What speaker cables are available and how good are they?
There is a wide range of speaker wire available, ranging from 30ga zip cord (~$.10/ft) to exotic wires costing over $300/ft. The material used ranges from copper to oxygen-free copper (OFC) to silver. (There are a bunch of others as well.) Oxygen-free copper is probably NOT any different from common copper in sound. If you hear a difference between two cables, it is not a difference between oxygen-free and common copper. Resistance may be significant for speaker cables. The higher the resistance, the more the cable will affect the sound, all else equal. The resistance characteristic of metals is called resistivity. The resistivity of copper is 1.7 microohm-cm. Silver is very slightly lower, 1.6. Gold is a bit higher, 2.4. Silver and gold are different from copper in other ways than resistivity. Gold does not oxidize in normal environments, so gold contacts will not need periodic cleaning and will not create rectifying junctions. Silver will oxidize, but the oxide of silver is conductiv
