Silver Wire 0.5mm

99.99% pure silver wire from Audio Consulting in Switzerland.

Note: Wire is sold and priced per 50cm length. For longer lengths, change the quantity in the shopping cart.

Use this solid core insulated silver wire in your CD player, your pre-amplifier, your amplifier, in your speakers and more! The 0.5 mm solid core silver wire is suitable for almost all wiring purposes, from the CD to the speaker: internal wiring, interconnects, speaker wires, everything. This wire is specially made to Audio Consulting's specifications, unlike many other cheaper wires, it is not industrial or jewellery wire, neither of which may sound very good and can give a harsh sound. If you have tried silver wire from elsewhere before and weren't happy with the sound, it is likely it was for a completely different purpose and not audio.

The diameter does not exceed 0.5 mm to avoid skin effect and its implications. The polyesterimide insulation has to be as thin as possible to help stop dielectric absorption and electrostatic micro-discharges. There has been no bad cumulative effect heard as reported with some other silver wires. This cumulative effect could likely be due to multi-stranded nature and / or the Teflon insulation.

Typical Applications:

Speaker wires
Especially suitable for high-efficiency speakers. For systems above 96 dB/W/m, a non-twisted pair of up to 3 meters will offer the best performance. For lower speaker efficiency you may use two, three or more runs per polarity. For example, 92 dB speakers would use 4 runs. The runs of silver wire must be tightly twisted for each individual pole - that is twist together the number of wires you are using for the positive and again separately for the negative - but do not twist the positive and negative wire runs together. Cotton sleeving may enhance the performance even more plus offer extra protection. Speaker cables may be built with one layer of 2 mm cotton sleeving per pole (4 mm if necessary), it is important that you should not twist the two polarities (+ or -) but let them run freely.

Silver wire speaker cable wiring example.

Interconnects
To make a very high performance interconnect, simply twist a pair of the 0.5 mm silver wire. Interconnect would be best covered using 2 mm cotton sleeves around each of the two poles and then twisting the two poles. After that you can put one or even two layers of the 9 mm cotton sleeves around the whole set-up. Best results may be obtained without any shielding, however you may add some shielding if you are in a non-differential mode.

It even works with digital interconnects, although it is preferable to use the 0.15 mm silver wire in this application.

Silver wire interconnect wiring example.

Rewiring

Amplifiers, pre-amps, valve equipment, CD Player, DACs etc, can all be rewired to some extent. Single runs of 0.5 mm are great for rewiring purposes of analogue signals. Cotton sleeving will be an advantage. The ground also should be of the same topology.

Grounding
The star grounding system: take as many wires as you have ground connections. With a butane flame, melt all of them together at one end. All connections go with one wire to this single point, which becomes the perfect star grounding.

Important
As with all types of wire, you must be careful not to exceed the allowable current for this diameter of wire. Multiple runs may be used to increase the current carrying capacity if required. The silver wire has been used up to about 30-40 VDC without any further insulation. The enamel should be good for a few hundred volts, but this has not been tested. We do not recommend that this wire be used for high voltages applications without appropriate insulation and precautions in place.

Since the silver wire is insulated with a polyesterimide coating, this will have to be removed before any soldering can take place. It can easily be done by scraping with a sharp knife, taking care not to make any kinks in the wire or by burning off with a flame.

Additional cotton sleeving not only increases isolation, but can can also improve the sound, even for internal wiring of electronics and even in the power supply.

Solid Core Silver Wire Data:

• Diameter: 0.50 mm (external: 0.56 mm); 24 AWG
• 99.99% Ag (Silver)
• Polyesterimide enamel insulation
• DC resistance: 0.085 Ohms/metre (0.5 mm)