Starting from v1.7 the installation process has been simplified and the go.sh script is not used anymore. Instead:

sudo mv /lib/firmware/intel/sof* some_backup_location/
sudo mv /usr/local/bin/sof-*     some_backup_location/ # optional
sudo install.sh v1.7

The go.sh script still applies to older releases.

You don't have to use install.sh, you can use any recursive copy of your preference. This is all what install.sh does:

rsync -a sof*v1.7   /lib/firmware/intel/
ln -s sof-v1.7      /lib/firmware/intel/sof
ln -s sof-tplg-v1.7 /lib/firmware/intel/sof-tplg
rsync tools-v1.7/* /usr/local/bin

If you don't want the symbolic links:

rsync -a sof-v1.7/       /lib/firmware/intel/sof/
rsync -a sof-tplg-v1.7/  /lib/firmware/intel/sof-tplg/
rsync tools-v1.7/        /usr/local/bin/

Remember that for rsync (and some versions of cp), a trailing slash in srcdir/ is rougly equivalent to srcdir/*