Posted by Mark Jones on 08/27/05 01:49

Steve(JazzHunter) wrote:
> I'm not an engineer but have tons of workaday experience, and have to
> agree. A fraction of an ohm reistance on the shield connection can
> allow hum to creep in if there is an alternate ground route elsewhere
> that can put even a few microvolts of hum signal across the
> plug/socket connection. Also rectification can occur at the point of
> an aluminum-aluminum, and especially aluminum-Tin, connection, causing
> local radio to be demodulated and producing a "few microvolts" of
> voice and music. One of the connectors being Gold tends to eliminate
> the likelihood of rectification.
I have seen exactly what you describe. Sometimes the noise level
gets just low enough with a single gold connector to get below
the threshold where problems will show up. You do not have to
spend the money to gold plate all of the connectors when doing
just one of them will take care of the problem.

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