Silver-plated or single metal IC's?

Carl,
Don't forget your 5th Golden Rule of Hi-Fi : )

http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?hbest&1176617023&openusid&zzCarl109&4&5#Carl109\

But seriously if you have access to a telephone then you are as close as you need to be to a dealer who will enable you to try before you buy- call The Cable Company.

Cheers!

Home Grown Audio will allow you to audition as well.

www.latinternational.com gives you a 45 day trial period. Full refund if your not happy with the purchase.

I have generally found that all-copper IC's sound very natural, with a laid back treble, whereas silver coated copper sound faster with a hotter treble. I did not expect that. I kind of figured that you could engineer any kind of sound with any kind of material - it all comes down to the measurable attributes (capacitance, inductance, resistance).

So I don't know if the issue is the material itself or the engineering decisions that tend to accompany certain materials.

I've also noticed that IC's with higher capacitance are more prone to round off the treble at longer lengths. Again, is this cause/effect or association, I don't know.

Of course, it may not matter whether it's cause/effect or not. The point is that you want to know what to buy for what kind of sound.

I do second the recommendation of the Cable Company's loaner program, with the one caveat that I've not worked with them for several years (I've been pretty happy, having settled on a mix of Audience, Nordost, Cardas, Goertz, and Monster).

Art

Silver plated conducts better but adds in many cases a stridency that some people don't like.