Gold-plated Plugs

[clickynext]

These things don't actually do anything, do they? I'm not just talking about an inperceivable difference, I'm talking about no difference at all. Seems that to improve the signal conductivity/clarity, the materials on both sides of the connection would need to be gold.

 

[Meuge]

Copper is a better conductor than gold, but copper will oxidize in the air. Copper oxide is still conductive, but only marginally, greatly reducing the effectiveness of the contact. Thus, critical connectors are often gold-plated... which increases their resistance marginally, but ensures that the oxygen cannot attack the outside surface of the connector.

However, for 99.9% of cases, gold is entirely unnecessary, and nickel plating will do. In those cases, Gold plating is mostly for looks and in order to raise the perceived value of the connector.

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: clickynext
These things don't actually do anything, do they? I'm not just talking about an inperceivable difference, I'm talking about no difference at all. Seems that to improve the signal conductivity/clarity, the materials on both sides of the connection would need to be gold.

Bah! Don't be bringing your logic into this!

As I strenuously avoided upper-level EE classes in school, I do not know if, electrically, there is much difference between, say, a tin->tin connection and a gold->tin connection (assuming equal surface area/contact for each one). Gold is nigh-immune to rust, though (not that this is going to happen very quickly in an indoor installation).

In my music-listening experience, though, I can't say I have ever heard much of a difference between various cables.

 

[CpuDesigner]

The advantage of gold plated contacts (electrical mating surfaces) stems from two properties of gold; the first is that gold is a noble metal (does not oxidize and is not susceptible to most other types of corrosion) and the second is that gold is a highly malleable metal. When gold-gold contacts are mated, the "spring" side of the connector (like the socket pins in a PCI connector) provide a "wiping" action as the connection is made both cleaning the other mating surface and enabling greater surface contact area due to the malleability of gold - you can think of the "soft" surface layers of gold mating against each other smoothing out each surface, increasing the mating surface area, at a microscopic level.

Other plating alloys have similar properties (e.g., tin alloys), but are less resistive to corrosion and are less malleable requiring greater contact force (insertion force).

Gold plated contacts are useful for some applications such as card-edge / socket connections as it is less expensive to plate board edge fingers than to use a separate socket/plug arrangement, low contact force or very low current applications, corrosive operating environments, etc.

Using gold on application like Molex power connectors used in a PC will have very little advantage - if any as the connectors were designed to function properly with the plating (tin, nickel, etc alloy) they utilize.

 

[Kevlar Coated Tent]

I thought gold was actually a better conductor than copper.
The main thing you have to realise about this is taht nearly all comptuer signals are digital so the small difference is conductivity makes no difference. The only place you might notice is is on speakers and head phones (my speakers, head phones and sound card all have gold plated connectors) but i would that that there is a noticable difference.
Also my mouse has a gold plated USB connector, i assume its to just make it look classy because i doubt it affects the mouses performance.

 

[BOLt]

Originally posted by: Meuge
Copper is a better conductor than gold, but copper will oxidize in the air. Copper oxide is still conductive, but only marginally, greatly reducing the effectiveness of the contact. Thus, critical connectors are often gold-plated... which increases their resistance marginally, but ensures that the oxygen cannot attack the outside surface of the connector.

However, for 99.9% of cases, gold is entirely unnecessary, and nickel plating will do. In those cases, Gold plating is mostly for looks and in order to raise the perceived value of the connector.