Copper, silver, or gold MC cartridge coils?


Copper coils seem to be the most popular.

Silver coils seem to have the general trait of warmer midrange and extended high frequencies, by those that prefer them.

Copper has lower mass than silver, and much less mass than gold. Better transients?

Silver has the best conductivity, followed by copper, then gold.  Gold has the best corrosion durability.

Can we draw any conclusions as to the type of sonic traits and preference of each type?

Any preferences and why your choice of type, or is there no big differences sonic wise?
don_c55

Showing 2 responses by mijostyn

I had a gold wired cartridge, a Clearaudio DaVinci. I thought the Ortofon Windfeld Ti was a better cartridge. But I could not say it was because of the wire. Do the metals really sound different? They all work harden but I think copper does this easier than the others. I tried searching for the answer. This would mean copper wires that are being vibrated will break sooner. The other metals may be more durable. I have had two cartridges that fractured copper wires, a Denon D103 and a Sumiko Talisman S. They were decades old when they did it. Both with copper wires. 
There is a slight difference in conduction but will that effect AC at audio frequencies? I can't find that answer. The wire runs are not very long either. You would have to compare and measure three identical cartridges just with the different wires. To my knowledge nobody has ever done this.
Schroder offers his tonearms with either copper or silver wiring. I chose the copper. The tonearm wires are scary fine. They look like they would snap if you sneezed on them. 

I wonder why nobody plays around with the wiring of MM or MI cartridges. Higher voltage maybe wire has less effect?