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Why Palladium in cables, wiring, etc. . .?

There seems to be a growing aura around Palladium. A perfectly good noble metal, Palladium came to popular fame during the now very dubious episode of cold fusion, proposed by Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Ponse. But the word Palladium itself has a much older and classical origin. A Palladium was originally a statue bearing the likeness of the goddes Pallas, and only much later it referred to buildings inspired by the neo-classical style of Andrea Palladio. Today the word bears both connotations of classical understated elegance as well as hinting at quasi esoteric neo-science and mysteries. Hence it is easy to understand why savvy marketing consultants may warmly recommend that products and brands aspiring to prestige may be named after the metal.

Yet, when it comes to discovering a physical reason why engineers may opt to actually employing this fine metallic element as a conductor in interconnects, chords, wires and electrical contacts, things become rather murky and unclear. For example, SilverSmith Audio now advertises some of its products as containing Palladium. And the newest iteration of the Dodson 218 DAC, by virtue of the company having been purchased by SilverSmith, now sports internal Palladium-alloy wiring.

What is it, besides its resistance to tarnish and corrosion, and the obvious aura in the name, that is causing such engineering choices? Palladium's disconcertingly high index of resistivity does not seem to justify its selection. Per the list below, Palladium is 6.65 times as resistive as
Silver, 6.28 times as resistive as copper, almost 4 times as resistive as Aluminum, and
approximately 10% more resistive than Iron. The good news is that Palladium appears
to be a little bit more conductive than Tin, and almost twice as conductive as Lead.

Resistivity:
Silver: (20 °C) 15.87 nO·m
Copper: (20 °C) 16.78 nO·m
Gold: (20 °C) 22.14 nO·m
Aluminum: (20 °C) 26.50 nO·m
Rhodium: (0 °C) 43.3 nO·m
Zinc: (20 °C) 59.0 nO·m
Nickel: (20 °C) 69.3 nO·m
Iron: (20 °C) 96.1 nO·m
Platinum: (20 °C) 105 nO·m
Palladium: (20 °C) 105.4 nO·m
Tin: (0 °C) 115 nO·m
Lead: (20 °C) 208 nO·m

Any ideas?
guidocorona

Showing 10 responses by guidocorona

guidocorona OP
4,298 posts
 
Thank you all! Keep the interesting info coming. In the meantime, here is a tidbit about Titanium. If I am getting my conversions correctly, Titanium is almost 4 times as resistive as Palladium and almost 26.5 times as resistive as Silver.

Titanium electrical resistivity (20 °C) 0.420 µO·m
guidocorona OP
4,298 posts
 
Good guessed TPLAVAS. Are you saying there is AC in the circuit beyond the rectifiers in the power supply?

I suspect manufacturers are just experimenting with different metals and alloys. Sometimes they strike. . . Gold, sometimes they just strike out. There may be much more empiricism in the metallurgy than we are lead to believe. Ultimately, our ears will be judges, regardless of underlying metallurgy or other technology.
guidocorona OP
4,298 posts
 
Concerning Titanium as a structural material for jacketing cables, the metal may very well be a good choice. Titanium combines ductility so it can be easily braided, Strength so that overall mass of the jacket is relatively small, and relatively low conductivity. One interesting property of Titanium is that of being paramagnetic--or weakly magnetic. It would be interesting to find out how this particular property influences--if at all--the sound yielded by such a cable.
guidocorona OP
4,298 posts
 
Serus, you might have something going there. . . from Wickipedia:

Titanium burns when heated in air 610 °C (1,130 °F) or higher, forming titanium dioxide.[6] It is also one of the few elements that burns in pure nitrogen gas (it burns at 800 °C or 1,472 °F and forms titanium nitride, which causes embrittlement).

I guess that if Titanium starts burning in Nitrogen, embrittlement of my cable jacket may end up being the least of my concerns. True about low toxicity of Titanium. . . its dioxide is used as a whitening agent even in toothpaste. Haveing said all of this, we still do not have any idea if Titanium has any sonic benefits when braided into cable jackets.

As for Palladium-Silver alloys, it would be interesting to find out more about its preported benefits in conductor design and construction.
guidocorona OP
4,298 posts
 
Hi Norm, superconductivity was discovered before our time. . . at least as early as 1908. I believe Mercury transitions to a solid phase quite readily. . . in any self respecting Northern winter for example: -38.83 °C, -37.89 °F. G.
guidocorona OP
4,298 posts
 
Norm, unfortunately Mercury becomes superconductive at 4.2 Kelvin, which is far below the boiling point of Nitrogen, but in fact is also the boiling point of Helium, not very much of a garden variety liquified gas that an audiophile would safely store and handle.
guidocorona OP
4,298 posts
 
As Palladium is a relatively non reactive metal, It is probably not as toxic as Mercury. But if you want a truly bizarre speaker wire formulation, try the semi-fluid Indium Gallium alloy speaker wires from TEO... I heard them at RMAF a few years ago. G.

http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/teoaudio/liquid.html

guidocorona OP
4,298 posts
 
I will stick to old fashioned highly conductive copper and silver... Except for resisting to corrosion, looking pretty, and being outrageously expensive, Palladium is even less conductive than Iron.

G.

S.
guidocorona OP
4,298 posts
 
You are right Larryi, I have no real information about the conductive properties of semi-liquid Indium-Gallium alloys... But I heard a system at RMAF all wired with these kinds of metallurgy... Probably the single worst sound that I ever heard in a "high-end" context.... Was it the wires, the electronics, the speakers? Who knows... The whole thing felt positively horrid to my ears.

G.
guidocorona OP
4,298 posts
 
Hi RJA, you bring up an interesting point... I conjecture that Silver, with its maximum conductivity, might sound best.... If the electronics of all recording equipment also used silver copiusly, and recording engineers routinely tuned and optimized their work to Silver metallurgy.... But most recording equipment and recording engineering is tuned to copper metallurgy... Hence the playback advantages of Silver remain a hit and miss situation.
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