7 year old acoustic research pro series speaker wire is tarnished

[trauski]

found some speaker wire of mine and wonder if it is still good. 12 gauge wire has gold tips on all ends except one. when i went to put new ends on i noticed that the wire was tarnished when i removed the plastic casing . upon further review as i look at the wire i noticed that the wire just looks dirty inside the clear plastic covering all the way through . when i cut the wire and look at the cross section it is nice and shinny so the only tarnish is on the outer part of the wire. i have seen wire that is oxidized even in the middle but this is not like that. will this slight tarnish effect the wire ? i was going to put some spades on and send to a friend who needs good wire but dont want to send him bad ones. any ideas??

[mtrycraft]

found some speaker wire of mine and wonder if it is still good. 12 gauge wire has gold tips on all ends except one. when i went to put new ends on i noticed that the wire was tarnished when i removed the plastic casing . upon further review as i look at the wire i noticed that the wire just looks dirty inside the clear plastic covering all the way through . when i cut the wire and look at the cross section it is nice and shinny so the only tarnish is on the outer part of the wire. i have seen wire that is oxidized even in the middle but this is not like that. will this slight tarnish effect the wire ? i was going to put some spades on and send to a friend who needs good wire but dont want to send him bad ones. any ideas??


Clean up the end and solder the spades on it. As long as the connection is clean, you have no problem in audio.

[Just1n20]

i myself would get new speaker cable.. the oxidation of the cable won't help electron transfer in the copper ive heard. makes sense to me. id go for a good clean cable.

[mtrycraft]

i myself would get new speaker cable.. the oxidation of the cable won't help electron transfer in the copper ive heard. makes sense to me. id go for a good clean cable.


Electron transfers? Where would that be? Where do you think the oxide is? Perhaps on the surface of the wire? and how would that matter for audio signal transfer? Current flow in the wire? Electric fields outside of the wire? Inductance? Resistance if the spade to wire joint is clean?