okay, meffy was right about the gold thing

[joshhunsaker]

it's true that gold doesn't conduct as well as silver, and surprisingly it actually has to do with the fact that gold doens't tarnish or create oxides when electrified. This increases the resistance...

so it appears that gold-plated silver would the way to fly in the arena of esoteric audio reinforcement (and anything else electronic for that matter)

i was completely wrong on this one...

here's a copy of the e-mail,

Josh,

If you go to Wikipedia and look up gold, silver and copper you can find the numbers they have for Electrical Resistivity: (the lower the number the better the conductivity)

Gold = (20°C) 22.14 nÙ·m
Silver = (20°C) 15.87 nÙ·m
Copper = (20°C) 16.78 nÙ·m

According to that, silver is the best, so I guess I was wrong... But there it is... Maybe your friends looked it up and found the same thing.

However, I am pasting in a response from a professor about this topic and he supports the fact that GOLD is the best metal to use, even if it is not the best conductor. See the red, underlined part that is the key... Copper good, Siver is better but in fact GOLD is not as good a conductor but because it is less reactive (which means it doesn't corrode or tarnish, which can makes the contact area very resistive) it therefore makes it the best to use in electrical circuits because it is more reliable. This is especially true for connectors, were the electrical resistance is often the highest due to contamination or tranish on the metal!!!! So I was wrong but also right.

Date: Mon Mar 8 07:41:21 1999
Posted By: Dan Berger, Faculty Chemistry/Science, Bluffton College
Area of science: Chemistry
ID: 919564126.Ch

---------------------------------
Message:

Why is gold less reactive and lower conductivity than copper or silver? For its place in the periodic table we expect gold to be more reactive and have a lower electronegativity than silver or copper.
---------------------------------
I am afraid that you are incorrect about the periodic trends in the vicinity of gold. If you examine the columns adjacent to the coinage metals, you find that
zinc is more reactive than cadmium, which is more reactive than mercury; and
nickel is more reactive than palladium, which is about as reactive as platinum. You find the same trend in electrical conductivities: the more reactive metals are generally also better electrical conductors -- and this makes sense! Better electrical conduction implies more loosely-held valence electrons; more loosely-held electrons allows for better metallic conduction. (This trend is not always followed: silver is a slightly better electrical conductor than copper, but is somewhat less chemically reactive.) Electrical conductivities (listed in the original as resistivities) taken from the CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics, 61st Edition. Incidentally, gold is often used for electrical contacts not because it is the best electrical conductor but because it is perhaps the least chemically reactive of metals. Metal oxides and sulfides (the tarnish on copper and silver) are insulators and disrupt electrical connections.
Whether the more reactive members of each column are near the top or the bottom depends on which end of the table you are at; fluorine is far more reactive than iodine, but rubidium is much more reactive than lithium. As the transition metals are in the middle you would expect the vertical reactivity trends to blur and shift; and in fact, while copper is more reactive than gold, I believe that hafnium is more reactive than titanium.
For more on the properties of gold (and other heavy elements) see one of my other answers. Dan Berger Bluffton College http://cs.bluffton.edu/~berger

[hibidy]

that IS interesting......

but it is unclear to me as to "what" is being refered to.

Cables?

[larm]

Gold plated connectors I think.

[hibidy]

like as in cable ends?

I'm just curious cause I hear TREMENDOUS differences in all types of "connections/cable" and like to have the geeky specs too

[joshhunsaker]

sorry, it's kind of an inside post in a way... meffy and i were arguing about whether gold or silver was the best conductor and i remember distinctly that my dad had told me that in lab tests he had done himself that gold was indeed the more conductive.

It originally started out as a hardware vs. software post and turned into one of the audiophile versus the commercial music business world arguements when I started talking about the ideal conditions wherein electronics should be run and the materials and nature of the components themselves (you know, immersing them in a non-metal-soluble oil, super-cooling or freezing the electronics, what type of metal should be used in the signal path, what types of inductors and capacitors to utilize, etc.)

