Since solder is such a poor conductor, why use it?

TBG
"Almarg, I doubt seriously if the solder you and I have access to is anything like that used in the military."

The military and NASA specs call out fairly ordinary solder!

I worked in QA, on military and aerospace electronics.

Don_c55, as I know a guy who worked at NASA who told me of $1000/foot wire, I suspected what you said. Thanks.

I also know that systems for better grounds to Earth, weld the copper wire to the copper pipes buried deeply into the ground.

I used to manufacture my own cables and quickly realized that solder was no good...I crimped all my cables

Stringreen, is there not a problem of oxidization with crimping?

Al's first response is excellent, he obviously knows what he's talking about.

It's best for the materials being soldered to already have a good mechanical connection before soldering. The solder just holds it in place.

However, solderless set-screw connections do tend to sound best but the difference vs using good lead-free silver solder like WBT or Johnson is slight. The best RCA plugs imo, WBT 0102, are the best despite requiring soldered connections.