Cardas Cold Forging

You can find more info on this process at

http://www.cardas.com/content.php?area=insights&content_id=43&pagestring=Compression+Die+Forging

Snake oil? Sound Science? Perceptible Difference? Breakthrough? or Just a Unique Selling proposition? It's different, but as they asked in law school, "is it a difference that makes a difference?"

I guess the idea is to eliminate a solder connection, but I
would think there are hundred between source through the
amp, including the ICs, got to wonder how it can make much
difference, but....

I called it cold forging, but it is really "Two Stage,
Compression Die Forging" where the copper of the cable and
the copper of the connector become one solid piece. This
connection "eliminates the Eddy Currents found in other
types of terminations by forging a perfect homogeneous flow
of conductor and connector." Well, that's the claim. So
there is theory and practice. Anyone tried upgrading the
Cardas cables with this process?

I have a feeling I am going to have to try it, even though I
do tend to be a bit skeptical, but trying will tell me -
though I won't be in a position to A/B and there tends to be
a tendency to think what you just paid for is an
improvement:)

Question: If this is simple crimping available to all, why
has Cardas not been doing something so simple since day one?
I think somewhere in their literature they once said
crimping is usually better than soldering, but the best connections are soldered. A change in position?

There lies the rub:)

What I don't get is why Cardas has not been doing this since day one with the ability to use this "old" technology and if soldering does indeed degrade the sound.

A very good question, given the importance of the golden ratio. It did always bother me that my friend the electrical engineer thought I was crazy when I explained my cable choices for my equipment. He did not think that all cables sounded the same, but the capacitance/inductance/resistance parameters were easily understood and designed for. He bought radio shack with gold connectors.

Al, well said. Hard to know what to do since I'm skeptical I could hear the difference, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't and to the better. Like I said before, I do wonder why this approach wasn't done long before, since the ability to do this has been available for years.

Cardas on soldering verus crimping:

"When we look at crimping connectors onto cable vs soldering them, I would have say that most crimped connections are better than most soldered connections. However, the best connections are soldered connections. The problem is there is only one type of solder connection that is truly a joint, most are as the word states, a connection. Most solders, such as the popular 60/40, are a slurried mixture of tin and lead. In making the joint the tin/lead mixture melts, but as it solidifies it does so one metal at a time. It goes into a slurry state and one metal is liquid and the other is very small solid particles, sort of like wet cement. Next, the other metal solidifies and creates a million little connections. This type of connection is not particularly good and not permanent. When the phone company used this type of solder on their main frames, every joint had to be reheated once a year to insure reliability. Even then, the "cold joint" was a common occurrence. Bad and noisy joints were the main cause of failure in early printed circuit boards and electronic equipment until some time in the mid sixties or early seventies. Then they learned that eutectic joints were perfectly reliable and I do mean perfectly. By the mid seventies or early eighties most electronic equipment was being soldered with eutectic solder (63/37). The reliability of printed circuit boards went up about 1000% and solid state audio gear began to sound almost tolerable. Today, all printed circuit boards use 63/37 eutectic solder. Eutectic solder is a special mixture. The melting point of a eutectic solder is lower than any of its component parts, so there is no slurry state in these solders. They solidify as one piece and make a true solder joint, not a connection. Now, provided that the parts being soldered are made of the metal incorporated in the solder (tin plate in the example of printed circuit boards and component leads, with 63/37 tin/lead eutectic solder in the solder baths), you will have a perfect joint." Ok, so I have a perfect joint. Now I need to cold forge? Hmmm.

Thanks, will read, but those pesky formulas:)

i have three purple microdots on each speaker, and i still can't hear a difference. must be doing something wrong.

It worked!!!!!!