[moogman]

I saw this on Graham Slee's website, relating to the portable Voyager amp, and wondered whether any full-sized headphone amps were affected in the same way. Or is it unique to portable amps?

Quote:

Caution: Although the highest quality Jalco jack sockets are used, the plating on 24 carat gold plated jack plugs on headphones and connecting leads can prematurely wear out because of usage conditions, resulting in a distorted sound. It is advisable that these plugs are replaced if and when that occurs by nickel-plated plugs.

 

[Stoin]

I would think that it is pretty specific to portable amps. Although full-size Amps could suffer from it I would think that it is much less likely.

Graham Slee has possibly had a few product returns (or has noticed the possibility of problems) so is making buyers aware of a potential issue. I wouldn't expect it to be noticed by most people though.

There are a number of differences between home and portable use that I would expect could cause the increased wear mentioned:

Portable amps use the smaller plug size which may be more prone to wear.

In my experience domestic headphone jacks are nearly all gold plated so these would have very similar material properties to the socket on amps. Portable 'phones use a wider range of materials some of which are harder than the gold plating. In this case the gold would be worn by the harder material when there is friction.

When I use my portable player I plug/unplug the headphones at least twice, and up to ten times per day. At home I leave the same set of 'phones plugged in for weeks at a time. If my usage is indicative of how these devices are used then this would provide one source of wear to the jacks.

Finally, portable devices have to deal with much more movement than domestic ones. When you're walking, standing up, etc. the jack is subjected to some of this motion. This will cause some (probably quite slight) wear on the jack.

(There are probably more differences, but I think that'll do for a Saturday evening)

 

[mrarroyo]

I received an used SR80 and the mini plug's gold plating was pretty much gone. I re-cabled it and went with a 1/4". So, yes the plating on the smaller 1/8" plugs can indeed wear out.

 

[moogman]

Thanks for the replies guys. So it's likely an issue with the 3.5mm plugs rather than the amps then. I've seen a few comments here about the IE8 not having a gold-plated plug - perhaps that's the reason why.

 

[jageur272]

Gold plating on a 1/4" plug does wear out; several of my friends who are guitar wizards prefer nickel plated for this reason. It really depends on how often you plug/unplug stuff and how you treat your gear.

 

[moogman]

Thanks jageur272, sounds like I'll need to get some nickel-plated adapters then.

 

[oqvist]

Does he say that the gold plated plugs on headphones wear out sooner then the gold plated plug on the novo?

My GHP seem to be nickel I suspect. I also checked on my most used headphone on the Pro 900 and it does indead show some wear. Not used as portable but I do tons of headphone switching that´s for sure.

 

[john57]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jageur272 /img/forum/go_quote.gif Gold plating on a 1/4" plug does wear out; several of my friends who are guitar wizards prefer nickel plated for this reason. It really depends on how often you plug/unplug stuff and how you treat your gear.

I had the ¼ nickel worn out to the copper. However copper is still good.

 

[mrarroyo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by oqvist /img/forum/go_quote.gif Does he say that the gold plated plugs on headphones wear out sooner then the gold plated plug on the novo? ...

The discussion in Graham's link is with the Voyater 1/8" not the Novo.