Are silver coated cables a bunch of hype?

Not hype. Try the DH Labs cables (www.silversonic.com), they flat work, an all around good cable worth their weight in gold, er, silver. There seems to be lots of criticism from folks that have never tried them or any such cables, but I really feel they are worth a try, they displaced many popular cables in my system from Analysis Plus, Audioquest, Kimber and Canare. You can get them dirt cheap (relatively speaking) and they are easy to resell if you don't like them....

TWL, your comments about cross section of wire and skin effect may explain something I had not previously considered.

Dominus conductor is multi stranded and TINY. When the Teflon jacket is stripped away, the strands seem inseparably bound together, until the nudge of a fingertip spreads them. Only then it is obvious they are instead a very soft and tightly bound bundle.

The construction obviously has a bearing on sound, combined with the fact these conductors are then housed in hollow tubes and suspended in a soup of chemicals and water. Certainly a departure from all the other high end cable designs.

I have used pure silver solid conductor AudioTruth LapisX3 interconnects for my tubed poweramp driving Dynaudio A72 speakers. Both low and high extensions gone missing.

I use silver-plated copper in my speaker wires because they are uninsulated and I dont want copper oxides on the surface of the conductors. Does not seem to impart any undesirable sounds.

Until I heard Analysis Plus cable, I was always of the same opinion as Twl.

My experiences had always shown silver plated copper to be harsh sounding. I became a fan of silver, and felt a big reason many felt silver to be harsh sounding was they were instead speaking of silver plated copper. A lot of companies will market their cables in a manner in which the potential customer may not know. In fact, I believe that Pure Silver Conductor's cables are silver plated copper. Doesn't sound like they picked the correct name.

Low grade silver, or silver cables with substand terminations can sound bad.

Silver, executed correctly, does not exhibit these nasties.

Well, for years, I walked around with a distaste for silver coated copper. As I said, when I heard Analysis Plus, I found the cables to sound very good. As is always the case, I need to tip my hat to Megasam for turning me on to this wire. I have yet to try it in my system, but probably will at some point.

AudioQuest has always marketed copper cables and silver cables, but not silver coated copper. They used to provide some evidence and opinion as to why silver coated copper was a harsh sounding cable. All of which bore out in my experience. Interestingly enough, they now market silver coated copper. I guess what sells is more important than what they believe in.

Ray Kimber has also always sold copper cables, and silver cables. He also sells cables where some of the wire is copper and others are silver. He feels that silver coated copper is subject to a unique, long term degradation. I can see where he is coming from, as silver normally will migrate through other materials, most notably soda lime glass. I can see this migration occurring through the copper's impurities, and having long term consequences which may not be beneficial.

Albert's good experience with Purist Audio Dominus and me with AP show me that a silver coated copper has the potential to sound good, but the category should be viewed with a keen eye. Given the choice, apart from these cables, I would opt for copper or silver over silver plated copper.

To answer the question of this thread, yes silver plated copper cables are a bunch of hype. It is purely a marketing ploy to fool some people into thinking they are getting a better cable. In most cases, it is solely for the purpose of the company charging much more money for what does not cost them much more money. Silver coated copper was developed for the military, to protect copper wires from various forms of environmental degradation. Silver is dirt cheap, ~$4.25/troy ounce. You may remember that an ounce of gold, when hammered out, can easily cover a football field. The amount of silver involved is inconsequential. The process of plating is dirt cheap. It a win - win for the company.