Now we are starting to get into the more esoteric physics of an HDMI® cable. For many years, mainstream analog audio cable manufacturers talked about “Skin Effect” and how higher frequency’s tend to migrate to the surface of a cable and that lower frequencies stayed in the middle. As it turns out, there is some truth to this statement. Oh, not in the analog audio domain, that is still BS (in our opinion). However, in the high speed world of HDMI surface silver content and the type of dielectric do play a part in the performance of a HDMI cable. Now just throwing a thicker cost of silver onto the copper is not the complete answer. There must be a proper balance. Copper provides a stable high tinsel substrate for the silver plating, this will help the wire to keep its original length and shape which is necessary for the higher bandwidth and speeds (see #1 & #3).

What does this have to do with cables?

Proper balance between copper and silver is mandatory for consistent performance.