Stainless Steel Binding posts on speakers?


Anybody have any thoughts about using this material for binding posts? With regard to conductivity/sound quality and the like?
badnixie2
I would guess that it doesn't make much difference. Resistance of binding post is most like in order of milliohms* while speaker is in ohms. For the Damping Factor, speaker impedance is mostly resistive and in addition there are inductors in series. Woofer inductor is most likely 0.1ohm. There might be other factors that affect the sound but not conductivity IMHO.

* - Binding post is in order of 0.4"dia corresponding to AWG000 wire. Copper wire AWG000 resistance is 0.2mohm per meter. Stainless Steel is 50x worse than copper but your post is also not longer than 2cm (1/50x1m). Result is under 1mohm.
Are you certain that it is stainless steel, and not a plated metal, like rhodium plated brass?
Martin Logan at one time offered Stainless Steel binding posts as a custom order option. IIRC, they were pretty damn expensive. I never heard a set, but always thought they were "supposed" to sound better? Makes me wonder...
Roxy54. Nope. Definitely not Rhodium plated brass. I have an extra one of them that was defective and took a 3 corner file to it to scratch the surface...same steel grey color inside. And the non-magnetic type. They are pretty things and very beefy, but definitely stainless steel.
I agree with Kijanki. A resistance of 0.0002 ohms or thereabouts is negligible compared to the other resistances in the path, including the speaker cables.

I would imagine that IF the use of stainless steel has any consequences at all, they would relate to the interface between the stainless steel and the gold or copper or whatever other material it is being mated with. Contact integrity, changes in smoothness after repeated connection/disconnection cycles (e.g. "galling"), corrosion due to galvanic effects, low level rectification effects, etc. I have no particular knowledge regarding those kinds of possibilities (and for all I know stainless steel might even be advantageous with respect to some interface effects, depending on its specific formulation and what it is mated with), but I can't see the intrinsic conductivity of the material as being of any significance.

Regards,
-- Al