Why gold?

I suppose it's because they never get to any quality recording venues, and/or have never seen what they actually use.

Perhaps, they just don't have training in "alchemy"? ;-)

Djembeplay,

Don't worry - your ordinary connectors are not stealing the air and warmth out of your music. Corrosion and making a good contact are indeed important - so give the RCA's a twiddle now and then and you 'll be ok. Certainly don't lose any sleep over these anything but good quality connectors.

One thing that should be avoided where possible is having dissimilar materials on connectors that are mated together. A lot of sources indicate that, for example, mating a nickel-plated jack with a gold-plated plug can hasten corrosion, due to electrolytic-type processes. I have no way of knowing how true that may be, but intuitively it seems to make some sense.

Gold is the connector material of choice in aerospace and other applications where long-term reliability is essential, and difficult environments can be expected. The reason for that, as was mentioned, is immunity to oxidation.
Silver can tarnish, as everyone probably realizes.

Although nickel has only 25% of the conductivity of pure copper, as Rodman's reference indicates, that in itself is not likely to be significant in a connector, where the length and resistance are negligible electrically. That is particularly so in the case of a line-level rca connection (as opposed to a speaker connection), due to the relatively high impedance levels of the circuits that are being connected.

As far as the different metals having identifiable sonic characteristics, I would say, particularly in the case of connectors, that it falls into the area of differences that are unexplainable and unverifiable, other than anecdotally.

Regards,
-- Al

Try using wire coat hangers. They are essentially free, just wiggle them around a bit to clean the connections and your good to go. Don't be fooled into believing you need to spend your hard earned money on gold and silver. You can use them for your speaker connections too.

Ok, thanks for the responses everyone.

It sounds like its all about just keeping the connection clean... and these look pretty shiny to me :).

The "tarnish", or oxidation that silver experiences has absolutely no effect on it's conductivity(unlike other metals), as anyone that has paid attention "realizes". That's unless said silver is exposed to high concentrations of H2S, SO2, NO2, CL2 or ammonia, and the corrosion becomes pretty thick(highly unlikely in your listening room, unless you create a lot of Hydrogen Sulfide via flatulence). Gold is among the most inert materials in the world and, as such, will not significantly contribute to any electrolytic process. "Alchemy?" As usual: The inexperienced and unknowing, decrying experiments, conclusions and science from their pulpits of abject ignorance. You're welcome to "The Last Word!" (I doubt that you'll be able to help yourself.) =8^)