3 ms·

"Silver plated plugs" Can someone remind me of the electric properties of Silveroxide? ( Or do I need to hire someone who polishes the plugs before each track?

by yk 12y ago

"Silver plated plugs" Can someone remind me of the electric properties of Silveroxide? ( Or do I need to hire someone who polishes the plugs before each track?)

joshvm 12y ago
That stuck out like a sore thumb for me - it's a £6000 cable and the connectors aren't gold plated? Perhaps that's reserved for a model up..
- njloof 12y ago
  The silver oxide tells you when the cable is worn out and you need to buy a new one.
- mikeash 12y ago
  Gold causes problems with the wibblefrozits in the audio due to the harkenfarf effect and a low bunfloading, as anyone with any experience in this area knows.
VLM 12y ago
Somewhere around here I have a printed copy of a white paper from Tyco (mostly known for IC socket mfgr, although they make a lot of other connectors) on the topic of silver vs gold, mostly as applies to IC sockets. From memory the oxides, sulfides, and chlorides all have to be worried about but they tend to be mushy semiconductors and any wiping action in the connector will 1) destroy the connector plating in 10-20 uses at typical plating / finish reqs 2) wipe itself clean giving a lovely perfect silver to silver contact until it wears out. Another interesting aspect is this engineer from Tyco went to great lengths to claim they can commercially ship lower electrical and thermal resistance SILVER connectors than GOLD connectors as a complete connector system. Its not the bulk conductivity of Ag vs Au that matter, its that every gold plate has an underlying nickel plate or whatever, and some discussion of the deformation of silver being a benefit so you get higher contact area leading to higher conductivity. Then again this whitepaper is around a decade old and gold prices haven't exactly dropped back to $230/oz since then, meanwhile Tyco and everyone else still ships mostly tinplate and goldplate IC sockets and I don't recall ever seeing silverplate IC sockets in any mouser/digikey product list. So maybe there's other problems with silver plated electrical contacts in the real world. It has the odor of a mid 00s marketing doc in its (remembered) claims that by mid 10s no one will ever use tinplate / goldplate in connector design. Well, we can see how that turned out, but maybe the 20s. It made some impression on me a decade ago WRT thinking about RF connectors, .mil / aerospace will pay anything of course for higher performance so it gave me something to think about, if they really can deliver then we can expect gold to disappear from military aircraft radars and stuff like that. Although nothing seems to have materialized on this topic since then.
- swimfar 12y ago
  I couldn't find the original, but this seems to be an updated review of the use of silver platings in connectors. It even mentions the rising gold prices as a motivation to look into alternative materials. http://www.te.com/documentation/whitepapers/pdf/Ag_use_connectors_503-1016.pdf http://www.te.com/documentation/whitepapers/pdf/Ag_use_conne...

by yk 12y ago

"Silver plated plugs" Can someone remind me of the electric properties of Silveroxide? ( Or do I need to hire someone who polishes the plugs before each track?)

joshvm 12y ago

That stuck out like a sore thumb for me - it's a £6000 cable and the connectors aren't gold plated? Perhaps that's reserved for a model up..

njloof 12y ago
The silver oxide tells you when the cable is worn out and you need to buy a new one.
mikeash 12y ago
Gold causes problems with the wibblefrozits in the audio due to the harkenfarf effect and a low bunfloading, as anyone with any experience in this area knows.

VLM 12y ago

Somewhere around here I have a printed copy of a white paper from Tyco (mostly known for IC socket mfgr, although they make a lot of other connectors) on the topic of silver vs gold, mostly as applies to IC sockets. From memory the oxides, sulfides, and chlorides all have to be worried about but they tend to be mushy semiconductors and any wiping action in the connector will 1) destroy the connector plating in 10-20 uses at typical plating / finish reqs 2) wipe itself clean giving a lovely perfect silver to silver contact until it wears out. Another interesting aspect is this engineer from Tyco went to great lengths to claim they can commercially ship lower electrical and thermal resistance SILVER connectors than GOLD connectors as a complete connector system. Its not the bulk conductivity of Ag vs Au that matter, its that every gold plate has an underlying nickel plate or whatever, and some discussion of the deformation of silver being a benefit so you get higher contact area leading to higher conductivity. Then again this whitepaper is around a decade old and gold prices haven't exactly dropped back to $230/oz since then, meanwhile Tyco and everyone else still ships mostly tinplate and goldplate IC sockets and I don't recall ever seeing silverplate IC sockets in any mouser/digikey product list. So maybe there's other problems with silver plated electrical contacts in the real world. It has the odor of a mid 00s marketing doc in its (remembered) claims that by mid 10s no one will ever use tinplate / goldplate in connector design. Well, we can see how that turned out, but maybe the 20s. It made some impression on me a decade ago WRT thinking about RF connectors, .mil / aerospace will pay anything of course for higher performance so it gave me something to think about, if they really can deliver then we can expect gold to disappear from military aircraft radars and stuff like that. Although nothing seems to have materialized on this topic since then.

swimfar 12y ago
I couldn't find the original, but this seems to be an updated review of the use of silver platings in connectors. It even mentions the rising gold prices as a motivation to look into alternative materials. http://www.te.com/documentation/whitepapers/pdf/Ag_use_connectors_503-1016.pdf http://www.te.com/documentation/whitepapers/pdf/Ag_use_conne...