hospital outlets would work but they can strip the coating off our nice power cables.
I’ve been around this forum a long time and yesterday is the very first time I’ve heard this ever happened. Before I believe this even happened I’d like to see pictures along with brand and model numbers. Also, if it did happen I’d blame a cheap plating process.
In other words: I call BS. Prove it ever happened or this is another UFO story. "I knew a guy who lived in Roswell who had a dog that claimed it saw aliens being taken out of escape pods...."
About Rhodium: It is so very pretty, and not a very good choice for any contact in audio, though I admit to using some RCA male plugs in a board a long time ago.
The issues are not just conductivity (as mentioned above) but also hardness. rhodium is almost as hard as Nickel (from my experience) and therefore wont’ deform at all. That’s BAD in a high current connector. You want it to deform at least a little so the contacts squeeze and get a grip. Basically in AC plugs rhodium on rhodium feels lubricated, like it can slip out easily. In a speaker spade with equally hard terminals you just can’t tighten the terminal enough for a reliable connection.
Copper is simply a far superior conductor AND has better grip strength. Next to that, gold plated copper because gold, unlike rhodium, is still soft.
