silver with tubes and copper with solid state ??

I would say there is some truth in your general assumptions, at least from my experiences. I wouldn't say it is an iron clad rule, but there is some truth to it.
Also, when using silver cables, I find ribbon silver conductors to sound smoother than solid core silver. I can't say that I've ever been a fan of silver clad copper though.

Cheers,
John

JMC2 is spot on except for the silver plated copper cablew hich works in many cases quite well and is popular. That just goes to show you there is no way to know what a cable will sound like in your system until you have used it for a while in the same place.
That said it is simply true that silver is a better conductor than copper. Further my personal experience is that I didn't like silver at all in an SS system. Copper was much easier on the ears.
The real difference for me is that silver seems to be quick and can help perk up a slow system. I also use silver for a custom power cord because it is a detailed fast clean sounding cord to my CDP.
The kicker is that I use copper Cardas Golden Refs in my big tube system and silver lace from the TT to the pre all in the same set up.
There is an unwritten rule that the cabeling should really be of the same brand. I have several brands in the big rig which is all tube; Homegrwon Silver lace, Audience AU24, Cardas Golden refs, and Jena lab speaker cables, to my utter delight!!!

A shootout in my system had $300 worth of VH Audio 24 gauge. solid core silver, cotton wrapped, replacing Transparent Ultra (pre MM), Purist Collosus and a 2 meter, $2800 Siltech set. This was with Wavelength 45s into Lowther DX 4s (copper coil). This was done direct (naked connections)from amp to speaker, something I couldn't do with the other stuff, so as always, YMMV.

I didn't like silver before, either.

My experience is it solely depends on your specific equipment and not particularly the generalization of solid state versus tube. I have 2 pair of Acoustic Zen Absolute Reference II IC's (copper/silver blend) running in my system now and I am borderline satisfied with it. It's a bit too bright so not sure I'll stay with the AZs.

Thing is, these same ICs were PERFECT with my prior amp (a Musical Fidelity A308 Integrated, solid state). Everything else was conastant (Benchmark DAC, Shunyata cords and conditioner, etc.).

That's quite a coincidence I had a MF 308 for years and found it to screechy for my taste. I tried everything I could afford in cables and no matter what I used it didn't work out in my rig. I think the rig will supercede the cable. Therefore buy the cheapest rat shack stuff you can find. Then spend all the money you saved on component upgrades.