Does the conductor or wire size make a difference?
Sure it does. Bigger, fatter conductors will carry more signal with less loss. However, there is a downside. The tendency of higher frequencies to travel on the outside of the conductor means that the wire assembly’s geometry makes a huge difference in performance. How does gold plating affect performance? Very simply, the copper conductor—which oxidizes over time, especially at the tips where it’s exposed to air—is plated with gold, which doesn’t oxidize. The trouble is, it’s not exactly that simple. Most everyone doesn’t plate the gold directly to the copper conductor; they use a nickel substrate to make the gold prettier, shinier, smoother—better audio jewelry. Unfortunately, also as we discussed above, nickel is one of the ferrous metals and gets magnetized by any electrical current. The metal’s magnetic field varies with the electrical signal and, even after the signal passes, it retains a residual magnetic charge. Remember in science class when you wound the wire around the nail
