Used throughout the high end audio industry in most flagship cable products, occ provides the superior quality copper and silver possible today.OCC (Ohno Continuous Cast) is the name given to the casting process developed to help defeat annealing issues and virtually eliminate all grain boundaries in copper or silver with a unique patented process. The OCC casting method uses specialized heated moulds in order to draw a single crystal up to 125 meters in length. With only a single crystal in very long lengths, there is an unimpeded free path for the best possible signal transfer. Along with this superior single long crystal structure, OCC provides copper and silver with the least possible oxides and other impurities.
Why Litz?
With each strand utilizing a razor thin enamel coating, Litz based wire provides a cable that will last a lifetime (will not oxidize). Further with each strand acting independently until joining at the termination point, the design negates any bad effects typically associated with normal stranded wire (skin effect, proximity effect, etc.). As another side benefit durability and flexibility are both increased.
Combining OCC (purest metal) with Litz design you really have an end result that is the ultimate cable possible today.
Why Pure OCC Copper, OCC Silver and True Fusion OCC Silver + OCC Copper
We go by the numbers using science as the guideline. All metals have a conductivity rating as describe by the International Annealed Copper Standard (IACS). All metals are compared against Copper at the 100% IACS rating mark. OCC Copper is rated at 103% IACS and Silver 106% IACS. Gold is rated at 73% IACS or 27% lower conductivity as compared to standard OFC/ETP copper (given the exact same amount of each metal). Therefore it would take a significant amount more Gold to achievethe higher conductivity rating of copper.
We will never release anything less than OCC copper and will never release any alloys. So what is an alloy? An alloy is defined as a mixture of two or more different metals, making the original metal less pure with worsened electrical performance than the original pure metal. An alloy of 1% gold with 99% silver would yield around 89% IACS rating or 11% less conductivity than standard OFC/ETP copper. While cables made of metals/alloys that are inferior to copper may alter the sound in a specific way, that is not our goal. Norne Audio will always seek to utilize the absolute best materials (going by the numbers) in our pursuit of the absolute best cables possible today. We believe that the cables with the best specifications yield the best possible sound of ones system.
Please watch the above animation if you prefer a quick visual overview.
IACS (International Annealed Copper Standard)
The IACS rating is the metric used to describe a metals conductivity as compared to the standard of copper.
First take a look below at pure metals conductivity ratings.
Silver is the best there is, in pure form, period.
example:
If you take a 1"x 1"x 1" cube of pure silver and compare its conductivity to an identical 1"x 1"x 1" cube of gold, the gold is considered 32-35% less conductive than the pure silver.
Alloys
An alloy, by definition, is less pure than the original pure metals it is comprised of. Alloys are in existence largely for strength / hardness properties and are not meant for high end audio cables. When you alloy a metal, say gold with silver, you quickly decrease its purity and IACS rating. Even at just 1% gold alloyed with silver the IACS rating drops down well below plumbing grade copper. Alloys in the audio world came about purely as competition increased and there was desperation for new ways to try and market a cable to the uneducated masses.
Norne Audio will always utilize the purest form of a metal and will always use pure silver occ litz, pure copper occ litz, spc occ litz or mixes thereof. Our goal is the design that possesses the absolute top specifications of the highest possible quality.
