Material Purity
OFC, LC OFC, OCC and silver are conductor materials which, when used in place of TPC, result in improved fidelity. However, choice of conductor materials is only part of what is involved in the production of a great sounding audio cable.
As with the ingredients in a dinner, it's the sum of the parts and the skill of the chef which finally determine the memories associated with the meal. There's more to cables than conductor material alone, there's conductor purity, conductor topology, dielectric loss, plug construction...
3.1 All the Nines!
The purity of a conductor is determined by the purity of the ingot from which it is manufactured. The purity of the ingot is roughly related to the number of grain boundaries present in the final conductor.
Conductor purity is specified in nines (N). For example, a 99.99% pure ingot will produce a four nines (4N) pure conductor, a 99.9997% pure ingot will produce a five nines (5N) pure conductor and so on. The highest conductor purity currently available is 7N (99.99999% pure).
Conductors used in Atlas quality OFC audio cables have a purity of 6N. Atlas OCC conductors have an equivalent purity of 7N
| Al | Si | S | Cr | Fe | Ni | Zn | Se | Te | Ag | Sb | Bi | Pb | |
| 4N | 0.95 | 4.7 | 9.9 | 0.03 | 14 | 1.8 | 0.26 | 0.56 | 0.24 | 11 | 0.32 | 0.15 | 1.9 |
| 5N | 0.18 | 0.26 | 1.1 | <0.01 | 0.03 | <0.01 | <0.03 | <0.05 | <0.05 | 0.1 | <0.03 | <0.01 | <0.01 |
| 6N | 0.04 | 0.20 | 0.03 | <0.01 | 0.02 | <0.01 | <0.03 | <0.05 | <0.05 | 0.02 | <0.03 | <0.01 | <0.01 |
| 7N | 0.01 | 0.03 | 0.01 | <0.01 | <0.01 | <0.01 | <0.03 | <0.05 | <0.05 | 0.03 | <0.03 | <0.01 | <0.01 |
