[John Chapman]

Hello!

I find myself typing the word 'finally'  a lot lately. This is bad because I know folks have been waiting for things but good since I am catching up and getting things done. I should be right up to date in about 3 weeks from now. Thanks again to everyone for their patience......

One of those things on the list the last while was the issue of copper vs. silver. It is such a natural question and it comes up all the time. After much testing the answer is a clear  'it depends.....'.

This test was tough to do. First I really had to wait until I had  2 units that were identical except for the copper/silver wire. I also used to sets of tx102 wired with rca connectors on the leads. This only gived one volume level but has an added benifit that there is nothing in the way of swithcing or extra wiring in the signal path. All units were (in the final testing) broken in for about the same number of hours - approx 3 days on an agressive burn-in.

The test was done on 3 different systems. 2 of them are here and a third at a local friends place. The systems were:

1- My shop system - Audio Note Dac4 to pre-amp to 2A3 tube amps to FAL speakers.

2- My lager room system - DCS DAC to pre-amp to PP845 amps to GR research Alpha's.

3- My Friends system - Sony 777 (or AckDac) to preamp to Pass amps to Dunlavy speakers. This is a really nice system and it was easy to spot differences here - although after a ling listenning session we had a hard time spotting the difference between copper and silver!  


Results in general were the same on all 3 systems - this is what I had hoped or it would be hard to draw any conclusions.

The test setup was using my blind switcher to switch on the fly via remote from the listenning chair between pre-amps (or transformers). This unit has been 'humbling'. The blind testing really shows how sometimes you think you have it nailed and are wrong - an indication of how close things are sometimes.  Also an indication it is time to go do something else!

I fiond that I am good for about 1/2 an hour of this then I have lost the ability to concentrate enough. Making it tougher from a time point of view is that it takes me about 10 minutes or so to get a handle on things. Longer before I had done several rounds of testing.  This blind switch on the fly setup is great for nailing down 'real' differences but is not a good tool to 'review' how satisfying one will be compared to another - for that you need to live with it for a while. If I can't guess which is playing almost 100 percent of the time I dissregaurd the difference I think I am hearing.

After all that verbage the bottom line is I found the sound to be just what you might expect! The silver is a bit more transparent sounding - although this really only seems to show up on very 'simple' music. Best test I found for this was female vocals with little instrumentation (Cowboy Junkies, Tory Amos (solo with piano),  Diana Krall, etc). On more complex tunes I could not guess 100% which was which. The silver seems to have a clearer but a bit starker presentation. A fellow once used ice cream flavors to describe sonic differences and it worked rather well. In this case the silvers were like vanilla and the coppers more like chocolate. This description does give the impression that they are more different than they are - as mentioned it is only with certain music that I could guess 100% of the time which was playing and I could only do this after a bit of a sonic learning curve getting used to them.

You can probably see where this is heading - long post that says nothing!

 Here are some final thoughts in point form:

- The low end sounds the same. Silver is not 'thinner' sounding. I could not pick which was which by listenning to a bass line.

- The differences seemed to be most apparent in the mids - particularly the female vocal range. There is an added clarity to the vocals but along with that comes a slight tendency to report the quality of the recording.  

- Surprisingly the high end (brushes on symbals for example) does not seem as different as the mids would suggest. On most instrumentals I had a hard time picking which was which all the time.

- Silver COULD BE better performing but only if your listenning tatses and system suit it. If your system or the tunes you like to listen to get agressive then silver is not likely the best answer - although the differences are close enough that on almost all music it would be hard to detect.

- Given the high cost of the silvers if the word 'budget'  even comes up then don't considder silvers. They are too close to loose sleep over it!

- If $ are not an issue and you feel better with silver there is no reason to avoid it unless your system has a tendency to be agressive. With a natural sounding system I can't imagine the silvers being a problem - they are just not 'that' different than the coppers.


Please post any thoughts or questions that come up!

Many Thansk!

John

[zybar]

Thanks for the post John.

I am glad to hear the units are closer in sound than father apart.  

IF, the Silver turned out to be much better I could only imagine how good that would sound (plus I would be "forced" to upgrade to the Silver).

 

George

[Marbles]

Just knowing it's a little better is good enough for me  

[GordonJ]

Hi (first post...)

Reassuring to know that (a) there is a difference, but (b) it isn't night and day, so not going for the silver right now was an OK choice.  Also reassuring that (I think) my unit, currently winging its way across the big pond, took part in these tests.  Thanks John for a very comprehensive report.

Gordon

[Doc Jr 8156]

John,
Thanks for this comparative report.  As mentioned, the difference was not night and day but slight and only evident upon careful evaluation and specific material.  This is good news for us "copper owners".  Still at peace with our NOH.  Maybe, using very good silver IC will lessen the difference a degree?  Just a thought.  Godspeed.

[Marbles]

John,
 Maybe, using very good silver IC will lessen the difference a degree?  Just a thought.  Godspeed.

Unless us silver owners use silver cables too  

[Doc Jr 8156]

Marbles,
If you do that, then it will be a tad bright  

[Marbles]

Marbles,
If you do that, then it will be a tad bright  

I DO, and it's NOT