Difference in sound between copper and silver digital cables?

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.

For a digital cable? No. Heck no. Zip. Nada. Zilch.


Construction can make big differences in noise, impedance, etc., but for a digital cable for audio if properly constructed silver or copper will make 0 difference. Emphasis on proper construction for material properties. 


W.r.t. the RCA connectors good for 50, 75, 100 ohm. No. Almarg you are too nice. First, pretty much no RCA is correct for characteristic impedance so likely the RCA stated was just equally bad for all impedances and hence little difference would be seen.


People will perceive differences and then try to assign them to something they understand even though they have no idea why the difference (or even with certainty that there is). That may sound harsh, but true.  In a high quality DAC, signal jitter can be virtually eliminated. It's not the 90s any more.

avhifedelity,

I have lost count of the number of times I have "tested" things that have "obvious claimed differences", usually by the person standing in the room extolling those virtues, only to have them disappear when the ability to know what they are listening to also disappears. Silver over copper is one of those things that never lives up to its claims.


I am not a cynic, I am a realist with knowledge and experience. I am as likely to call out the so called snake oil vendors as I am to call out the "always cynics".

I will quote twoleftears as he is bang on. 

"and that carrying over to digital conventional associations of copper vs. silver in analog situations is spurious."

There is 0 reason for any of the qualities associated with silver, most specious at best with analog, to carry over to digital. 


If I wanted to be "cynical", I would question audiophiles on one had extolling the uber importance of dielectric and construction, and hence we must use teflon (though expanded polypropylene has a lower dielectric .. i.e. less energy stored), then the next sentence they will extol the virtue of natural dielectrics like cotton, which has a dielectric constant that can vary from 1.5x teflons value to 7-8x and is highly dependent on humidity and frequency, not to mention lack of manufacturing consistency, large impurities variations, etc.  When you attempt to have your cake and eat it too, it puts into question the validity of your reported results.

Dogma is dogma, no matter the belief. If you think you are immune from visual bias, that is huge dogma.  Some of us have done extensive testing over the years and accept our limitations, hence try to control our testing experiences.


If someone claims there is inherent and immediate difference in cable direction in this thread, but claims in another thread that you need to let cables settle for days and hence that is why they don't really trust cable reviews ... what form of dogma is that?