Tinning Speaker Wires for Dummies

tinning a wire with solder

No one here at the the Antisocial Network claims to be an audiophile, although a couple of us have remarked recently that they'd forgotten how "pure" vinyl sounds until they hooked up that old turntable again after a couple of decades. Be that as it may, the people here are at least aware enough to understand the significance of a search for "Copper Vs. Tinned Speaker Wire." That beats eHowian Rachel Lucio, who tried to address the same question at ItStillWorks.com.

It's quite clear from her introduction to the topic that this contributor doesn't do much audio-video blogging. In fact, none, if she thinks that,

"There are small differences between copper speaker wire and tinned speaker wire, none of which ultimately affect the quality of audio produced. Environment and location are pivotal when determining which type of wire to use."

Ummm, yeah, Rachel, we get it that you can actually buy speaker copper speaker wire with a tin coating for marine applications, but is that really what the OQ wanted to know?

Or is it just possible that Rachel's failure to be aware of the practice of tinning stranded copper wires at the connection point led her to think she'd found the answer? Lucio's emphasis on tin-coated wire suggests that she displayed her hard-fought expertise in,

"Tinned speaker wire is wire that has had solder applied to it to prevent corrosion. Tinning has no impact on audio quality. Tinned speaker wire is used in marine applications due to its resistance to corrosion."

That "marine applications" bit may well be true, but the "prevent corrosion" part has little to do with why some people tin speaker wires: they do so because stranded wire is hard to handle sometimes.

Had Lucio been aware of the practice of tinning connections, her answer might have been more useful. Perhaps she would have pointed out that tinning speaker wires isn't strictly necessary but, if you do decide to do so, you should use a high silver-content solder. Since she knew nothing, however, she went off on a typical Dumbass of the Day misinformation tangent. Bad Rachel, bad.

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