Internal Wiring Material
Internal Wiring Material identifies the conductor carrying the cartridge’s signal inside the tonearm tube, from the headshell end towards the arm base.
Copper and silver are conductor materials. OFC means oxygen-free copper; an N grade describes purity. OCC describes a casting process, while Litz describes individually insulated strands. Silver-plated copper has a copper core coated with silver; it is not solid silver.
Internal Wiring Material — Tonearm
Keep internal wiring separate from detachable headshell leads, an external cable and the plating on connector contacts. None of those alone identifies the wire inside the arm.
Check the wiring actually supplied with a standalone arm or fitted to a turntable. An optional upgrade is not necessarily installed. If a listing gives only a cable brand, look for the manufacturer’s conductor specification. The material label alone does not establish which arm sounds better.
Sources
- Tonearm wire materials and construction — Cardas Audio
- Wire construction and material comparisons — Cardas Audio
- LW-7N: conductor purity and terminal plating — Ortofon
- LW-800S: silver and silver-plated copper — Ortofon
- OCC conductor manufacturing — Furutech
- Stogi Reference 313: standard and optional wiring — Kuzma