Highly Polished wire????

When metals are "polished", it is actually a process of removing metal until the surface of metal is very shiny and very clean. It's not like waxing a car where the "polish" is rubbed in and left on the car. The polishing agent can be any of many abrasives ranging from coarse to extremely fine, ie polishing rouge which is, of course, continuously removed in the process.

The other way of "polishing" might actually be plating with a metal of high conductivity-- gold being the most common plating material because it doesn't tarnish. Plating is different than polishing, and the plating metal + the bond are very important audio considerations. Cheers. Craig

IMO, removing the tarnish (oxides) from a copper or silver wire by polishing it does much more to enhance contact than to degrade it. I have used very fine sand paper (400 grit) to remove mild corrosion from certain wires in my breaker box, cable spades, and plug prongs. After cleaning the wire or contacts, I sually wipe it with a clean cloth, and the cloth sometimes shows a bit of dirtiness, so I assume I'm removing "crud". I think it sounds better after cleaning, but if not, at least it makes me feel virtuous. Cheers. Craig

Dan, Trelja-- gotta' agree, Trelja's posts are excellent. Thanks for sharing Joe. I only "clean" the exposed portion of wires if there is apparent oxidation/corrosion, and then only the ends making contact.

As noted, I use 400 grit sandpaper or emery cloth, and then only when it's apparent that the contacts actually need cleaning. For lighter, routine cleaning, I use the contact cleaner sold by Sonic Frontiers, and following chemical cleaning, my system always seems to sound better.

It has finally (Duuuhhh) occurred to me that you are talking about polishing the whole wire (not just cleaning the contacts)? And, of course, that is an entirely different matter. Craig