[christos]

Any opinions on this stuff? I am hearing conflicting reports on sonics and ease of use. Is it worth it? Do you need special soldering techniques?

I am skeptical so far, but would like to hear real world experiences.

[Brinkman]

I'm slightly curious as well.

I've found thin-gauge solder (at least .031") to be advantageous in that it's easier to control the flow of solder to a joint, thus reducing the amount of solder used to form a joint.

The way I figure it, the less solder used at a given point, the less the possibility of the solder coloring the sound.

I use thin gauge Kester "44" 63/37. A pound is just under twenty-five bucks. But like I said, I'm curious.

[poty]

As far as I know the solder is not completely silver, more than that - the amount of silver in the solder is rather small. But as soon as the joint has less resistance (with "silver" solder) and more physically strong personally I prefer this to common solder.
I haven't heard any difference in sound though.

[harryf]

I use the thin stuff sold at radioshack/the source.I find it melt's better provided you have a big iron.With something like a 25 watt iron it's a pain.I find regular solder blobs too much and does not look pretty.Silver solder look's very nice when done.I find no difference in sound.

[Bill Epstein]

% of silver is the key. More silver, more heat required. More than 3% is tough to heat properly with a pencil iron . If you have silver-coated wires, it's good to use silver solder. The "net" has propagated the idea solder has a sound. I don't know.

A lot of manufacturers use Cardas Eutectic, therefore, in the absence of my own opinion, so do I. It has silver, but not too much, and flows readily. I paid $40 for a pound (now $48) 5 years ago, still have some and I build and re-build a lot.

[mjosef]

I currently use a no-lead silver solder (4%) with an adjustable 50W iron, it does require a few extra seconds of tip contact for the solder to flow easily...it does seem to leave the iron tip kinda messy with what seems to be a kinda 'ash' residue crust that exhibit a coal like burn on any following soldering effort.
Does the silver content make an audible difference? Really cannot answer that, its one of those standard procedures that gets adopted based on specs.

[johnmarkp]

I also use Cardas Quad Eutectic solder with lead in it.  I am not sure it sounds better.  I find it talks less heat to give good joints.  A big plus is that it is easy to de-solder as well.

John

[pianoman]

Based on positive reviews of the the lead-free Merlin speakers over the last few years, I researched solder last year.   

Tin and lead (the constituents of ordinary solder) are fairly lousy electrical conductors.  See http://www.wisetool.com/designation/cond.htm

  silver 106
  copper 89.5 hard drawn
  tin 13 (ouch!)
  lead 7 (more ouch....!!)

[pianoman]

Oops, I accidentally posted before I was finished...

Anyway, I'm now using lead-free Johnson IA-423.  It has 4.7% silver and 1.7% copper.  Parts Connexion has more info.

Since the Johnson solder melts at a higher temp, I bought a Hakko 936 soldering iron (best $85 bucks I've spent in this hobby...).  Try Amazon.com for more info.

I can not attest to better sonics as I tend to change too many variables at once.  If nothing else, I'm not breathing lead fumes anymore and really like using the new soldering iron. 

[poty]

Tin and lead (the constituents of ordinary solder) are fairly lousy electrical conductors.  See http://www.wisetool.com/designation/cond.htm
silver 106; copper 89.5 hard drawn; tin 13 (ouch!); lead 7 (more ouch....!!)

The numbers may be misleding. For example, you may look at the following lines:
Nickel 12-16
Nickel silver (18%) 5.3
Don't you think it is strange? Adding 18% of silver in the nickel lowers conductivity!
In the world of alloys there is much more strange things, than just arithmetical counting.
More than that, there are such effects as thermocoupling, plasticity and so on...
And the last thing. If you look at the differences in the resistance for different metalls solder joint - they will be so tiny, that you may compensate them just to shorten the parts' leds to half a millimetre.

[pianoman]

RE: "Nickel silver" conductivity, I got the following from Wikipedia:

"Nickel silver, also known as German silver, paktong, new silver or alpacca (or alpaca), is a copper alloy with nickel and often zinc. The usual formulation is 60% copper, 20% nickel and 20% zinc........Nickel silver is named for its silvery appearance, but contains no elemental silver unless plated."

[poty]

"Nickel silver, also known as German silver, paktong, new silver or alpacca (or alpaca), is a copper alloy with nickel and often zinc. The usual formulation is 60% copper, 20% nickel and 20% zinc........Nickel silver is named for its silvery appearance, but contains no elemental silver unless plated."

It mitigates the paradox only slightly. As soon as the copper is more than 6 times more conductive than nickel and zinc is almost 2 times, it's unknown why the resulting conductivity is less then the pure nickel.

[wushuliu]

FYI: You can get Cardas Eutectic and Wonder Ultra Clear, both of which melt at lower temperatures and are easy to use, on ebay for $4 and up for 10ft. rolls and up. You can also find Mundorf gold/silver solder for cheap from the same seller(s). Saves throwing down a large chunk for more than you really need.