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Audiophiles spend thousands of dollars rewiring the electrical lines in their house with .99999% pure copper, ignoring the fact that the power from the street i

by dhimes 17y ago

Audiophiles spend thousands of dollars rewiring the electrical lines in their house with .99999% pure copper, ignoring the fact that the power from the street is in the same old cables. What is the pure copper supposed to help? I've not heard of this. Depending on what it is supposed to do, it may not be so irrational (except for the fact that most room acoustics are lousy and mess up all of your efforts in electronics). After all, the power company only provides you energy, not electrons. You just slosh the same old electrons back and forth in your wire. Which is cool 'cuz those power company electrons would be coming from a long ways away and would obviously be tired by the time they got to my house.

JeremyStein 17y ago
> What is the pure copper supposed to help? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-end_audio_cables http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-end_audio_cables James Randi will give a million dollars to anyone who can tell the difference. > electrons would be coming from a long ways I know it was a joke, but electrons don't really move with alternating current.
- dhimes 17y ago
  I know it was a joke, but electrons don't really move with alternating current. Well, ok, but if you're not going to let me be funny then we better at least clarify for future readers: Electrons are actually moving quite rapidly regardless of the type of current, it's just that they get scattered around a bit and don't make much average progress (called drift). We get a lot of charge moving per time (current) because there are a tremendous number of them moving, not because their average speed is great. In direct current, the drift velocity (or drift speed) stays in the same direction. In alternating current, it switches direction with the frequency of the applied voltage. Typical values of drift speed are, if I recall correctly, of the order of millimeters/hour. [edit-- thanks for the link]

by dhimes 17y ago

JeremyStein 17y ago

> What is the pure copper supposed to help? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-end_audio_cables http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-end_audio_cables James Randi will give a million dollars to anyone who can tell the difference. > electrons would be coming from a long ways I know it was a joke, but electrons don't really move with alternating current.

dhimes 17y ago
I know it was a joke, but electrons don't really move with alternating current. Well, ok, but if you're not going to let me be funny then we better at least clarify for future readers: Electrons are actually moving quite rapidly regardless of the type of current, it's just that they get scattered around a bit and don't make much average progress (called drift). We get a lot of charge moving per time (current) because there are a tremendous number of them moving, not because their average speed is great. In direct current, the drift velocity (or drift speed) stays in the same direction. In alternating current, it switches direction with the frequency of the applied voltage. Typical values of drift speed are, if I recall correctly, of the order of millimeters/hour. [edit-- thanks for the link]