Excitation-energy distributions have been derived from measurements of 5.0-14.6 GeV/e antiproton, proton and pion reactions with (197)AU target nuclei, using the ISiS 4 pi detector array. The maximum probability for producing high excitation-energy events is found for the 8 GeV/e antiproton beam relative to other hadrons, He-3 and (p) over bar beams from LEAR. For protons and pions, the excitation-energy distributions are nearly independent of hadron type and beam momentum above about 8 GeV/c. The excitation energy enhancement for (p) over bar beams and the saturation effect are qualitatively consistent with intranuclear cascade code predictions. For all systems studied, maximum cluster sizes are observed for residues with E*/A similar to 6 MeV. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.