Cardas Fine Wire
Q.) I read ads by other cable manufacturers who claim to use special types of wire such as Cardas Fine Wire. Could you please explain more about this product.
A.) Like many products Cardas Fine wire developed out of a need that could not be filled. The availability of ultra pure, ultra soft conductor strand had decrease to the point of unavailability in this country in the mid eighties, due part to the development of and evolution of mass production techniques such as resistance annealing and mandatory recycling. Usable copper was cheap and plentiful, however, super pure and ultra soft copper became the mythical unicorn. The general condition of available copper became so bad that manufactures began going off shore for product. Still the consistency of product was poor and costs soon became astronomical and we were forced to make our own.
We found that care and consistency at every step of the drawing process and a bunch of nines after decimal point were not enough. It made little sense to start with pure copper just to have it harden and oxidize during the drawing process and after manufacture. Instead we developed a process where the copper is actually purified and super annealed during the drawing process and developed a coating process to protect the copper between steps and after production.
At first the only customer we had was ourselves and our livelihood depended on the perfection and purity of our metals. We are still our own best customer and we still make the most perfect product we know and absolutely do things the best way possible. We start with the best available copper on the market, ultra pure bar with 0 recycling content. We then, with a complex and highly proprietary process, reduce, refine, draw, polish, and anneal the conductor keeping a coating on the conductor at all times during manufacture. Even "bare" copper retains a proprietary vapor coating for several months, the distinct straw color of our copper is due to the absolutely oxide free mirror surface. The purity is beyond our ability to measure and we typically find surface conductivity in the 103 range in the ultra fine series coppers.
Unlike conventional coppers that are quick annealed with an electric current process called resistance annealing our coppers are annealed the hard way, in hydrogen reduction ovens. Not just at the end of the drawing process, but at every step in the process in the ultra grades and every other step in the super.
Custom diamond dies polish the wire as it is drawn, not just at the final step, but at every step in the process. The conductor is always coated to protect it at all times even between drawing steps. At Cardas we use urethane enameled conductor for the construction of our cables. This is a very permanent protective process.
Beginning in 1998 we also make un-enameled conductor strand available to other manufactures. Today most almost all the ultra pure copper used the high-end audio industry comes from our plant. In addition to the super fine and ultra fine copper, we also manufacture super and ultra fine silver using the same care and processing. We are currently supplying stranding from 19 awg to 50 awg in copper silver and beryllium and 45 awg to 49 awg in Gold. - George