How Does Gold Wire Handle?

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.

Al, thanks for your concise explanation of what may be occurring through pin #1. This is very enlightening to me and, I presume, to others. There is so much opinion batted around on DIY cable threads that only seems to confuse rather than clarify. I would have continued to regard pin #1 as something of a nominal requirement, a connection made for the sake of continuity, for safety, a default run that allows me to ignore all the shielding opinions, ad nauseum. More so, congratulations--your paragraph is golden for me, the novice, and should be regarded as a breakthrough in relieving confusion for many.

Cheers,
Joe

Thanks to all--opinions vary according to experience with the different metals. There is a lot of testimony in favor of copper and silver--understandably, especially with copper, due to its low cost and nearly universal application as the metal of choice for electrical conduction. However, we are trying for high performance in this hobby, so nothing in our systems should be ordinary, even if traditional in industry and residential wiring. There is such a path dependence on copper wire, other metals are nearly regarded as experimental. Using gold and silver as wire is something of a shock to the psyche, it seems--gold more than silver, which is hailed as more conductive but also less forgiving in its results.

Perhaps wise if one proceeds with a design first using copper, then silver, and finally, gold--expensive in the end, not so much in the beginning. Once you start down a path, it's not easy to turn back or stop short, so I will ultimately try pure gold wire. Besides, there is too much testimony here extolling the virtues of gold, and this from established makers of gold cables and their customers. Sometimes, one has to act on what others have found.

One decision process in medicine is called empiric treatment. Say a patient has symptoms of a respiratory infection, such as fever, cough, diminished lung sounds, elevated white count. An MD is not sure yet if this is pneumonia, but without further evidence and, based on prior experience, he or she will treat that patient with an antibiotic as if they do have pneumonia. This is called treating the symptoms--the patient--empirically. There's a lot of prior experience here on 'gon, shared by those of you who build things, and I appreciate every word put down, especially from Jadem6, who must be regarded as the pioneer of gold cables.

JD, yes, I will use Teflon tubes over cotton tubes. I want to use three strands per pin--would you suggest laying all three in one cotton tube, or each in its own very small tube? I don't know why, but I am leaning toward the three small tubes into the Teflon tube. And, yes, the ground pin--what to do about that. I like to think it doesn't carry signal, but then, your experience says otherwise, and therefore, gold is needed there, as well? I'm going to run these cables from a Wadia player, so I only need one pair. I suppose I could spring for gold on the gound pin, per your recommendation.

Amazing, Jade--kind of mind-blowing, actually. That you are mixing gauges in the #2 and #3 pins tells me the addition of a 28-gauge there has probably added something beyond three 30 gauge wires you have previously mentioned along the way. Seems traditional thinking around here suggests using the same gauges in each conductor, but then, advances come through experimenting on the same themes until something breaks through. I will follow your sage advice on the #1 pin by adding more wire mass to chassis/signal ground. I won't ask why--I'm sure someone else here will have some input on this.

In the interest of the thread, I should have stated my project goal--to exceed the performance of my Transparent Reference 1.5 meter XLR interconnects, purchased, about eight years ago for 4K. I have actually been fairly happy with these cables, but I really believe that, with the continued introduction of high-quality components on the DIY market this can now be achieved with careful technique and quality control.