Copper for Solid State / Silver for Tubes ?

'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.

Bear. We all should be as lucky as you to hear silver and copper cables of identical geometries (what I referred to as "cabling patterns") in order to assess differences. The kinds of controlled conditions you employed are necessary to be able to make dependable predictions, such as how a cable is LIKELY to sound in one's system. Your expertise in this matter certainly speaks for itself. However, I have often enough heard TUBE gear with SILVER cables sound, not sweet on the top end, but painfully BRIGHT, GLASSY, and IRRITATING. I have also heard silver sound sweet, airy, and extended on tranisistor preamp/amp combinations. I still stand by the statement that one cannot dependably predict that B-E-C-A-U-S-E a preamp/amp combination is T-U-B-E (or ss), SILVER (copper) WILL work better. Not all audio salesmen (high end not excluded) are as knowledgeable as you as to WHEN the metal (silver or copper) emerges as a salient factor. I have had high end salesmen tell me that silver will be "brighter" without ever asking me what preamp, power amp and speaker combinations I was using. I have owned several different tube preamps over the last several years (Melos SHA-1, Audible Illusions L-1, VAC, Music Reference RM-5, and sonic frontiers SFL-2. The same silver IC inserted between preamp and power amps (VTL Tiny Triodes) did not result in a consistently, sweeter, airier, top end. Three of the six tubed preamps produced a sweeter, more extended high end with six nine's copper IC's. Just because all of these preamps were TUBED, did not mean they were all the same in input/output impedances, gain, frequency response, etc. In fact, WHERE and HOW the tubes are used in the circuit - as a buffer, in the output stage, etc. differs among "tube" preamps. Some tube preamps have more in common with SS preamps than other tube preamps, the tubes only performing a non-critical (tube) function in the circuit design. You are obviously aware of this, noting that SE (single-ended) tube designs differ from push-pull tube designs. In a SE design, where the tubes are a major factor for the character of the sound, just changing the output tubes can result in a desire to change interconnects to "soften" or "tighten-up" the high end or bottom end. The original question posted was a reference to a high end salesman's generalization (more like a universal) that ALL "tubes sound better with silver, and the implication that ALL "ss sounds better with copper", without taking into account that tube gear may have more variablity in design within its own "species". Some "tube" designs use tubes for "show" and are really nothing more than "camouflaged" ss designs. The point being that generalizations such as "tubes sound better with..." or "ss sounds better with..." are not really dependably reliable in helping us to select cables. The best thing a salesman can do in guiding us is to give us a bunch of cables of different geometries, to insert into our own systems, and let us and arrive at our own conclusions. I know of nothing in the sudio world that generates as much controversy as cables. In fact, many reviewers won't even review cables anymore because of all the variables that are involved.