TBrennan Posted June 10, 2004 Share Posted June 10, 2004 Nobody ever seems to hear a small difference, or one they suspect but aren't sure of. No, we constantly hear of big differences from slight changes. As ole PWK would have said.... well they censor what PWK said on this board. Now that's funny, almost as funny as fellas who hear a "big" difference between aluminum and copper. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Number 9 Posted June 10, 2004 Share Posted June 10, 2004 I sensed a shot was going to come my way too at one point. So childish. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3dzapper Posted June 10, 2004 Share Posted June 10, 2004 That white wire with red and black traces is definately NOT aluminum. A cautious scraping of the silvery finish will reveal a copper color underneath. Rick Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TBrennan Posted June 10, 2004 Share Posted June 10, 2004 #9-----So a belief in the rational and sensible is childish. The world is turvy. Tell ya what #9. You do some creditable DB tests and give me some data beyond mere assertion. Mere assertion is easy and intellectually lazy. Some assert the benefits of divining rods and seer stones and some assert a Rigelian armada will soon be in Earth orbit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deang Posted June 10, 2004 Share Posted June 10, 2004 Hey, those diving rods really work! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Griffinator Posted June 10, 2004 Share Posted June 10, 2004 ---------------- On 6/10/2004 9:59:07 AM Strabo wrote: Sorry man, it does. aluminum rusts (oxidizes) just like iron, steel, or copper. ---------------- Ok, it oxidizes, but it doesn't corrode the way copper does. I was under the impression we were referring to the diaphragm connection, which is a very short run of wire (about 3 inches) - didn't realize he was referring to every shred of wire in the unit. Obviously there is copper connecting the speaker jacks to the crossover, to the driver contacts, etc. It's not unusual to see that last little trace of wire between the contact points and the diaphragm be something other than copper for longevity's sake. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike stehr Posted June 10, 2004 Share Posted June 10, 2004 I think it depends on what's in the aluminum. Some aluminum has tin in the material, it will corrode pretty bad over a fair amount of time. (I'm sure copper still corrodes faster, I dunno...) Now T6 aluminum has nickel in it. That stuff is strong almost like stainless steel, and never corrodes. As far as speaker wire? Who knows! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
radiob Posted June 11, 2004 Author Share Posted June 11, 2004 Well that I know something about, T-6 alumminum does corrode! I have t-6 aluminum heads on my drag car, and they do have oxidation on them. Anyway,should I re wire my chorus`s or not? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3dzapper Posted June 11, 2004 Share Posted June 11, 2004 radiob, With your track record above, Chrome them and show them but don't mess with the wires any more!!!!!!! Read your other thread. Glad to see that you are back in business. Rick Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Number 9 Posted June 11, 2004 Share Posted June 11, 2004 TBrennan, you have your opinion, I have mine. What's childish, is to put down my opinion. We can certainly disagree, but the put downs are unecessary. The wires going from the xover to the speakers is not copper in my Forte. Maybe some of you (maybe even all of you) have had experiences to the contrary, but I say from my own experiences, when I've swapped out old aluminum cables with decent quality OFC copper, there has been a big improvement. That's my experience. I'm not talking Nordost Valhallas here, but even the stuff you can pick up at Rat Shack for .60c/foot seems to do better to my ears. As they say, your mileage may vary!! I have high respect for what John Risch has written about cables and he explains quite eloquently what is going on in cables a lot better than I ever can. Here: http://www.geocities.com/jonrisch/cables.htm And here: http://www.geocities.com/jonrisch/s1.htm http://www.geocities.com/jonrisch/c1.htm His analysis is very credible IMO. He is skeptical of big $$ cables and does try to determine the factors which contribute to good sounding cables. So this is where I am coming from when you say I am making "assertions" that are baseless. OTOH I personally have not seen anywhere that aluminum makes for great audio cables. So on what basis do you come to your conclusions? Hey, I'm not trying to turn this into a pXXXing contest, but if you have info that says otherwise, I'm all ears. I would love to know. That's the point of this thread isn't it? I would offer, that maybe the reason I have not had good experiences with aluminum cables has less to do with aluminum, but other factors such as the sleeves and cable construciton. Hard to tell. But I heard what I heard. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Warren Posted June 11, 2004 Share Posted June 11, 2004 ---------------- On 6/11/2004 8:21:24 AM radiob wrote: Well that I know something about, T-6 alumminum does corrode! I have t-6 aluminum heads on my drag car, and they do have oxidation on them. Anyway,should I re wire my chorus`s or not? ---------------- it's -T6 (not T-6) and it is not an alloy designation, it's a heat treatment. -T6 is a solution + artifical aging heat-treatment for a class of aluminum alloys called (surpise) "age-hardenable" aluminum alloys. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Warren Posted June 11, 2004 Share Posted June 11, 2004 ---------------- On 6/10/2004 10:15:59 PM mike stehr wrote: I think it depends on what's in the aluminum. Some aluminum has tin in the material, it will corrode pretty bad over a fair amount of time. (I'm sure copper still corrodes faster, I dunno...) Now T6 aluminum has nickel in it. That stuff is strong almost like stainless steel, and never corrodes. As far as speaker wire? Who knows!---------------- The principle alloying agents used in aluminum based alloys are maganese (Mn), silicon (Si), copper (Cu), magnesium (Mg) and chromium (Cr). Each one performs a specific function and is usually added in amounts that rarely exceed 1/2 to 1% by wt. -T6, as mentioned im my previous post, is not an alloy, it is a heat-treatment designation. For example the aluminum alloy 6061 can be had in the -T4 or -T6 condition (i.e. 6061-T4). Stainless steel is a compeletly different class of material, it is iron-based and consists of about 20 different alloy compositions ranging from Austentic, Martensitic, Precipitation hardenable, Semi-Austenitic, Duplex and Micro-alloyed. As a conductor it is terrible. