Let's talk about Silver...

@thelotusgroup 

Silver is 7% more conductive than copper

Well, it helps if you qualify whether this is by volume, by weight or by cost!

The conductivity measured across the opposite faces of a 1-metre cube of metal is roughly silver 63.0; copper 59.6; gold 41.1; aluminium 37.7.  So about 5.7% better conductivity for silver than for copper, when comparing the same volume. Not a lot in it, really.

But the specific gravities are 10.5, 8.95, 19.3 and 2.7 respectively.  The relative conductivities by weight are 6.0, 6.66, 2.13 and 14.0.  So copper is about 10% better at conducting electricity than silver, on a weight for weight basis.  Gold is about a third as good but aluminium is more than twice as good as copper!

So where mass matters, like in the moving coil of a dynamic speaker, or the moving coil of a cartridge, or high voltage transmission lines, aluminium is the metal to go for provided you can terminate it properly!  KEF know this and do it in their high-end speakers.

Now if you take into account the cost of the metal, it gets really interesting (obviously prices fluctuate daily so this is approximate).  If we take gold as the basis, silver offers about 250 times the bang for the buck, copper about 30,000 times, and aluminium a massive 210,000 times the conductivity per buck.  Thats why you never see gold transmission lines ...

You can tinker around with reducing impurities and growing single crystals but until somebody works out how to get superconductivity at room temperature, it really is tinkering with small differences

I have some bespoke silver connectors that I bought from a retired engineer who builds them at home. Helped with dull sounding gear- Lexicon,Arcam CD players etc. Worth a try, before you replace the unit.....

I also had Silver fuse  jumpers in a pair of Magnepan's. Sounded great till I melted a tweeter........ 

A silver wire will weigh more than a copper wire of the same gauge. Electrons flow more freely in silver than in copper. If you increase the gauge of a copper wire to match the weight of the silver wire they will still behave differently.

@erik_squires You mention Wireworld Cables, did you find them problematic? I ask because they are highly regarded as good for the money cables and neutral.

For me and the digital IC between my streamer and DAC, silver made significant improvements.  A friend loaned me his Clearer Audio Silver-Live Optimus Reference cable to be my reference as I compared to others.  The CA was almost analog sounding when I compared streaming to vinyl.  Lesser cables like the Audioquest Cinnamon and Carbon were bright/harsh and lacked the realism of CA cable.  I wanted to get a CA cable but am unsure about that company.  I emailed them several times from two different emails over a month and never got a response.  I also had no luck with their phone.  I continued to search elsewhere and got an Audioquest Diamond.  The Diamond offers the same smoothness and realism and the bass was a bit faster/cleaner so I found my new cable.  Diamond is all silver while the Cinnamon is 1.25% and Carbon is 5%.  The CA spec sheet says the pos lead is pure silver while the others are silver plated over copper.  That is the main variable in this so for at least this particular cable....silver made all the difference for me.