Every clod has a silver lining

[salvarsan]

People with unusually good hearing (so they tell us) show up with annoying frequency. They proclaim that their hearing renders them superior to the rest of us, with the underlying assumption that superior hearing correlates with penile length.

Instead of calling them "dickheads", let's say that they suffer from a "pen-ear-eal" disease, a term more polite and descriptive.

This relates to pickup making.

Silver is the best room-temp conductor, better than copper by 4%, enough to make an audible difference. Elektrisola will draw out and insulate five pounds of silver #42 magnet wire for about $500/lb.

Silver is 1/6 denser than copper and a pound of it makes 45,000 feet of #42 (cf. copper: 53,000 ft). At roughly 1 mile per pickup coil, the silver wire cost is $56.

I suggest that someone wind a few silver wire pickups expressly for weeding out the peneareal disease population.

A silver-wound Strat-style pickup would have ~$65 total parts cost and roughly 1/2 hour labor. At $65/hour, we get a ~$100 build cost. For mass-produced items, the MSRP is often 500% the build cost, or $500.

Since only 45 silver coils will ever be made from that 5 pound spool, scarcity/exclusivity pricings must apply.

$2500 per coil isn't too much to dangle in front of afflictees of peneareal disease.

[Steve Conner]

Good idea, but you're still thinking too much like a scientist. You're tied up in the old concept that the value of a good somehow depends on the value of the materials in it, and that audible differences in performance somehow correlate to desirability.

And if you want to be a good hunter, you have to think like your prey: which is to say, not very much and not very rationally. I'm sure if you put your PR hat on, you could think up some way to get audiophools to pay $2500 for complete junk that sounded awful.

Like Fender charging you extra for guitars that they've pre-smashed. Or Nordost power cords.

[kevinT]

S.

I like that idea. I already have a name....The Silver Cloud PAF

[GibsonLover]

I have some of that 'high-end' audiofool equipment myself, and have met people who can tell when an interconnect has finally broken in. I found the easiest way to shut a fool up is to mention a double blind test, and suddenly they can't make time for a simple experiment. In the end, the only thing that will be certain is an argument about what 'different' and 'better' mean.

[David Schwab]

Let's just go for some plain enamel platinum wire and be done with it! Wound on bobbins hand carved of real elephant ivory (old stock). The spacers are Brazilian rosewood. Solid gold baseplate.

Someone, name a price?

Oh and they only come in sets.

A German bass maker, Ritter, made the "most expensive bass guitar" $250,000.

Then we have those Dead Mint Club parts from the other thread.

[DrStrangelove]

Good idea, but you're still thinking too much like a scientist. You're tied up in the old concept that the value of a good somehow depends on the value of the materials in it, and that audible differences in performance somehow correlate to desirability.

1. Don't confuse marketing with manufacture.
2. Evaluation rules are reverting after the October 10 2008 market crash. There are fewer stupid people with disposable income because there is less liquid money.
3. This is a pickup MAKERS forum, so a few build notes are obligatory when you post a general PROPOSAL as distinct from a finished product.

And if you want to be a good hunter, you have to think like your prey: which is to say, not very much and not very rationally. I'm sure if you put your PR hat on, you could think up some way to get audiophools to pay $2500 for complete junk that sounded awful.

Well, duh. Sanctimonious delusional audiofools need to be fleeced. A ____ and his _____ are soon ______.

From a marketing standpoint, a silver coil needs little additional explanation.
If you advertise a silver coil, it is prudent business practice that it actually be a silver coil.

The more you attempt to explain what is self-evidently costly, the more you seem like you're whoring out Porsche Boxsters like Pontiac Solstices. Prospective suckers would be alerted and ask things like, "izzat real solid silver or just silver-plated wire?"

FWIW, silver plating doesn't get you much in conductivity at audio frequencies, but it's great for soldering.

-drh

[David Schwab]

I have some of that 'high-end' audiofool equipment myself, and have met people who can tell when an interconnect has finally broken in. I found the easiest way to shut a fool up is to mention a double blind test, and suddenly they can't make time for a simple experiment. In the end, the only thing that will be certain is an argument about what 'different' and 'better' mean.

