Recently, I purchased a used AT-1100 tonearm with two arm tubes. It has the original factory silver wire, a nice touch I thought. When I open the arm up to clean the bearings and re-oil them, I discovered the tonearm wire is so thin that it is not much thicker than the thin hair on my balding head! I am talking about the OD of the insulation, the wire itself is much thinner! The other tonearms I opened up to clean and re-oil, the copper wire was so much thicker.
I am not making a comment here about whether silver or copper is better. But no one seems to consider the wire gauge of the wire in question when discussing sound quality vs. wire material. Regardless of how one material might sound over another, if the resistance, capacitance, and inductance is the same, the comparison has merit. This silver wire is so thin, I can't help to think any sound improvement (or loss, depending on your viewpoint) is swamped by the gauge differences.
Sure, silver is a better conductor than copper, but only when the gauge is the same. Once the silver wire gauge gets smaller, copper starts having an advantage in resistance, while silver starts having an advantage in reduced capacitance and disadvantage in higher inductance when compared to copper of a given gauge.
I can't help thinking gauge is one thing that differentiates sound quality of silver vs. copper in tonearm wiring, as well as cabling to the preamp. Those MC signals are tiny, and MM or MI is not a lot better. MC sees a very low impedance, so inductance and resistance becomes more of a factor than capacitance. MI and MM sees a much higher impedance, so capacitance becomes more dominant than inductance or resistance.
Thoughts or comments?
