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RE: Hear is what you said about carbon grease, Stu

That's carbon grease and I still maintain that what I said holds true. Most audiophile conductive greases are colloidal solutions of either copper or silver, and are designed to fill on mating surface gaps with the higher conductivity metal.

Carbon is much higher in conductivity than the metals. YOU may like the effect, but I suspect you are hearing a smoothness caused by the carbon resistance. IF you like it, fine, it's no skin off my back.

There are many ways to skin a cat, so to speak, however.

George Cardas endorses Rhodium plating not because it has low resistance, but because rhodium is very hard and when plated has a very smooth surface. When a rhodium plated jack is mated with a rhodium plug, the two smooth surfaces makes a greater overall contact patch than a precious metal one, and thus lowers overall resistance. (No affiliation with Cardas, BTW, not even as a dealer).

Gold and silver ends and jacks being precious metals are extremely soft. The mating surfaces will gall upon insertion and thus reduce the contact patch, with the scraped material literally lifting the mating surfaces apart. With time, much of this will flatten out, and is perhaps one reason why there is "break in" on cables. You can check this yourself by simply twisting an IC end. The sound will change, usually brighter.

Conductive greases are made by those who recognize this issue. That being said, it is a band aide cure for a more fundamental issue.

I have advocated using Ford dielectric grease. Developed by Ford Motor Company, who places their on board computers under the hood, it seals the connectors and prevents corrosion from setting in. It is an insulated grease, however, and being a grease may be also lubricating the insertion process and reduce galling, in addition to reducing contamination and corrosion.

Again YMMV.

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