abilities. IOW, ignorance, shortcomings, incorrect or incomplete studies and findings, and various other potential shortcomings call all have an effect on performance, pleasure, and quite possibly a business' ability to survive.
For me, this is just one example (there are better examples) why one should question everything and not just take somebody's word for it, especially when it relates to science and audio. I can assure you very few think of everything and far too many seem bent on keeping conventional wisdom, status quo, and/or folklore alive and well.
IMO, the more formally-educated and disciplined types, though highly intelligent and more highly respected at dinner parties are often times more confined and restricted to their rather large sandboxes and usually are unable to ever think outside of their sandbox and that invokes a potential serious limitation. On the other hand, less formally-educated and less disciplined and less intelligent and less respected at dinner party types like myself have such tiny sandboxes that I'm always thinking outside of it, and therefore, it is I and those like me who always ask "what if?" and then experiment who have the greater potential due in part to fewer limitations.
A little tongue-in-cheek, but there is some truth to that.