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike stehr Posted June 11, 2004 Share Posted June 11, 2004 My shoe tastes good. What agents are used with Alloy 6061? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Warren Posted June 11, 2004 Share Posted June 11, 2004 ---------------- On 6/10/2004 10:13:18 AM DeanG wrote: Hmmm, I'll have to think about that one. Aluminum isn't a ferrous metal, it doesn't have iron in it -- at least, you can't get it to stick to a magnet. I guess it doesn't "rust", but corrodes -- I have no idea what the difference is though. ---------------- Many metals "oxidize". In the case of steel, it is refered to a "rust" but it is still an iron-oxide. There are two basics "types" of metal oxides, stable and (you geussed it) unstable. The oxide formed on steel (i.e. rust) is not stable, the rust layer forms but oxygen in the air will diffuse straight thru and continue to react with the base material until it is completly converted to iron-oxide. In the case of aluminum and it's alloys, the oxide layer is very stable (aluminum oxide). It forms on the surface and essentiually "shuts" the oxygen diffusion process down. There are many engineered alloy systems that rely on the formation of stable oxide layers to protect the base alloy from the effects of corrosion. Nickel, iron and cobalt -based alloys (and superalloys) rely on alloying additions of chromium to perform the same "native" oxide layer protection scheme. Magnetism is a phenomenon that is better addressed using quantum mechanics. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Warren Posted June 11, 2004 Share Posted June 11, 2004 ---------------- On 6/11/2004 7:20:58 PM mike stehr wrote: My shoe tastes good. What agents are used with Alloy 6061? ---------------- The 6xxxx series of aluminum alloys use all the agents I mention above plus have allowances for iron (Fe), titanium (Ti) and zinc (Zn). The allowances are on the order of a few tenths of a % max. http://www.matweb.com/SpecificMaterial.asp?bassnum=MA6016&group=General Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Warren Posted June 11, 2004 Share Posted June 11, 2004 ---------------- On 6/10/2004 11:11:17 AM Strabo wrote: electrical signals travel along the outside of the wire and you see that aluminum is not a good conductor because the signal is forced to run through the oxide or to run unnaturally through the core of the wire.---------------- The oxide on not conductive, so no conduction is possible on the surface. For a given diameter of wire, high purity aluminum (Alloy 1100-O) has 60% of the current carrying capacity of oxgen-free high conductivity copper. For a fixed length and cross-section aluminum wire is a better conductor than copper when normalized on a weight basis. In other words, you can conduct more electicity thru an aluminum wire on a per unit wt basis than thru copper. That's the reason we have aluminum wire voice coils. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strabo Posted June 12, 2004 Share Posted June 12, 2004 Wow, thanks John. That's a lot of good info. Next question, does current handling necissarily mean it it able to conduct singnals at low volts as well as other metals like silver copper and gold without skewing them? I put them in that order because I read something once which said that is the order they conduct, best to worst. Assuming aluminum is after gold, is there something else in between? Where would steel fall in that list? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Warren Posted June 12, 2004 Share Posted June 12, 2004 ---------------- On 6/12/2004 6:11:53 AM Strabo wrote: Wow, thanks John. That's a lot of good info. Next question, does current handling necissarily mean it it able to conduct singnals at low volts as well as other metals like silver copper and gold without skewing them? I put them in that order because I read something once which said that is the order they conduct, best to worst. Assuming aluminum is after gold, is there something else in between? Where would steel fall in that list? ---------------- From a practical perspective, the three "common" conductors are silver, copper and aluminum. There are alloys of each that are also used as conductors but, as a general rule, alloying increases resisitivity, especially when alloying for improving tensile strength. The resistivity of a material is simply a propotionality constant between the wire total resistance and it's length to area ratio. The ratings are always under DC conditions at 20°C. Current handling is something of a qualitative term. When electricity flows thru a wire, it's temperature increases. The max permissible temperature is determined by the design limits. For example, if a 200°C steady state wire temperature is allowed in a design and you have a particular wire selected, the steady state current necessary to reach a 200°C steady state wire temp can be calculated. Relating to loudspeakers, the thermal limit (the RMS power rating) is defined by how hot the voice coil can get without causing the glue holding it in place to degrade. In terms of "tonnage", copper is, by far the most widely used. Silver, in it's purest state, has a slightly lower resitivity BUT, high purity silver is not so easy to come by. Silver wire sold to the "audiophile" crowd is never certifed for purity levels so you really don't know what the hell your getting. ASTM certified OFHC copper, on the other hand, is easy to find (Carol Cable) and it's cheap. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HDM Posted June 12, 2004 Share Posted June 12, 2004 The metalurgy lessons are very interesting but the proof is in the listening. I have rewired my LS, KG4's, KG3.5's and every other speaker that I have owned and have found improvments with all of them. Some more than others however. I think the biggest difference was with the KG4's and mostly with the tightness of the base. I truely believe that replacing the low quality hook-up wire (used in maufactured speakers for cost saving purposes)can make any speaker sound better. My favorite is the Monster XP because of its flexability and its easy to work with. I have used RS/UltraLink interconnect for HF drivers and find noticable improvment also. Just my 2 cents worth. Hugh Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Number 9 Posted June 12, 2004 Share Posted June 12, 2004 http://www.geocities.com/jonrisch/s1.htm Strabo ...look down the page where John Risch lists the better to worst sounding conductive materials. Also note, the sleeve materials and manner of cable construction come into play to. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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