DIY questions

@sphinxvc - It actually IS used in many audio products, especially the "cost no object" types. Janzten audio makes a bunch of crossover components in silver. Lowthers can be found with silver voice coils. Silver solder and wire are available and you can even make silver PCBs. All of these are in commercial products.

The reason it isn't used is precisely the one you discount, price. Copper is pretty damn conductive as is. With silver being priced many times as copper, it just isn't worth it. If you really need higher conductivity then you can just use thicker gauge wire which is far cheaper then switching to silver.

Silver in electronics is mainly used in scientific research for mission critical applications where you need to measure currents down to the picoamps. I used to work in labs where the electrodes I used were made of silver or even platinum to get the absolute highest performance possible.

Edit:

One more thing, you really only need high conductance when there is high current. So for voice coils and the output stage of power amps it is a benefit. But for preamps and power supplies, not so much. Same argument could be made for high voltage but low current devices like electrostatic headphones and speakers.

 

The reason why silver isn't used widely is because it corrodes quite quickly and indeed is more expensive and rare than copper.
Certainly near the coast (salt water in the air) the corrosion process goes very fast.
All silver parts should thus be covered which is nearly impossible for connectors and most switches etc.
Silver-oxide is an insulator.
When silver is used it often is gold plated.

This is why gold (or gold over silver or copper) and nickel is used for contacts exposed to air that have to conduct lower amounts of currents.

Gold conducts 70% less than copper so by this definition wouldn't be suited.
However, when the layer is very thin that doesn't matter as much yet gives plenty of 'protection' against the elements.

This corrosion thing also happens to copper and most other metals but not as quickly.
It does conduct slightly better but does so for all frequencies in the same way.

Also conductance isn't really an issue when currents are low.
It really doesn't matter if a cable is 0.1 Ohm (silver) or 0.106 Ohm (copper) when it is connected to a 10k resistor.
The difference is just 6%.

 

I am going to disagree with you. Silver is quite stable. If it weren't the case then they would have never used it to make flatwear(forks, knives...) and even pans. In audio gear copper is rarely exposed as well and in fact a lot of wires are silver coated.

The sources I searched don't indicate that silver is worse then copper in terms of corrosion, but even it is the case I highly doubt that is what keeps people from using silver. Aluminum is even more corrosive and is used as a conductor for powerlines as well as voice coils. Price is the sole factor.

Connected to a 10k resistor is actually even better, it would be a 0.00006% difference!

 

I don't know where you found that, but copper is still the better conductor. You need a thicker gauge alu wire to match what copper can carry. Also there are issues with aluminum oxidation being harder to see with naked eye and insulating, whereas copper oxidation is green and still conductive.

For nerdier review, see this whitepaper.

 

I think you misread what I said. I said aluminum was more corrosive, not conductive.

 

Aluminium wiring is actually widely used, but not because of better conductivity (as Aufmerksam mentioned) but because of the weight, availability and price.
Most power lines, be them under-ground or over-ground are aluminium.
Because very high voltages are used relatively low currents flow in which case slightly worse conductivity isn't so much of an issue.

Copper conducts about 60% better than aluminium.
Silver conducts about 6% better than copper

@ Cspirou Thanks for the info about silver and oxidisation.
The black non conductive stuff on silver isn't oxidistaion, as I always thought. I stand corrected.
I should have said silver tarnishes quickly.
Have replaced many tarnished switches over the years because of poor (intermittend) contacts, when it is difficult to properly clean them.

Indeed the conductivity of a piece of wire is irrelevant when used as an interlink in an electrical current sense.
An interlink cable, with a more practical value of 1 Ohm or 1.06 Ohm it really doesn't matter, the difference in loudness into a 10kOhm load is just 0.00005 dB.
Even for a 16 Ohm driver that difference is still negligible, the silver wire will sound just 0.03dB louder.

Most 'silver coloured' copper wire has tinplating on it although a small percentage of copper wires does have a silver coating.
Tin conducts about 6.5x worse than copper.