You need to hook up your brand new home theater system, but are short on wires. Do you hit the Shack for some cheapy cables, or do you head to your high-end home theater store to get your hands on some Monster Cables?
Do you think better cables are worth it? Why?
Gold on the connections is simply a measure to keep the connection good, keeps down on the corrosion. Gold doesn't corrode, as it is not that it is a magical conductor. As copper and silver are better conductors, but both of those metals will corrode quite often, so gold is used because it is still a good conductor with no corrosion problems. If your talking about computer connections, no,even for your sound card. Now for your stereo, yes, but for speaker cables and unless you have a very expensive stereo probably not for the interconnections between certain components. It may depend on things like RFI/EMI and whether you're dealing with a low-level or a high-level signal (e.g. quality/amount of shielding), as well as capacitance/impedance (in some cases). The *really* expensive cables made of solid silver, probably a waste of money, but it might depend on how much cash is invested into the rest of the system. Now some manufacturers try to fool peeps into thinking that just because the connectors are gold in color, that they are really gold plated. Some are, some are not. A while back I read an old review of a couple of a tests with a few types of cables from a 1983 article (do not not have a clue where it is now) published in Stereo Review. They tested three kinds of cables: lamp cord (24-gauge), "thick" lamp cord (16-gauge) and some "Monster Cable", each being 30 feet. When the testers knew which cord was being used, they said that the monster cable was clearly better. But then they did some blind testing (using ABX and all). Some were only able to single out the 24-gauge lamp cord because it had a relatively high resistance, which lowered the volume a little. Once they corrected for that, only one out of eleven could single out the 24-gauge cord. The test showed that expensive cables are not necessary in most cases. You should avoid the cheapest and simplest stuff though. Although I do have to admit that when I was building my hi-fi up and when I got my first CD player, my CD's always sounded flat and no real excitment to them. So I bought some $25.00 Monster audio cables and it really perked it up and sounded beautiful.
I can't say I'm the most technical here, but I definitely see a difference in the picture on my Samsung 46" DLP television when I use different cables. If I hook up a standard (not HD or upconverted) DVD player to the TV with the default crap cables that come out of the box, the picture's simply not as good as if I use mid- to high-end Monster Cables (which is what I have now).
The key with "Monster" cables is that they have more individual conductors in them than the typical cable. The term usually used is multi-strand. When compared to a typical 16 guage cable, the multistrand one will have 2-3 times the number of conductors. I am told that with any type of signal travels on the exterior of the conductor. The more conductors, the more surface area for transmitting the signal, the better the transmittal.
The bottom line: Use multistrand cables. Monster cables are just one brand.
Dan