Digital Interconnect - Silver?


Are the best digital IC's always silver or copper clad with silver? Seems like most ads I've seen lately for digital interconnects say they are made of silver. Any suggestions for an excellent digital IC made with copper? I'm trying to convert my whole system from silver cables to copper. I already replaced the speaker cables. One digital and 3 regular sets of IC's are still needed. I'm not trying to accomplish anything particular by doing the switch. I started out with silver cables everywhere a few years ago and I want to see how the system sounds with all copper. Must be the Winter getting to me.
msnloeth
I have used a number of different digital cables between my transport and DAC. The best results were with an Analysis Plus digital oval (copper) and the Illuminations D-60 (silver). If you want copper, the A+ is a great sounding cable in my system, detailed and coherenent, but not harsh. The instruments have great physicality. The A+ cable is also very reasonable.
The first silver digital cable that i mentioned was a Tara with Teflon insulation. Simply sounds like a higher resolution copper cable. It did a very nice job, especially considering what i paid for it. Sean
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tara has several ranges of digital cables that use either stranded or "rectangular solid core" (RSC) copper. nearly all are available as rca or bnc (75 ohm) and xlr (110 ohm aes/ebu) varieties. i just purchased an aes/ebu "ism on board" from tara that will go between my boulder 1012 and mbl 1521. i preferred the tara to nbs monitor 1 in a recent in-home audition; and the "newly revised" tara msrp is about 50% of the nbs. -cfb
I kind of found out ( by accident ) that i typically prefer Silver digital cables.

I had bought quite a few various digital cables, most of them used and all of them copper as far as i knew. Out of the bunch, there was one that was really much more cohesive and natural sounding that had excellent detail. As it turns out, i had to take it apart to repair it as a loose connection developed. Lo and behold, i found out it was a Silver cable but with none of the glare or brightness that you read about. I have since moved onto another digital cable and it too is all silver. All of the benefits of the other silver cable but even more "relaxed" or "unstrained" sounding.

Like anything else though, it is both a matter of personal taste and system synergy. I know what i like and so far, most of my systems are plumbed with copper. Sean
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Don't let the winter get to you.

Excellent digital cable that are made of copper? Hey, try using copper interconnects for your digital purpose. I am using a pair of Audiotruth Emeralds, "functionally perfect copper", from Cal Audio Delta to Meridian 518 to Cal Alpha with good success.

Using digital cable, I am using Illuminations D-60, makes the resolution more concentrated and detailed.

Using copper analog cable makes the resolution is spread out. The sound is slightly thinner compared to D-60, but it is much more spacious and less fatigueing to listen to.

o/~ Chill will wake you, high and dry you wonder why... don't let the winter get you o/~
I compared Illuminations D-60 (silver) to Cardas Lightening (copper) between a CAL Delta and Bel Canto DAC 1 in a tube setup. It wasn't even close. The Cardas had a much better midrange with well integrated highs.
Msnloeth- That is a good idea and I will quote a private email that another member and I had about this same exact subject.

"Quanta noise developed when transferring the signal through silver cables creates high amounts of jitter. Copper has much lower quanta noise as well as a different frequency. There would be quite an improvement in that area as well."

So I think there would be a noticeable amount of improvement if you were to go from silver to copper, I was in the process of switching all silver to copper, but am on longer using transport/external DAC so I never tried using a copper digital cable.

I know Jena Labs makes a copper digital cable which I imagine is among the best, I have enjoyed every cable I have heard that they make, I don’t see how or why the digital cable would be any different.
Tim