Let's talk about Silver...

@sls883 

https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/veritas-cables-a-new-brand-that-i-found

I've experienced significant variation re: brightness with silver cables. An Audio Art digital cable was very much the opposite of bright and Acoustic Zen silver ICs were definitely on the bright side, which worked great with one set of components but were too much for another set.  I don't think one can make sweeping generalizations. 

I've never had brightness when using silver cables of a high quality such as 4N or higher level of silver. I will agree that they need some break in time and I'm open to the issue being system dependent.

In all likelihood the construction of the cable, the shielding, the soldering or crimping, litz or solid conductors, the chosen connectors and Sod‘s law on execution have far greater impact than the metal choice. In general I find solid conductors preferable over litz. But in the end it‘s all trial and error. Keepimg cables short is the only other advice that comes to mind

Silver is 7% more conductive than copper. As such it does everything better than copper including attracting noise to itself like an antenna. Leaving aside silver plated cables, which have their own unique issues, cables built from silver will have a characteristic brightness due to its superior absorption of noise unless steps are taken to mitigate that noise. The overall architecture, choice of materials and construction determine the sound of any cable. With pure silver it is, in my opinion, possible to achieve significantly greater levels of performance than copper  if done right.