Meffy said that he would revise the wikipedia reference if i was indeed right about it. I said i would get to the bottom of it only the get the email from my dad that he had spoken wrongly in his original statements.

SO... just so no-one else makes the same mistakes that i do...

SILVER IS THE MOST CONDUCTIVE ELEMENT ON EARTH, PERIOD, there is no argument to this...

gold in used in connections because it never ever oxidizes (it is absolutely impossible to make a gold oxide)

[whyterabbyt]

gold in used in connections because it never ever oxidizes (it is absolutely impossible to make a gold oxide)

<cough>

Au2O3 Water-insoluble, heat-decomposable, brownish-black powder; soluble in hydrochloric acid; used to gild, in medicine and porcelain, and for daguerreotypes. Also known as auric oxide; gold trioxide.

[Meffy]

gold in used in connections because it never ever oxidizes (it is absolutely impossible to make a gold oxide)

Let's say instead that gold does not spontaneously oxidize under Earth-surface-normal conditions. Because it is quite possible to make gold (III) oxide, Au2O3, even at STP. At least one other, gold (II) oxide, has been synthesized as well.

But this is obscure stuff. Suffice it to say that gold is the elemental metal having the smallest tendency to oxidize from exposure to atmospheric oxygen.

P.S.: I wasn't the first to mention that silver's conductivity is the highest of any metal, I was second or third to the party. It's common knowledge among engineers. And I am, according to my boss, (*strikes heroic pose wielding x-ray gun*) An Engineer.

[edit] Darned fast-typing young rabbyts, always running circles around slow old skunks...

[Meffy]

Anyhoo, this is how we learn: by being wrong and finding out about it. Now I depart for some low-tech engineering... a spell of lumberjackin'!

/me grabs the Husqvarna and gasoline/oil can and safety gear and heads on down the road. *wavewave*

[morelia]

grabs the Husqvarna

Now that's a handful.

[Meffy]

A Husqvarna chainsaw, not bike. =^_^= If I were a rider I'd ride a Harley. Yum.

Breakfast is through, time for work! Ciao.

[morelia]

A 250 Husky put 27 stitches in my brother's shin right in front of me. He practically dropped the bike on me. That was just kick back. I knew you meant chainsaw though and imagined they might have a similar reputation.

[Meffy]

*phew* Back, blistered and scraped but unstitched. Sorry to hear about your brother.

I always, even in hot weather like today's, wear kevlar chainsaw chaps (along with the rest of the safety gear). If the saw touches the fabric it will snarl the chain, stopping it pretty near instantly. Ruins the chaps but saves the leg. So far the Husky's never kicked back on me anyway. *knock on wooden head*

[kritikon]

Hmmm...chainsaws. One of those tools that are incredibly dangerous only when it goes wrong. I remember chainsawing a gum tree in my old house - on a very steep driveway - 20 feet up the tree, but because of the driveway probably 35 feet up in the air. Couldn't reach all the branches properly with both arms (had to hang onto the tree with one hand or fall out...). Managed to saw quite a few leggy branches that way without any injury. My main safety device was to leave the living room window open with instructions to the wife to call 111 if she heard a scream followed by a loud thud.

Now I work in a hospital with a burns/plastics unit - many of the chainsaw injuries end up there. And I think back...

I used to chainsaw in my shorts with a pair of bog-standard sunglasses on, sandals, smeared in greasy sunblock halfway up a tree one-handed...


...I really dunno how I've still got 2 arms and 2 legs, never mind 10 digits.


And...I used to have a crappy 14" electric one - the missus got me a Poulain 20" proper petrol one last year - my life is now complete. You know...there's a direct corrolation between penis size and chainsaws...

[frequency_algorithm]

zolla calbes are pure silver.

[trickykid]

Who cares? The sound comes from the f**ked up and stoned out of his mind guitarist bad 5£ Jack cable in the first place anyway!