Rhodium vs Gold AC connectors

For the most part (generality), Rhodium seems to sound like a loudness button was pushed. More top end cleanliness and extension, and tighter and louder bass. The mids seem to retract a wee bit.

Again, very general impression based on 4-5 rhodium plugs I've heard and tested vs standard copper or gold plated copper/brass.

Rja, don't take it very seriously, I'm far away of being politician:-) I'd rather ask the community about 'Sound Temperature' cuz I'm just curious!
My interconnects are silver-coated. Gold and Rhodium make them more durable vs. silver, but I don't mind taking some time and 'deoxit' them. I stay with logic rule of minimum connection impedance and so far it worked very well. Connection quality and also material matters more than quality of wire itself.

Most audiophools would probably agree that the terms cool, neutral and warm could be attributed to sound produced by audio systems but how you would/could measure it or quantify it I have absolutely no idea. I like your descriptor of "Sound Temperature" though.

So recently, I came cross to the same challenge … choosing between Rhodium and Gold connector. I had two long cable ended with Furutech Rhodium connectors, I cut them by half and created two more cables using Furutech Gold F-11 connectors. It took more than 180 hours to break-in new Gold connectors. Same cable with Rdodium give this impression of an airier HF and less Bass and midrange compared to Gold connector.

It all depends, to which components they are connected. I use a cable with Rhodium connectors to feed my Tara labs PM2 power conditioner. My LECD-Tv is connected to this PC and picture quality is fantastic with tones of clarity and resolution. The magic of Tara labs PM2 is that it creates an impressive depth in picture and sound (somehow 3D). Using the same cable with F-11 Gold, presented more pleasant sound (better bass and midrange) on LCD-Tv but a little bit of less resolution on Picture. Better picture quality on Rhodium case is certainly related to extended HF bandwidth of Rhodium connector. I know that because I did a lot of academic research on TV signal in the past, and improvements of details on the contour of objects relay on High Frequencies.

However for my preamp (MCintosh C2300) I got an excellent result with F-11 Gold connectors compared to Rhodium connectors with same cable. The bass is more present, midrange is fantastic and HF is very good too (perhaps less airier HF compared to Rhodium case). Overall, Gold connector present more musical sound. Using Gold Connector with my amp (BAT vk-600se) presents the same phenomena.

My experience with my power conditioners: Synergistic Research PowerCell 4, Tara labs Ad6 and Tara labs PM2, brought me to this conclusion that feeding Power conditioners with cables using Rhodium connectors is more suitable. However, using cables with Gold connectors feeding main components gave me an overall better musical sound.
There are a few reviews and comparison on this site that hopefully would be useful. Usually his review are objective:

http://www.hifi-advice.com/Furutech-alpha3-review.html

cheers,

Rja,

I agree. A lot of gold plating comes off easily like with Neutrik plugs and jacks. Not so with Oyaide -- if you like the 079 series, which I do not. In fact, after extensive experience with Oyaide products I much prefer Furutech products -- in my system.

I agree with you. Experimentation is the key. No one can tell you what to do with your system. Only you know what works and what does not work in your system. It's all system dependent. Others may make suggestions. But the proof of the pudding will always be in the eating. And you're the one sitting at the table.