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Siltech Silver-Gold Alloy

The conductor, one of the most important parts of a cable, has numerous important properties influencing sound quality.

By analyzing magnetic and electric crystal barrier properties Siltech’s engineering group found that contaminants of certain metals have a profound effect on musical performance. Quite large amounts of certain materials can be rather benign, while even tiny amounts of others can be extremely intrusive, damaging a natural sound.

G7 Silver-Gold alloy

Siltech Silver-Gold Alloy
The gold atoms naturally displace contaminant particles and fill any voids in the silver crystal matrix.

At Siltech we learned early on that the specific identity of any alien matter in our conductors was of vital concern, leading us to develop our revolutionary Silver-Gold alloy. This compound mixes a tiny amount of gold with the silver; the gold atoms naturally displace contaminant particles and fill any voids in the silver crystal matrix.

The result is a greater material consistency with dramatically reduced distortion, significantly improving both the performance and longevity of our conductors. Furthermore, the flexibility of the metal is considerably enhanced. All of these factors combined guarantee top performance (even with heavy use as it happens in recording studios).

Siltech Conductors

Siltech was founded in 1983. Although never used in marketing, the use of high-quality silver conductors marked Siltech’s very first products. SILver TECHnology forms the brand name, and the company never strayed from the path of this philosophy. During the first decade of Siltech, our engineers experimented with various types of conductor materials, always based on the highest possible quality.

In the following timeline, we highlight the most important cornerstones of the progress of Siltech’s famous metallurgical Generations, from G1 to the latest, most advanced G9 technology.

G1 referred to the 99.99% pure solid silver wire found in the first cables. Silver boasts the best conductivity of any metal and, unlike copper, does not degrade over time – but it improves. That is why it is ideal for audio applications.

In 1988, G2 silver was introduced to the Siltech range. G2 offered a longer crystal length which reduced the number of gaps between the silver atoms. It also improved the electrical characteristics and sound of the wire. By 1993, some models featured additional 24k gold wires in combination with the existing silver ones. These products have their model names with the term “Gold” added, sometimes by percentage like FTM-4 Gold 17% gold.

G3 saw the first Siltech silver-gold alloy conductor. Released in 1997 with the launch of the first SQ Classic range, it proved hugely successful. By injecting gold into high purity silver, boundary distortion was dramatically reduced to 20% of the original amount. Later, we lessened these micro-cracks to 10% by refining the process, and the technology formed the basis of the Classic Legend conductors used today.

The fourth-generation G4 metallurgy was a special silver-gold alloy used for recording studio cables where mechanical strength is very important.

G5 was introduced in 2000, as a higher purity conductor for the new Signature Series. It was a further refinement of the melting process that reduced boundary errors to less than 1%. In turn, it noticeably improved the sound of all cables that used it.

In 2003, G6 saw a further boundary error reduction to about 0.1%, assisted by the new Siltech Advanced Thermal Treatment (SATT) process. The special heat treatment technology increased conductivity by rearranging metal molecules at high temperatures. A high current pulse improves the metal grid before the insulators start to melt. In the same year, we started employing this new metallurgy for our Royal Signature products. G5 became the core conductor of the Classic MK2 Series, the successor of the original Classic range.

G7 was developed in 2008, further refining Siltech metallurgy and continuing to offer superior performance to competing conductors. In the case of G7, the highest selection was reserved for the more costly cables. We still employ G7 for all our Classic Anniversary and most Royal Signature products today.  Although we first developed Silver-Gold alloys nearly thirty years ago, we have continued to evolve and improve them further. With G7 having an error grid reduced to 0.03% and thus being so close to perfection, it has been challenging to bring additional refinements. For this reason, it took a long time to produce a better version of this particular alloy.

G9 is the latest Silver-Gold alloy generation developed by Siltech’s metallurgists. Over 12 years of research and testing were needed to get a significant, audible, and measurable improvement. The result was an extraordinarily reduced boundary distortion of 0.01%. Compared to previous generations, purity marks improved levels as well. Launched in May 2021, the Classic Legend Series employs G9 – this 9th generation of Siltech’s proprietary silver-gold alloy with up to 2 times larger conductors than previous generations.

Every silver-gold wire from the first generation G3 to the latest G9 is pure and solid thus ensuring a very long lifetime of audiophile performance.

All Siltech Silver-Gold alloys (an alloy means a mix of two or more metals) do have positive aging. In other words, electrically, the wires improve over time, even when not playing music. Moreover, distortion reduces over the years, continuously improving sound quality. These special properties are unique to Siltech. Positive aging is also a major competitive improvement over other technologies that suffer from degradation over time.

Regarding break-in, G9 reduces breaking-in time to 50-100 hours on average.

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