To make a somewhat long story short I just bought a extra set of Componet cables from Wal-Mart. I did this so I can hook my second Xbox (used only for emulators) up with the best quality signal I can. I had been using stock Xbox Composit but the cable had a short in it and I had a extra HDAV pack sitting around just missing cables. Anyway I usually dont worry much about buying gold-plated cables since its never been a problem in the past, although I use gold if I have them. But at wal-mart I paid 10$ for a 6ft Componet (without audio) and I notice that the same thing from RCA in a gold plated connector style was 19.99$? Is gold really so much better that its double the price??? I checked on Yahoo/Google but cant find a stright anwser. Please bear in mind that at this time my TV is 480i Flat Screen SD only (bought it just for retro ^^) So I use componet just to get the best image quality, I dont plan to use them for HD at this time so should I go back and pay the money for gold or stick with the Philips I got that seem quite nice? :thumbsup:
Digital - No it don't Analog - Yes providing the plugs your pluging them into are gold and your using a little longer then normal cables. Not all cables with gold are really gold tho, quite a few are just gold plated or just the connector is gold and not the internal wires.
Gold is corrosion proof, so the theory is that your connectors will not be adversely affected by environmental factors such as moisture, although a room damp enough to make a difference will see off the console, TV and the owner well before that is likely. (Having said that, I have seen rusty connectors on 80s consoles) Gold is also a better conductor than just about anything else - its use in microchips for example. However if the cable is bog standard copper than this will nullify the effect and the gold is more about trimming than anything else. Gold plating then is more an indicator of quality. A company bothering with gold plating probably has done a better job of the cable than a company that doesn't (or would like you to think so), although reading the packaging for construction details is probably a more scientific approach.
I dunno, I've found more and more cheap HK cables have the "gold look" to them, it's probably fake and done to make them look better. Isn't this whole corrosion thing limited to using gold cables on equally gold plugs? I remember reading having only one of the two gold-plated actually caused adverse effects like more corrosion.
Quality is very good so I will keep them. Im running it through a signal splitter anyways so I dont think gold would help and im not going spend twice the price for nothing -_-
IIRC, gold plated is now standard because back during the SIMM ram days the ram had tin connectors and most boards had gold connectors, this caused a reaction that corroded the tin. They started to use gold plating on them to prevent this corrosion.
The reason why things are gold plated is because gold is very malleable and won't flake like aluminum or tin alloy connectors. Gold isn't corrosion proof, but it is very resistant if you lubricate it. Copper is a better conductor than gold, so that logic is twisted. Anyways, the differences between types of good wiring metal is negligible. Shielded copper is all you need for VHF signals. Sure expensive pure copper or crazy expensive silver cables is better, but you can get the same effect by using a thicker plain copper cable. Gold plated is good enough because that's where it matters.
Thanks. I remember on TechTV's The Screensaver talking about it tin reacting with something, but was alleviated when they used gold plating back in the DOS days. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_plating
Silver is best, then copper then Gold. As everythin its a trade off. Silver reacts too much while Gold doesent.
This thread is great. I actually learned something from reading it! Thanks for posting the question Micjohvan!
silver is good for things like speakers over distances over a few metres as the resistance of the cable is less then pure copper. silver can corrode very easily which is why you get oxygen free silver cables. Copper is a good as it has low resistance but can corrode but as it is cheap is used very much. Gold is too expensive to use as wire but plating other metals mean that it can stop the other metals from corrode, gold does corrode but it does it slowly and is less then other materials. It makes very little difference except over the long term. Some plating is quite thin and can wear off sooner then the gold will corrode (or even the original metal would) so can be wastful on cheap gold plated cables... Aluminium for weight is a brilliant cable, although the thermal expansion means that mating it with out cables could cause overheating which is why it's not used in house wiring anymore although it's still used in overhead power cables as it's very light. Brass is also good, it's hardness means that plated with nickel or gold means it's used extensively in connectors. Although I have seen Aluminium Brass used as well as weird mixes like Beryllium Copper.
I was under the impression that while gold doesn't tarnish like many other metals, it is a poorer conductor. Isn't a silver alloy usually used to prevent corrosion?
