Connectors

Heavily Silver Plated RCA, BNC, Banana, Plugs, RCA Sockets, Speaker & Ground Terminals & Loudspeaker Spades

News

News brief February 1, 2009.

The precipitous fall in the value of the pound has required us to increase the prices accordingly to recover costs.

We have developed a small range of connectors, primarily for use with our own cables, amplifiers, loudspeakers and digital products. Unlike our wires and cables that are made from solid 99.99% pure silver, silver is generally too soft and brittle to be used as a connector.

I looked for a solution to this for several years, because making the finest silver cables only to connect them to the amplifier or speaker via a thinly gold plated plug and socket seemed counterproductive to me, yes gold looks very nice and enhances our impression and sense of quality and finish, but it sounds dreadful.

The solution came to me after I tried some home made solid solver banana plugs, which promptly snapped, perhaps if the silver plating was made really, really thick, not the usual 7 - 10 micron traditionally used, so I have some of our standard sockets, connectors stripped of the gold plating and plated with 60 - 70 micron of high grade pure silver.

At first they were almost impossible to use, the thicker layer of silver made the diameter of the hole in the socket and the pin on the RCA plugs too big, so the connectors would have to be their dimensions recalculated in order to work, once that was done, it was obvious that this worked, the sonic benefit of silver without the cost and immense drawback of weak and brittle connectors.

Do they tarnish, you will now ask? Yes they do, and they will need to be cleaned occasionally for the very best sound, however, even silver oxide has far better sonic properties than any other material, so most of the sonic advantage is still present even when they are black with oxidization!

Audio Note™ RCA Plugs.

The AN-GP-AG silver plated RCA plugs

The Audio Note AN-P silver plated RCA plug

Model	Internal Diameter	External Diameter	Overall Length
12	12mm	17mm	40mm
10	10mm	15mm	40mm
8	8mm	13mm	40mm
6	6mm	13mm	40mm

Audio Note™ RCA Sockets

Order Code	Type	Mounting	Price Ex. UK Vat
CON-034/036	AN-CS Audio Note™ non-magnetic, teflon insulated socket, silver plated	Chassis mounted	6.00

The Audio Note AN-CS silver plated chassis RCA sockets

Audio Note™ Loudspeaker Connectors, Banana Plugs, Cable Spades.

Order Code	Type/Description	Price Ex. UK Vat
CON-060	Audio Note™ Banana plug, silver plated, spring loaded tension	6.00
CON-065B	Audio Note™ Loudspeaker Cable Y - spade, silver plated, non-magnetic	6.60

AN Spade connectors

Spring tensioned banana plugs

Audio Note™ Loudspeaker Terminals

All our loudspeaker terminals have facility for a 4 mm banana plug and/or a spade connector see pictures below.

Order Code	Description	Price Excl. UK vat
CON-028A Red CON-029A Black	Audio Note™ AN-SPKR small silver plated terminal, chassis mounts, long, 25 mm, thread to allow for thick walls, non-magnetic	5.40
CON-028LAG Red CON-029LAG Black	Audio Note™ SPR large silver plated terminal, chassis mounts, long, 25 mm, thread to allow for thick walls, non-magnetic	7.80
CON-028 Red CON-029 Black	Audio Note™ AN-STR "MEISHU" Speaker Terminal, chassis mounts, gold plated one-piece construction, non-magnetic, short thread 10 mm	15.00
CON-028AG Red CON-029AG Black	Audio Note™ AN-STR "MEISHU" Speaker Terminal, chassis mounts, fully silver plated one-piece construction, non-magnetic, short thread 10 mm	15.00
CON-030AG Red CON-031AG Black	Audio Note™ AN-STR "MEISHU" Speaker Terminal, chassis mounts, fully silver plated one-piece construction, non-magnetic, long thread for speaker crossovers, 25 mm	15.00

The AN-SPKR silver plated loudspeaker terminal

The Audio Note™ AN-SPR silver plated loudspeaker terminal

The Audio Note™ AN-STR "Meishu" silver plated speaker terminal, available in black as well as gold plated,
which are on offer, features direct contact from both sides and sound superior as a result.

The gold plated version

Technical Diagrams (Click for larger image)

Audio Note™ Gold, Black & Chrome Plated Knobs

To add the finishing touch to your amplifier, I have decided to make available the Gold and Chrome plated knobs we use on our finished products, see pictures below.

At the time of writing this, some of the 12 mm knobs are not in stock yet, so some delivery may be expected.

Occasionally we have "seconds" of the above control knobs, these will have minor marks that make them unusable on finished products, but look perfectly fine, when available they are 50% off the above prices.

Updated February 1, 2009, PQ