Difference in sound between copper and silver digital cables?

It riles them to believe
that you perceive
the web they weave
And keep on thinking free.

pmboyd,


You will notice that people are assigning the same characteristics w.r.t. sound that they experience with analog cables to digital cables. If you understand digital you will understand that makes no sense. That tells me they are assigning qualities based on expectations not reality. Suggestion is very powerful.


For digital, it is primarily about no bit errors (which are highly unlikely) and no added jitter. Jitter is going to come down to good signal transmission and that is from cable construction at audio frequencies. I won't discount the potential for noise injection into the sensitive analog portions of digital circuits but again, that is a factor of cable construction, not a material difference between copper and silver.


Some audiophiles say silver sounds bright. What would cause a cable to sound bright?  It either transmits high frequencies significantly better than bass frequencies which is again caused by construction at anything approaching audio frequencies and/or it causes high frequency ringing due to amplifier instability which is due to capacitance which again is due to cable construction not material not minor conductive differences.


These myths often start with vendors, who may take a property that is important at gigahertz frequencies, i.e. silver oxide conductivity and use it to promote a qualify at audio frequencies that is not justifiable.  A subset of audiophiles latches onto it and suddenly all silver cables are bright. It really makes no sense they are all bright when construction would far dominate any characteristic associated with "brightness".   


I will get flamed for this post, but I can probably count the number of audiophiles who claim silver is bright that have blind tested the exactly same constructed cable, one made with copper, one made with silver, on one finger. No worries, they can spend money on silver cables and keep searching for the next tweak for audio nirvana that they never reach, I will put that money into things that actually make a difference.

audiozenology" people are assigning the same characteristics w.r.t. sound that they experience with analog cables to digital cables. If you understand digital you will understand that makes no sense."

It makes perfect sense to use language, adjectives, and descriptives that are commonly used, defined, and understood and to invent hand-waving arguments that dismiss, discount, or dispute what people hear does nothing to further the discussion and everyone is free here to post they're own experiences.

"These myths often start with vendors"

Illogical, circular reasoning that is like saying "She is fat because she is overweight."

Given the different way in which analog signals and digital signals are transmitted down connections (optical speaker cables, anyone?), it seems 100% commonsensical that design is going to play a large part in any perceived difference, and that carrying over to digital conventional associations of copper vs. silver in analog situations is spurious.