Even better are the so-called blind tests that you read about, that never were. The best example is the story that metal coat hangers sounded better than Monster cables, in a speaker cable test.

If you really read the original article, it wasn't a double blind test, and in fact, wasn't even blind. The listeners were told what they were hearing. Except when the cable was tested against the Monster cables, the tester swapped a short length of metal coat hanger rods attached to the binding posts. So the listeners thought it was the other cable. Coat hangers probably do make good speaker connections.

The other problem was that the Monster cables being tested were not even speaker cables, but interconnects used as speaker cables!

But yet this flawed beyond reason farce of a test is bandied about ad nauseum to prove that expensive cables sound no better than coat hangers. And this is mostly used when people are talking about expensive guitar and bass patch cords. So now it REALLY doesn't make any sense!

My favorites though are the special laquer that cost $70 for a 1/4 ounce that you paint all over your equipment, such as the tone arm and even speakers and cables, to improve your sound! Then there was the other expensive varnish that had carbon in it that you painted on plastic (not ceramic) IC's to make them sound like tubes! Last in the hall of shame was the $600 wooden knob with gen-u-ine brass insert, and painted with that special expensive lacquer, of course, that made your power amp sound better by damping unwanted vibrations and resonances! Those damn resonant plastic knobs!

A world full of fools, it is.

[kevinT]

My dad used to say when he was in the military and stationed in Japan during the 50's, that the Japanese use to make fun of Americians by saying that there is "Nothing Dumber Than a Smart American".

I'm dumb, but I'm not stupid....so I guess I'm smart.

[salvarsan]

Let's just go for some plain enamel platinum wire and be done with it! Wound on bobbins hand carved of real elephant ivory (old stock). The spacers are Brazilian rosewood. Solid gold baseplate.

Someone, name a price?

First, we run the numbers.
Platinum is 2.22 times as dense as copper and spot quotes at ~$15,000/lb.
The drawing and insulating cost seems to converge at $200/lb on custom orders, so let's stipulate that 1lb #42 platinum wire of any insulation will cost $15200.

1 lb #42 Pt wire is ~24000 feet, so a 5000 ft. coil is worth $3040.
The gold baseplate is ~3 troy oz costing ~$2745 today.

The Brazilian rosewood can be cut from an old Martin D40 fretboard.
(snicker)

The ivory bobbins are essentially worth what your lawyer wants to defend you from customs.

This is the sort of product that should be delivered wrapped in a baby seal hide, in my opinion.

-drh

[salvarsan]

Every clod has a silver lining

Further notes on platinum strat pickups -- a 5000 ft platinum coil would have a DC resistance of 51k.
That means 2.5Meg volume and tone pots.

-drh

[David Schwab]

Such a special pickup would need special pots! Even a special amp and guitar. And gold plated strings. And forgot about Joe Sixpack playing the damn thing! That would be prohibited. It has to stay in the glass case, in the vault. With the laser thingies.

Why do they use the laser thingies in movies when an ultrasonic motion detector would work? I guess such an expensive pickup justifies all those lasers and motor controlled mirrors...

[belwar]

You need to custom coat it with teflon at $525 additional per pound. That will lower the capacitance greatly!

[GlennW]

You guys have motivated me once again...this weekend I'm going to paint my cast iron cylinder heads and engine block with aluminum paint to make them lighter.

[trevorus]

Such a special pickup would need special pots! Even a special amp and guitar. And gold plated strings. And forgot about Joe Sixpack playing the damn thing! That would be prohibited. It has to stay in the glass case, in the vault. With the laser thingies.

Why do they use the laser thingies in movies when an ultrasonic motion detector would work? I guess such an expensive pickup justifies all those lasers and motor controlled mirrors...

Actually, sonic sensors can be fooled with a blanket. No lie, it was on an episode of Mythbusters. The laser ones are also not used. Visible light is too easy to recreate. They use infrared.

[David King]

LeFay pickups out of Germany were being wound with silver wire but I think they quickly dropped down to OFC (oxygen free copper). There's a Japanese audio-file company that was making tube amp output transformers wound in silver. I hear that they sounded just fine, who woulda-thunkit?