Speaker cables of cooper, or silver :Pros/Cons

Depends on the rest of your system, and the frequency response of your ears. Copper is darker, so it can be used to good effect with a system that is bright or fatiguing. Silver is brighter, so use it with a laid-back system, of if you want more air. Also, since the human ear is unique like a fingerprint, season to taste. But in either case, use OCC copper or silver only.

In general, because there is no hard and fast rule as design implementation also comes into play, copper will sound warmer and richer and silver will sound more revealing and transparent. Gold is also warm, like copper, but captures a bit more harmonic textures. Many companies will try to combine some of these attributes by combining them, ie. silver clad copper, gold clad silver, gold clad copper, etc. From my experiences, straight silver is a bit too bright for my system/tastes. I do find that I like silver clad copper and/or gold clad silver cables though. I have also heard systems where pure silver worked very well, generally in a system with warm speakers and electronic components.

I have not listened to platinum conductors, though I have heard carbon fiber conductors, which have many of the characteristics on copper IMHO.

Sunnyjim, my Acoustic Zen Satori speaker cables are copper but interconnects (AZ Absolute) are silver. AZ Robert Lee believes that silver should contain small amount of copper to add "body". Absolute ICs contain 1% of copper while AZ Silver Reference contain 3% of copper.

If you have only listened to silver cables such as Kimbers Silver streak then I agree that silver can be harsh and too analytical.

But, Solid Silver that is of high grade, say 5N that is also soft annealed has the smoothness of copper and the air, and dynamic slam of silver.
IMHO.
ozzy

I like Jmcgrogan2's choice of using "transparent" instead of bright to describe silver. I've used the word "honest" to describe silver assuming it's made well (geometry) and has a low absorbtion dialectric (like teflon).

Either one could be best depending on where you want to take your system.

>>>Tpreaves
What's cooper? :)<<<

I'll take a guess and say it's chicken wire. I've heard of people demonstrating that a coat hanger would work so why not cw?

btw and slightly related:

Q: Do you know why a chicken coop has two doors?

A: If it had four doors, they would call it a chicken sedan.

Ba Da Bing.