Let's talk about Silver...

In my experience with my components I found all silver cables lighten the bass and brighten the treble. Presentation is still smooth but brightened. Soundstage slightly more open but overall there is a lessening of warmth. All copper has the exact opposite and can be too warm. I prefer silver clad copper and have had great success with cables from DH Labs. When trying their upgraded all silver I found them too thin and bright for my system. 

Strikingly many anecdotal accounts of silver plated copper conductors begin with, "At first ...," across various brands and types of cables. This implies the combination of these metals at first gives an impression of increased resolution, which is later concluded to be distortion of some type. Conversely, tin plated copper is another matter entirely that is much appreciated by many (myself included).

It is often said that "silver sounds bright," but this begs the question as to if the metallurgy itself is a driving variable (purity claims should be regarded with suspicion), or if this is at least partly due to differences in cable construction given the typically small diameter of silver cable conductors as compared to copper.

It would be interesting to conduct a blind test among a group of listeners using cables of otherwise identical construction aside from the conductor (and perhaps connector) metallurgy and determine if each can be reliably and repeatedly identified.

I have a coaxial switcher with 3 coaxial inputs and 1 optical input. This allow me to plug multiple coaxial sources into my DAC’s single coaxial input. Being I prefer coaxial’s sound this works great for me. I was able to achieve synergy connecting my Bluesound N130 to the Coaxial Switcher’s input using a silver plated cable, then to my DAC, then from my DAC to my PreAmp using another Silver Plated Coaxial … But was not able to get any sort of synergy connecting my Blu-Ray’s Coaxial out to my DAC the same way. At first I did not like any of the sound when I connected the N130 but gave some time for the cables to burn in and now sounds great. As for the Blu-Ray, I ended up going optical out of the Blu-Ray to the COAXIAL Switcher’s Optical input being it converts Optical In to Coaxial Out then to the DAC and sounds much better.

Great conversation, thanks all for sharing your experience. 

There have been some comments, but any more thoughts on the merits of pure silver over pure copper in digital cables?

@slaw my post wasn’t directed at you. In fact, I didn’t see your post before I posted.

My post was merely to point out that many buy alot of disparate gear and drop in a cable without any basis for doing so other than “I wonder if these will work”. I’ve heard Shindo systems with Shindo silver IC’s and speaker cables and there wasn’t a hint of brightness.  Same with Kondo and same with Audio Note UK. Well designed, properly matched gear supplemented with well designed and properly matched cables/IC’s compliment one another.