What's the deal with palladium??


I've noticed an increasing number of manufacturers claiming the use of palladium in their cables. I know that corrosion and oxidation are virtually nonexistent with palladium, but what are the sonic characteristics? Is it even a good conductor? Always assumed the silver, copper, and gold hierarchy was accurate...
rsachek
Agree with TWL. If professional RF conductors don't use it I doubt that audio needs it. Pro RF is all silver plated, or gold plated. Have you heard my new plutonium interconnects ?

I got this off a web site for the periodic table :

"Palladium compounds are encountered relatively rarely by most people. All palladium compounds should be regarded as highly toxic and as carcinogenic. However palladium chloride was formerly prescribed as a treatment for tuberculosis at the rate of 0.065 g per day (approximately 1 mg kgÑÚ) without too many bad side effects."
Hey, I'm waiting for...
Mil-spec grade spent uranium interconnects run in a conduit filled with liquid nitrogen! The ultimate!
Palladium is a poor conductor but... in audio, conductivity is not THE most important thing. The hardness of the metal and the frequencies at which it resonates play a large role in the sonic characteristic of any given cable design.

When building cables, you can twist, pull, braid and weave all you like but the fundemental sonic signature will not change much unless the materials of the conductor change.
Soft metal makes a different sound than hard metal.

Palladium may have an interesting resonant frequency - I don't know.

BMI recently introduced "The Shark" power cord made from Platinum. People claim its great but we would all assume that conductivity is important in power cords wouldn't we??

Okay... the standard for conductivity is based on an annealed copper wire having a density of 8.89 g/cm3, 1 meter long, weighing 1 gram, with a resistance of 0.15328 ohms. This standard IACS is assigned the value 100% at 200 degrees C (680 degrees F).

Given that if copper is 100%, Silver rings in at about 105%, Gold at 70%, Aluminum at 61%, and Platinum at 16%

Now... how could a power cord with 16% conductivity (that's 84% less than copper) sound better? Palladium is a wee-bit better conductor than Platinum, it's IACS is 17%

Mysterious isn't it?
I just got my new palladium power cord and there's so much bass slam, in fact I'd say my system, hang on I'm not feeling so good, I wonder aaaaaaarrrrgghhhhhh ....