Topic: Gold or silver plated contacts on mic cable connectors?

[Fried Chicken Boy]

Hi, folks.  Fairly new member here and have been looking through the forums trying to find a more definitive answer but perhaps it may be more of an opinion question.  If this has been addressed elsewhere, my apologies and please direct me toward the proper thread.

I'm about to embark on making my own mic cables with Neutrik connectors and am weighing whether to use ones with gold-plated or silver-plated contacts.  I have heard that gold won't oxidize and, therefore, the integrity of the electrical contact will remain very good.  I don't know if there's any truth to this, but I've also heard that due to expense, gold plating tends to be thinner and could "wear-off" sooner thus defeating the anti-oxidation properties of using gold on the contacts.  With my ears, I'm guessing that the difference in sound quality between the two will be negligible at best, so I'm more concerned about durability.  Particularly how either plating will hold up under repeated plugging/unplugging (due to set-up/breakdown) and under adverse conditions (crappy weather, smoky environments, spills, etc.).  Am I overanalyzing this aspect of the cables or does anyone have real world experience with this?  Thank you for any and all responses.

[Todd R]

I don't think you're overanalyzing at all (and maybe other folks haven't analyzed it enough).

For my personal cables, and when I made cables for sale, I used neutrik's silver plated connectors.  It seems that a lot of audiophile gurus say that silver sounds better than gold, but as you say, gold doesn't oxidize.  But I'm with you -- the gold coating that neutrik puts on their connectors is like 1/10 as thick as their silver connectors.  I found that with not that many insertions, the gold had worn off, and you really had nickel connectors.  Since it is much thicker, the silver hopefully remains more intact so you have a silver contact, not nickel.

For the cables I made, I treated the connectors with Caig DeOxit/DeOxit Gold to help clean any tarnish and provide some protection against oxidation.  You might try this in conjunction with your silver connectors if you go that route.

[Fried Chicken Boy]

Thank you for the info, Todd and Moke.  Big props for the "Caig DeOxit/DeOxit Gold" tip; I'll have to give it a whirl.    I'd give you a +T but I'm still too green to give those.

[jlykos]

You can also try rhodium connectors.  Furutech makes some incredible ones, but they are very expensive at around $120 per pair.  Moon Audio has a ton of high end components for DIY cables if you want to go that route.  I have silver Neutrik XLRs myself because I could not justify the cost for rhodium.

[Kindguy]

Rhodium will also wear off. My family is in the jewelery buisness (how I know this)

[jacobmyers]

Others have mentioned it and I, too, see no reason to use gold plated connectors when silver are available. The exception to this would be when the components are going to be "permanently" installed in a corrosion-friendly environment. And even then the gain is not in the quality of the contact but the resistance to corrosion. I use gold-plated connectors on my listening rig because of this (and I still use DeOxit on both sides of the connection before installing the interconnect).

But in a situation where the connection is going to be made/broken repeatedly (a microphone cable for a portable recording rig) there's no reason whatsoever to use gold-plated connectors unless you enjoy replacing them every time you wear through the gold electroplate. Neutrik's connectors (as described on the X-series datasheet) are brass with a 2 µm plating of silver. I've never personally worn through the plating. I do use DeOxit on my connectors as part of my periodic (yearly or more often as needed) maintenance; mine could less prone to wear because of this.

In any case, here's another "up" from a DeOxit devotee... And some information from Neutrik's FAQ:

Does tarnishing of silver contacts affect the contact resistance?

Silver has the characteristic to tarnish. This gray looking film is just an optical effect and does not affect the contact resistance or the ability of the contact to take the solder.

[Fried Chicken Boy]

Others have mentioned it and I, too, see no reason to use gold plated connectors when silver are available. The exception to this would be when the components are going to be "permanently" installed in a corrosion-friendly environment.

My thoughts exactly.  Thanks for weighing in on the matter.

[ghellquist]

The only reason I can ever think of for gold above silver is that it looks soo good on black connectors. That is why I use gold.

Gunnar