AllThat Glistens....

You think 24 carat Gold is great for plugs and sockets do you?

Any schoolboy knows Gold is a very soft metal.

The purer it is the softer it is.

24 carat Gold is the purest.

Soft means NOT TOUGH.

Therefore it wears out quickly.

Therefore it wears out quickly.

One more time: Therefore it wears out quickly.

So which 24 carat plonker decided 24 carat Gold is right for the plating on connector contacts?????????????????????????????????????????????

Whoever he and his disciples are he has got quite a few of our headphone amp customers wasting their time and our warranty department running up a massive debt sending perfectly good amps back to their deceived owners!

Gold is used because it is inert (as far a everyday things are concerned)

Corrosion cannot form in a gold/any-metal interface.

But it doesn't need pure Gold.

9 carat is used on millitary standard PCB edge connectors for the reason it prevents corrosion build up as well as providing a hard wearing contact surface that will withstand numerous connect/disconnect cycles when required.

Gold is the poorest conductor of the coinage metals group in chemistry. Silver greatly superior, and Copper very close to Silver in conductivity.

9 carat Gold is an alloy of Copper and Gold, and as such the copper makes up for the poor conductivity of the Gold.

It is very difficult to find plugs not plated with 24 carat Gold - 24 carat is fitted to virtually everything - headphone plugs...

Is this why after a few months we get customer relation problems relating to the Voyager?

Could that "one channel has gone scratchy" be because of 24 carat Gold? Because we've had a number back that work absolutely perfectly here, even after "sitting" on them...

Why has everything hi-fi got to be bloke jewelery?

Isn't hi-fi for music?

I am naive aren't I... ?