Here is my story. It’s probably more than you want to know, but I hope to give you the full basis for my earlier comments.
My first custom cable was an 8-wire copper OCC litz cable for my Shure SE846. It was a huge upgrade from the stock cable and made my listening experience immensely enjoyable. My second cable was a ‘top of the line’ 16-wire copper OCC litz cable ($1250) for my HE1000. Just as with the IEM cable, the headphone cable was a huge upgrade to the Hifiman stock cable and showed me the potential of the HE1000 was far greater than I had realized.
My third custom cable was a 4-wire gold and silver OCC litz cable with 1% gold for my newly acquired Noble K10 CIEMs. I mistakenly followed the bad advice of the cable maker in buying his ‘most popular’ cable. It was an improvement over the stock cable, but it also sounded rather lifeless. I believed that the K10’s were performing well below their potential. I was rather perturbed at the cable maker for wasting my money, so I looked elsewhere for a replacement. I became interested in trying a silver cable, in particular, an 8-wire silver OCC litz cable sold by DHC. Although I was apprehensive about spending $850 on a CIEM cable, I took the plunge. From the moment I first listened to that cable, I was sold on silver cables.
I was not prepared to spend $2000 to $3000 on a DHC silver headphone cable, so I decided to follow the advice of
@Maxx134 and buy a 16-wire, 12 AWG solid core silver cable from ELA Audio as a ‘proof of concept’ for a silver headphone cable. I was willing to throw away the $400 in the event that the cable was not to my satisfaction. In addition to concerns about cable sound and quality, I was also worried that it would stiff and difficult to use. To my great surprise, the $400 silver cable easily surpassed my ‘top of the line’ 16-wire copper OCC litz cable ($1250) in both sound quality and ergonomics. [The copper cable is currently receiving new connectors and will be for sale in the next few weeks. It will be in ‘like new’ condition with the new connectors. PM me if you are interested.]
I was so excited about a cable that used only ‘run-of-the-mill’ 3N silver that I approached ELA Audio about making me a completely custom cable using my personal choice of wire and plugs/connectors. After some back and forth discussion, she agreed to do it. I spent a lot of time researching silver wire, and eventually, I stumbled upon VH Audio.
From the VH Audio site:
VH Audio's UniCrystal™ OCC
(Ohno Continuous Cast) Silver wire is meticulously drawn through special dies, dead soft annealed in an inert nitrogen atmosphere, and follows special handling protocols to minimize any surface marring, before the insulation process begins. Our unique AirLok™ insulation is a proprietary form of foamed/cellular Fluoropolymer that achieves a dielectric constant of less than 1.45! By comparison, the dielectric constant of solid fluoropolymers, such as
DuPont™PTFE, FEP, and PFA (referred to as Teflon®, when licensed from DuPont) is 2.1. A perfect vacuum is 1.0.
I asked how the lower dielectric constant manifests itself in terms of sound quality, and here was the reply:
“It’s faster, and more neutral. The lower the dielectric constant, the less dielectric involvement to color the sound. Also, the dissipation factor of the dielectric means the dielectric is less prone to ‘soak up’ signal, and re-release the energy.”
I noticed that VH Audio sells interconnects using that same wire. Furthermore, they offer a 60-day trial period with a 100% refund if not satisfied. Since my interconnects were an 8-wire version of the aforementioned CIEM cable (4 gold and 4 silver wires + 1% gold per cable), I decided to take the risk-free opportunity to try the VH Audio interconnects, which consist of
ONE 24 AWG solid core silver wire. If the cable sounded good, I would plan to buy the same wire for my custom headphone cable.
I only listened to a few bars of Led Zeppelin in 96/24 before I was completely blown away by the VH Audio interconnects. They are in a completely different league than the litz interconnects.
A key point: the VH Audio silver easily surpasses the sound of the DHC silver in every way imaginable.
I believe that cables should do nothing more than reveal the character of the system components to the fullest extent possible. They should be neutral and transparent without changing the sonic signature. When I read reviews of OCC litz cables on Head-Fi and elsewhere, I often find criticisms that they alter the character of the sound. In many cases, reviewers’ favorite cables are simply those that have the fewest unwanted side effects.
I also believe in simplicity. Litz cables have to get not only the metal right, but also the configuration of the bundles, the wires within the bundles, and the insulation in the various parts of the cable. Solid core cables only have to worry about the metal and the insulation around each core. With fewer variables, it is easier to ensure that good metal is utilized to the fullest extent possible. I believe that many of the problems users have reported with litz cables are related to the inability of the manufacturers to get all of the variables right.
Even if the litz cable gets everything right, which is going to sound better: an 18 AWG cable or a 12 AWG cable? A 12 AWG cable carries
A LOT more signal than an 18 AWG cable.
Oh, and did I mention that the 12 AWG solid core cable is much less expensive?
. So now I'm going to have to think up some new descriptions. However, whilst the SW is firmly in your 3rd category, I do think there are one or two differences that may make the comparison more interesting. 
