Why Rhodium?

>>10-11-09: Mooglie
For example, silver sounds very different than copper.

Not at all. It depends on the design.

A csble's "sound" depends far more on its' geometry, dielectric, and conductor purity than the conductor itself.

I can conduct a listening session with 10 interconnects and you would never know which is silver or copper or hybrid.

Mooglie,
I agree that nickel probably has no place in audiophile cabling. On an interesting note I found that the elements name is derived from the German word nickel, which means "Old Nick", a name for the devil. I think in this application he's messing with "good" sound. 8^)
On a related note, I'm not sure brass is all that "good" either and I'm trying to "exorcise" it from my PCs as much as possible. It's amazing how much brass is in most PCs even the megabuck varieties.

In my example I was referring to silver and copper platings such as AC and RCA connectors. In regards to cables I would tend to agree to a point. Certainly geometry, dielectric, etc., have a significant effect on the sonics. However, I also believe that materials impose some audible character on a cable. I’m certain there are some designs that may minimize the effects.

As I previously mentioned, the Pure Note Alluvion digital cable I use is a palladium-silver alloy. I’m quite certain that palladium is used to remove the edge off of the silver, and it’s quite effective in my view. Other vendors such as Silversmith and Siltech use materials such as palladium and gold in their cables. I’m not sure one could replicate the sonics of some of these cables via geometry and dielectrics alone.

Rja, I agree, brass is ok, but has limitations. Pure copper tends to sound better to me, and is usually a safe bet for just about any interconnect or PC. FYI, I use a mix of cables and PCs. Some are high purity copper, and some are copper-silver hybrid (separate types of wire). A couple of rhodium plated connector PCs are also used in strategic places.

I experimented a few years ago with two power cables with Acrolink 7N copper wire and one with Oyaide gold connectors and the other with Oyaide rhodium connectors (this was going from the wall to a PS Audio Power Plant Premier). The difference in the sound from just the plating was stark. This is why Oyaide has different types, to voice your system, not WAF as suggested above (though your system may have bottlenecks that keep you from hearing the difference well). In that instance I found the rhodium to be slightly more defined, but it also had some glare. My system had plenty of resolution, so I went with gold to smooth it out and add some body.

I would say the choice is totally system dependent, but I would go with gold to inject a bit of warmth. I don't think relative conductivity is the real issue when it comes to sound. I'm currently struggling with which Furutech plugs and connectors to use in my new setup, because the decision is not entirely straight forward.

I will add that Alex at Wywires has told me he believes that the wire used in the cable does make a big difference on whether you hear differences in plating. He says he doesn't hear much difference between the silver plated connector he normally uses and the FI-50 rhodium.