very small statistical sample at this point but I find that both the silver and gold are more musical than the copper. The silver tends toward a clean clear dynamic sound and the gold has a musical quality that can just sound "right". At this point putting an actual character on the "gold sound" has been elusive. I have heard from many people that a touch of gold in their system can be sublime but any more that quickly becomes too much. On a scale from 1-10 with 1 being syrup and 10 being fingernails on a chalkboard, the silver is a 6 and the gold is a 4 so it may simply boils down to what kind of flavor your system needs at the moment.
On the above scale many would expect the copper would be the center at 5 but another metric needs to be added for clarity since the copper is several levels below both the silver and the gold in clarity. The lack of clarity isn't something you immediately notice and when switching from copper to Ag/Au the both seem to sound a bit "soft" at first and it isn't until you return to the copper that you realize that it was indeed a bit lacking or dirty. In some systems the "tone" of the copper may be just what is needed so there aren't any absolutes here. Case in point, Art Dudley had identical silver and copper SUT's and preferred the copper.
I want to be clear that from a silver perspective, I believe the actual pedigree of the silver matters. Simply buying fine (0.999) silver from a jewelers supply will almost certainly assure you of the "bright" "harsh" "brittle" sound many associate with silver. Count me in the group who bought an ounce (around 150') of #30 fine silver from Myron Tobak for $20 and some teflon tubing from mcmaster carr to make the ultimate silver teflon kimber PBJ clone. Dear god that was one of the most dreadful sounding IC's I have ever heard and had every bad quality people associate with silver. Who knows...maybe I got 0.925 (sterling) silver by accident. The same purity silver from a known source (MWS, Elektrisola, HPC, CalFine) has a very different sound. The best sounding silver I have heard to date was from Chris at Jupiter Condenser and it was sourced directly from a mine.
Sorry for going off on a tangent here about the wire but they all sound different and have their own characters. My guess is wire type preference may need to be chosen to compliment the rest of the system and there will never be a universal "this is better than that".
As it stands now for cartridges, I am in the gold camp with silver being a close second but I reserve the right to change my opinion at any time.
dave
On the above scale many would expect the copper would be the center at 5 but another metric needs to be added for clarity since the copper is several levels below both the silver and the gold in clarity. The lack of clarity isn't something you immediately notice and when switching from copper to Ag/Au the both seem to sound a bit "soft" at first and it isn't until you return to the copper that you realize that it was indeed a bit lacking or dirty. In some systems the "tone" of the copper may be just what is needed so there aren't any absolutes here. Case in point, Art Dudley had identical silver and copper SUT's and preferred the copper.
I want to be clear that from a silver perspective, I believe the actual pedigree of the silver matters. Simply buying fine (0.999) silver from a jewelers supply will almost certainly assure you of the "bright" "harsh" "brittle" sound many associate with silver. Count me in the group who bought an ounce (around 150') of #30 fine silver from Myron Tobak for $20 and some teflon tubing from mcmaster carr to make the ultimate silver teflon kimber PBJ clone. Dear god that was one of the most dreadful sounding IC's I have ever heard and had every bad quality people associate with silver. Who knows...maybe I got 0.925 (sterling) silver by accident. The same purity silver from a known source (MWS, Elektrisola, HPC, CalFine) has a very different sound. The best sounding silver I have heard to date was from Chris at Jupiter Condenser and it was sourced directly from a mine.
Sorry for going off on a tangent here about the wire but they all sound different and have their own characters. My guess is wire type preference may need to be chosen to compliment the rest of the system and there will never be a universal "this is better than that".
As it stands now for cartridges, I am in the gold camp with silver being a close second but I reserve the right to change my opinion at any time.
dave