How Does Gold Wire Handle?

Compared to copper, gold is a poor conductor - you would be building an
inferior cable

If you use a single strand then either copper or silver would be much better

Going to multiple strands of copper you have to think about stopping the
conductors from tarnishing inside the insulator.

This is not such a concern with silver, since the black tarnish also conducts
electricity almost as good as untarnished silver believe it or not.

See this PDF for details http://www.avoutlet.com/images/product/
additional/f/iacs_of_metals_n_solder.pdf

So why do they use gold to plate RCA plugs etc...? Because it does not
tarnish and it looks like a quality product. Not because of its electrical
properties. Rhodium is even worse, but it's a lot tougher than gold and
doesn't wear off as easily.

Good luck :-)

Jafreeman, gold is very fragile and kinks much easier than silver and copper. It has memory, but not as much as silver and copper, but it will stay coiled if that is how it is stored. When threaded through cotton, the cotton adds stability and helps keep the wire from kinking.

Willewonka you are correct that gold is not as good a conductor as silver and copper, but conductance has little to do with the sonic result of the cable. Gold is the richest, most dimensional sounding metal I have used. In the gauges that are being discussed here, the slow often syrupy sound often associated with gold will be alleviated. In fact these gauges will provide a fast, transparent bottom end without the fatigue you would get from silver.

Good luck with your project, done right gold will provide you the best result available.

JD

I believe Jadem6 is guiding you straight. The results you will likely obtain in this case should be stellar. Nice bass articulation, some welcomed warmth and smoothness in the mids and highs with good extension at either end.

A couple things I would add though: many people on the bleeding edge of the metallurgy scene are now beginning to embrace tungsten in preference to gold. It is said to be even more dimensional with even more bloom and even smoother - in fact rather liquid sounding from the lower mids on up...all without sonic downside. But, I myself don't yet know how to source it or how much it costs.

Also, and although it's possibly a bit of a moot point really, but (just in case you don't know it already) in your OP you talk about OCC wire moving better than non-OCC wire. OCC wire has far fewer crystal boundaries, which of course they say is what makes for better group delay (in the conductor) and lower resistance. But, keep in mind (at least for future reference), that under a microscope, every time you bend the strands you introduce micro-fissures - no big deal per se with OFC - you have all those crystal boundaries per inch impeding the flow anyway. But, OCC wire is a different animal - almost no boundaries to start with at all. Introducing micro-fissures all along the length of this wire creates impedance (raises resistance) and introduces smearing. This is why you often don't (or shouldn't, at least) see OCC wire tightly braided into aggressive geometries. At that point about all you can really expect to have is an OCC design with just about equivalent performance with the same wire made from OFC - only more expensive...! I would bet the same holds true for either copper or silver (and bending probably doesn't do gold too many favors, either...but, I suspect gold is at least pliant enough to not incur as many micro-fissures from bending as copper or silver). Regards and good luck.

Ivan, very interesting about introducing micro fissures by too much bending of OCC wire. Could pure gold be beyond grain boundaries in its cohesive malleability? Gold can be rolled out to a nearly transparent film--this has to be a good sign in thinking of a wire as a continuous molecular structure without defect.

Jade, very informative on the fragility of a gold wire--I am leaning toward placing each wire into its own 2-3 mm inside-diameter cotton tube, then all into one teflon tube for each of pins 2 and 3. Thanks for your endorsement of gold as sounding best--exciting stuff.