This has to be B*11*cks......

[Miracle Man Matt]

A few years ago, some guy I met briefly told me that he had some pickups in his Gibo semi-acoustic that were wound with SILVER WIRE??!!  I immediatley presumed that he was talking bollocks, but I am interested to know what advantages this might give?

cheers

MMM

[Tim]

New one on me!
All pickups are wound with enamelled copper wire of one sort or another.Silver is very soft so I really doubt if it could be done at all.

[big steve]

any chacne of BKP knocking one out in the interests of "the quest for tone?" or would it be prohibitively expensive?

 innovation is the way!

[Ratrod]

In that case BKP should go for gold wich is an even better conductor than silver. It would be an expensive pickup, especially when it's an uber-wound pickup. PDT_030

[HJM]

Great Audiophool pickups!! :lol:  

[Tim]

any chacne of BKP knocking one out in the interests of "the quest for tone?" or would it be prohibitively expensive?

 innovation is the way!

It would probably be the most expensive coil in the world :lol:
I seriously think that someone was mistaken........I've never heard of it and don't think it'd be anywhere near strong enough.

[Ced777]

Benedetti pickups (french manufacturer) are made of silver/copper wire.

http://n.mercadal.free.fr/html/english/start.htm

[Tim]

There you go, it's still copper for the tensile strength and I'm still not 100% convinced about the silver, I really can't see the point of using an alloy with silver in as a conductor. Nice looking work though....new one on me!
I'm sticking with my plain enamel, sounds good to me! :D

[HJM]

I like that website for the phrase:

"AVEC PLUS DE GAIN"

If the wire behaves as it does in audio systems, copper wire with a silver plate helps bring out the topend, but it's way more complicated than that...anybody got an electron microscope???

 :lol:

[Ced777]

I like that website for the phrase:

"AVEC PLUS DE GAIN"

If the wire behaves as it does in audio systems, copper wire with a silver plate helps bring out the topend, but it's way more complicated than that...anybody got an electron microscope???

 :lol:

I don't see the wrong link between bringing out the top end, and having more  gain.  Both are possible together.  
As you said copper/silver is used on high-end HiFi system. Is it usefull or not, it's just a subjective opinion (as for plain enamel vs poly wire, or scatter winding vs machine).

[Ced777]

There you go, it's still copper for the tensile strength and I'm still not 100% convinced about the silver, I really can't see the point of using an alloy with silver in as a conductor. Nice looking work though....new one on me!
I'm sticking with my plain enamel, sounds good to me! :D

Michel Benedetti worked in the 60's and was very innovative (copper/silver wire, permalloy pole pieces...) , he worked a lot with Jaccobaci (among others). He was something like a "french Bill Lawrence".

Nicolas Mercadal, the new owner, works with french luthier (Barillon, Kopo, Vigier, Frank Cheval...)
I don't know well Benedetti products.

[HJM]

The silver plate on the copper takes advantage of teh skin effect, where higher frequency signals travel allong the outside of the cable core (the skin of the conductor) by using silver, a better conductor than copper, you get better transmission of high frequencies down the wire. The milatary use silver plated wire on their comm systems.

[Ratrod]

And what if you would guild  a copper or enamal wire?

"Avec plus de gain" would make a cool signature. :D

[Tim]

I've done some homework on this and I stand corrected, some people have indeed tried to wind with silver wire.Apparently it came about by someone trying to get gold wire made for winding due to it's very low capacitence but changed to silver because of cost.The problem is silver corodes and tarnishes very quickly so even a silver alloy is unstable no matter how you try to isolate it/insulate each wind.The end result would be a lower capacitence coil by one that would develope a short very quickly due to the inevitable corrosion wind on wind.
The late David White tried it amongst others but the bottom line is scatterwinding achieves the same result but a more reliable coil.
I would also suggest that, like EMGs which use a thicker 36 gauge wire and fewer turns to create a very 'hifi' tone, the end result could be quite sterile sounding.
It's a fine line really between the quest for ultimate clarity and actually losing the tone altogether and achieving sterility.Interesting though.

[TwilightOdyssey]

It's a fine line really between the quest for ultimate clarity and actually losing the tone altogether and achieving sterility.Interesting though.

+1.
It's called not seeing the forest for the trees and I see this ALL the time in my line of work!!