PGS-08
PGS-08 is an updated and improved version of our acclaimed
"original" PGS. The pure gold
signal wire is only 0.002" thick (thinner than in the
original PGS), but the shield/return is thicker.
AS the result, PGS-08 offers more "slam and authority", and
while it's still a very "sweet" sounding cable (the
property of pure gold material, it's somewhat closer to
"neutral", compare to the original PGS, and - because of
thinner material - offers still better coherency and superior frequency extremes performance;
PRICING:
Suggested retail price for a 1 meter PGS-08 pair with RCA termination is
$1,000, and $,1300 per a 1 meter balanced XLR pair;
Why using gold while silver is more conductive?!!!
Well, there are several reasons:
- Unlike it is in the loudspeaker cables, in phono and line-level interconnects conductivity of the wires has not much to do with the sound quality - but oxidation, impurities, internal grain structure and GEOMETRY of the conductors have. Plus, some qualities of the dielectric used to insulate the wires ARE very important to the sound.
- Silver oxide IS highly conductive (unlike copper oxides) - but silver is easily polluted with Sulfur and - when "infected" by these other elements (from the outside air or from a contact with human skin) and when polluted, silver loses conductivity, uniformity and "plasticity". It's not a problem with thick silver wires or contact surface, but it IS a real problem with extremely thin wires or silver foil used in interconnects.
- According to "The Essex Echo" article by Malcolm Omar Hawksford (which is the ONLY classical and acknowledged article on the on audio cables sound theory: 10 or 12 printed pages that explain what sounds best and why using a lot of math) interconnects sound more "focused" and "extended" if they are made of a VERY thin wire: the thinner - the better, in fact. Clarity, resolution, bass tightness - everything is better with thin wire. Why? Because thin wire allows to "move" the skin effect out of the audible range and eliminate (or greatly reduce) the time smearing of audio signal - i.e. the time domain distortion subjectively perceived as excessive upper midrange "brightness" and "boomy" unfocused bass...
- However, thin wire is fragile. Plus - it is VERY difficult to make a very thin silver wire of high purity - since despite of using special measures, it gets terribly polluted in the production process. It is possible to get a chunk of silver of 7N (seven nines) purity (i.e. 99.99999 pure) - but when a thin wire is made of this silver, the wire will have only 99.9 purity or worse. It is close to impossible to make pure enough thin copper wire either. Plus, a very thin wire "ages" very quickly and becomes even more fragile with time.
- So, the wire must be VERY thin and VERY pure to sound good. But - it's close to impossible to make thin enough and pure enough silver (or copper) wire.
- Back to the dielectric. Vacuum is best. Air is almost as good. Teflon is best of solid dielectrics (because of the fast charge/discharge characteristics = less energy storage = better transient response). Foamed Teflon is better than solid Teflon (since it contains air bubbles). The more air - the better. But - how to protect our thin silver or copper wire if it 's surrounded by a lot of air?
- So - gold IS the solution - since it IS possible to make a high purity VERY thin gold wire. How thin? Approximately a half as thin as human hair :-) How pure? 99.99% or better (24 carat gold is only 99.9% pure). Plus gold is practically grainless, a properly made gold wire is considerably more uniform than silver or copper. And it stays that way...
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