Copper for Solid State / Silver for Tubes ?

Frankly there's not one thing the "reputable cable salesperson"(an oxymoron?) said that I agree with. They are all gross generalizations that may or may not hold true for your system and/or tastes. Personally I've heard bigger and more meaningful changes with interconnects than speaker cable, but that could just be a function of the cables I tried or my system or both. I guess my point would be that with cables there are absolutely no absolutes(how 'bout that?) and there's no getting around the fact that you have to try different combinations in your system to see what works for YOU. The good news is that cables are easy/cheap to transport and most cable companies or dealers will let you demo them risk free(less shipping if applicable), so your biggest costs are time and effort--but isn't that the fun part?

My advice would be to try everything you can--you'll learn a lot and you'll find the cables that really do it for you. Particularly with cables you should avoid any "one size fits all" generalizations and just go by your own ears. Best of luck.

Tim

'Couldn't agree more with Tim. The danger about generalizations such as "silver is bright" or "copper is warm" is that people actually start to accept and spread this as a universal dogma. If you can't find a dealer that will let you try cables in your own system then find another dealer, they are out there. This kind of "stereotyping" of cable based on metallurgy reminds me of the BS that we brass players (trumpet) hear (and spread) constantly: silverplated trumpets sound "brighter" than goldplated trumpets, raw brass sounds warmer...etc. ad nauseum. [Far more important on sound and timbre is the GUAGE (thickness) of the metal, not the plating]. Interconnects also come in different guages, cabling patterns, with different dielectrics, etc. The PURITY of the copper or silver may be more important than the fact one is copper and the other is silver. The dielectric may actually have more effect on the sound than whether the cable is silver or copper. We have said nothing about a wire's capacitance, impedance, and inductance which have major influences on component compatibility. My own experience is similar to Tim's insofar as interconnect's having made more of a difference in most of my systems over the years than speaker cables. But I have also found that some preamps or amps are more sensitive to cable changes than others. Further, do your speakers resolve well enough to enable you to hear what changes are taking place upstream? When listening to my system, I am not listening to a cable, I am listening to how well (or not so well) all elements in the system are working together. And, if you change just one component (for example, active preamp to passive preamp) the synergy may be disrupted. That IC that was "the best cable in the world" with the active preamp may be all wrong for the passive preamp. There is no "one best cable", regardless of what any audio dealer tells you.

Very well said Richgib.I couldn't agree more.I'm glad you detailed it out.If the dealers would only say this same thing( some do ) then they would not only make more sales of cables but would reduce buyer's remorse and uncertainty as well.

Actually, the most defining factor in interconnects is the "geometry" of the cable which defines the main R, L & C parameters. (I've said this before in the forum) So, if you really want to compare anything *else* you must first have identically constructed cables. I've done that.

After the geometry, the next factor can be the metals - but this is a much smaller particpant. It's not terribly likely that anyone is going to find differences in the sound due to the purity of the metal. As it happens the purity of the wire used in most commercially made electronic wire is very high to begin with.

Gauge seems to play a role, but keep in mind that changing the diameter of a wire will effect L & C too, and R (but R should be playing a very minor role at these lengths). IMHO, within some reasonable ranges of 20 gauge wire things don't seem to change very much. Insulation matters, that controls the C.

I do personally feel that there is a subjective sonic signature to silver and copper (having said all that) and this is based upon listening to *identical* construction of both silver and copper interconnects.

When I designed my interconnects I felt that silver was doing some things that copper did not, but that copper seemed to have better mids and lows. This feeling was mirrored by others who were independently listening to silver. Keep in mind that this goes back now almost 15 years, before everyone and his brother had some sort of special recipe cable out.

So, what I tried to do is to find a way to get a silver cable to not just have those sweet highs, but to have the warmth and mid bass/low bass that I was hearing in copper cables. BTW, SPC seemed to merely screw things up all round and have the worst of both!

My design philosophy is to try to get the system under control FIRST, then if needed to attempt to adjust "color", but not before. So, the goal is to present the signal without colorations through the signal chain. That's what my interconnect product is intended to do, and seems to succeed, in as much as it gets out of the way, like taking the glass out of a window.

Tube-o-philes, especially those with ZFB, SE and DHT amps often happen to have a slight rolloff in the highs. So, they often favor the slight "tinkle" coloration provided by straight simple silver interconnects. Conversely, many other amps have overshoot (look at the square waves published in the mags...) and benefit from a cable that is a bit self inductive and shunt capacitive (rolled down) to compensate.

I prefer to try to set up a system without these complementary colorations and compensations, since they never completely and fully null each other and yield a mess more often than not. This messy situation results in some sonic confusion and accounts in large measure for those many people who report that they can not or do not hear certain differences, IMHO.

Speaker cables can be quite interactive with a given speaker. Again, merely by changing the geometry of a given cable I can remarkably alter the subjective perception of a given speaker. The interesting factor is that a speaker cable with a geometry that is known to have a "strong" effect, when used with different speakers, will not have the same effect at all. In other words, the interaction is often unpredictable. In my experience, the speaker cables with "boxes" are especially prone to this effect, as are those with highly reactive parameters (often very capacitive or inductive, or both).

Again, the Silver Thunder speaker cables that I make are intended to "get out of the way" as much as possible, and minimally interact with the load and the amp.

Just a perspective from someone who builds cables commercially.

_-_-bear

Be careful with gold. It does not conduct as well as silver or copper. However it will remain basically corrosion free. I doubt any pure gold cables will be made, but who knows in this world of high end cables. A gold plated wire may have a slower skin effect due to lower conductivity in the gold plating. Guess we'll have to wait and see.