September Issue Affordable$$Audio

Affordable$$Audio is pleased to announce that the September issue is now available to download at: www.affordableaudio.org

As always, A$$A is free to the audio community.

 

Many thanks for another intersting issue.

The TrueRTA software looks pretty good - and its freeware!

How does it look to you Simon?

 

Very nice read ...and its got the DEQ2496 as mentioned, plus a treasure trove of archive stuff to. Very we done !

 

good stuff, I always wonder what the Aperion Audio speakers sound like (ad on the last page). I remember the first edition of TONE Audio magazine, again, freely available online, where a stand-mount model got a great review, and they're reasonably priced.

 

Aperion has some very nice speakers. I have already reviewed the 533PT's (available in the archive section). Currently, I am putting a subwoofer through its paces. Sometime this fall, I hope to review the very well received 632 monitors.

 

I see that Affordable Audio is as trustworthy as the rest of the audio press. Consider this gem from a review of “Audio Magic” audio cables:

When oxidation occurs, pure copper wire will form a coating of copper oxide, which is actually a semi-conductor. On the other hand, a silver wire will form a sheath of silver oxide, which incidentally has a higher level of conductivity than pure silver does. It is due to this process that Jerry bases his belief that Audio Magic cables will continue to improve sonically as they age

This is unadulterated nonsense. Copper oxide is quite a good conductor, says no less an authority than the Copper Development Association, an authority on the metal and its uses:

Copper eliminates worry about surface oxides
Copper does not need the special surface preparation or anti-oxidant pastes on connections and splices required by non-copper wiring. Even copper’s oxide conducts.
http://www.copper.org/applications/electrical/building/bestbuy.html

But the best bit of humbug of all is the silver oxide bit. The resistivity of silver is 1.6 X 10^-8 ohms-m. And silver oxide? 1 X10^+10 ohms-m. In other words, as a conductor, silver oxide is 6,250,000,000,000,0000 times worse as a conductor than silver.

The audio may be affordable (a good thing), but it appears that the same old rubbish is talked about it (a bad thing). Regretfully, snake oil remains snake oil, even if it’s affordable.

 

Plus there's the fact that both oxides of silver are, outside research labs, rare and rather unstable beasts (black silver tarnish is, of course, the sulfide rather than the oxide). It's not terribly reassuring when somebody trying to assume a position of authority doesn't even know what material he's trying to attribute imaginary properties to!

 

Thanks, Pete, I meant to mention that the familiar tarnish is the sulphide, but forgot. The sulphide, is, in fact, a much better conductor than the oxide (resistivity of 1.5 - 2.0 X 10^-3 ohm-m)

 

Thanks for the conductivity numbers tones - so, even if we're massively over-charitable and assume that he meant the sulfide when he said the oxide, it's still less conductive than the metal itself by a lot of orders of magnitude, which rather blows out of the water his "theory" about why silver wires "improve with age". Personally, I've always thought that if you're going to make stuff up, you should at least have the grace to do it creatively and invent a whole new imaginary phenomenon - as opposed to just saying something that's flat wrong, as in this case.

(Sorry, I'm going to stick to the IUPAC spelling of 'sulfur', because I'm afraid I just don't have your outrageous rebellious streak. )

 

Outrageous rebellious streak nothing! I was doing chemistry in the Keir before IUPAC was thought of!

 

Well, as publisher of A$$A I take no claim in being a chemistry expert. I will pass on your comments to the writer and hopefully they will be forwarded to Audiomagic for comment. If they do, I'll be happy to put it into the next issue.

 

Agreed..............

but silver sulphide is the normal tarnish product not oxide .....can you tell us the conductivity of that ?

I'd also go so far as to suggest that copper cables do not form copper oxides either, but again the sulphination products ....via the pollution in the air.

this was writen a while back but I missed pressing the send button ...but is still relavent

 

I quoted it several posts above.

What forms on cables is indeed the oxide (the bright copper colour darkens with age and eventually turns black). Sulphur (sorry, Pete, old habits die hard!) does play a part in the reaction in externally-aged copper as used on domes of buildings. What you end up with is the green patina commonly (but not strictly accurately) called verdigris. Verdigris, the green artist's pigment, is copper acetate, but the stuff on your local city hall dome is a complex mixture, which includes, among other things, copper oxide, copper carbonate and copper sulphate.