echos the sound of solder.

[bcarso]

When I build stuff before the pcb stage I use solid tinned-copper buss wire, and teflon tubing where necessary. I love teflon because of the absence of carbonization and meltback. Once in a while for predominately digital stuff I'll use kynar wire-wrap wire and strip and solder it. In either case the joints are mechanically tight (woe if I have to change things though!) and the solder is not doing much to add mechanical strength---solder is not at all good for this.

Because of the nearly gas-tight connections before soldering, the solder connection length is really short. I've never measured or heard any effects associated with one brand etc. of solder over another, but the resistivity is higher than copper so the less involved in a connection the better---for example, putting a tiny component lead in a big PCB hole is a bad idea.

 

[dasbin]

What about if we first approach this from a different direction?
How about this: How do the electrical characteristics of solder differ from that of a straight wire?

In joints where the two pieces being connected are physically contacted before being soldering, I can't imagine that it would make any measureable difference.
But in some joints - including most on PCB's - where the only electrical contact is through the solder, surely some characteristcs must be changed.

Is there any measureable resistance? Impedance? Capactitance? How does a current flow through solder - on the inside, or curving around the outside like on a wire? Electro-magnetic characteristics?
And is any of this significant enough to make a measureable difference in audio response in any circuit which uses a large number of joints?

 

[bcarso]

[quote author="dasbin"]What about if we first approach this from a different direction?
How about this: How do the electrical characteristics of solder differ from that of a straight wire?

In joints where the two pieces being connected are physically contacted before being soldering, I can't imagine that it would make any measureable difference.
But in some joints - including most on PCB's - where the only electrical contact is through the solder, surely some characteristcs must be changed.

Is there any measureable resistance? Impedance? Capactitance? How does a current flow through solder - on the inside, or curving around the outside like on a wire? Electro-magnetic characteristics?
And is any of this significant enough to make a measureable difference in audio response in any circuit which uses a large number of joints?[/quote]

If you work really really hard to see effects from junctions of dissimilar metals, you can notice the thermocouple potentials associated with the junctions. These even tend to compensate out because there are two "couples"---copper to solder to copper, at each junction. If you put a big piece of solder between two copper wires and make one copper-solder junction a lot hotter than the other, you will measure a d.c. voltage in the microvolts range from one copper end to the other.

One could argue that the signal current if very large could self-heat a very asymmetrical junction and lead to a shift that at very low frequencies could begin to have a measureable effect, but that's a huge stretch IMO.

If you contrive to make semiconductors out of contaminated lead and tin then all kinds of things can happen---PbS and SnO2 are both semiconductors---but these are hardly representative of good solid-solution metallurgical bonds.

 

[TedF]

So what does oxygen sound like?
What sounds do you lose or gain if you use oxygen-free cable??

Come on chaps... this is meant to be an informative technical forum, not a platform for disturbed Spiritualists.

(I'm hoping that bcarso has his tongue firmly in his cheek!) :roll:

 

[FotisGR]

What sounds do you lose or gain if you use oxygen-free cable??

Come on chaps... this is meant to be an informative technical forum, not a platform for disturbed Spiritualists

Just check it. Who knows? May you will love Spiritualists :grin:

Cheers
fotis

 

[bcarso]

[quote author="TedF"]So what does oxygen sound like?
What sounds do you lose or gain if you use oxygen-free cable??

Come on chaps... this is meant to be an informative technical forum, not a platform for disturbed Spiritualists.

(I'm hoping that bcarso has his tongue firmly in his cheek!) :roll:[/quote]

I agree the effects are inaudible---I was merely responding to the challenge of coming up with something by way of a physical mechanism, as prompted by dasbin.

Floyd Toole, who is one of the nicest and most diplomatic persons you could ever hope to meet, deflects the cable sound believers and other such advocates of questionable effects by saying that he focuses on "the 3dB effects." :grin:

But perhaps the intuitives will win out in the final reckoning :razz: However, they have their own forums, and don't appear to require a lot of encouragement.