For me base material matters the most, then coating mix.
I always find that pure copper as base material and silver/rhodium plating as coating works great.
What is best, depends on your system, whether you want to push things, mellow or refine.
XLR & Spades: Which is best? Pure copper, plated gold, plated rhodium or ?
I’m building interconnects and speaker wires and looking for XLR connectors and spades. If copper conductivity is at 100%, why would manufacturers plate copper with lower conductivity metals like gold, rhodium, brass, zinc, etc? Shouldn’t they only plate with 105% silver?
| Material IACS (International Annealed Copper Standard) | ||
| Ranking | Metal | % Conductivity* |
| 1 | Silver (Pure) | 105% |
| 2 | Copper | 100% |
| 3 | Gold (Pure) | 70% |
| 4 | Aluminum | 61% |
| 5 | Brass | 28% |
| 6 | Zinc | 27% |
| 7 | Nickel | 22% |
| 8 | Iron (Pure) | 17% |
| 9 | Tin | 15% |
| 10 | Phosphor Bronze | 15% |
| 11 | Steel (Stainless included) | 3-15% |