At initial glance the OEM binding post would appear to consist of just two parts, ie; a screw-together head & tailpiece. Each of those transitions creating another unnecessary, by today's design standards increase in signal/current resistance. An utter impossibility with the likes of F'tech, WBT, Cardas et al with one-piece conductors regardless of conductor or surrounding body metal. Closer inspection reveals an inner ring which doubles resistance again due to separate in & out transitions. Under 40X magnification I've also discovered the internal spade terminal to not be one-piece as I originally thought but actually a reflow oven-soldered spade into the post head section. Reflow soldering is a process in which a solder paste (a sticky mixture of powdered solder and flux) is used to temporarily attach one or several electrical components to their contact pads, after which the entire assembly is subjected to controlled heat, which melts the solder, permanently connecting the joint. Now we're up to 4 resistance-creating transitions total. And just when you thought it couldn't possibly get any worse that split ring is gold-plated STEEL... Yep, ferromagnetic!! A HUGE no-no inside a binding post! Oh, but wait, it gets better yet! To top it off the entire binding post is lightly ferromagnetic! That is to say unlike the split ring which will jump to a small Neodymium magnet from... over 50mm away all other parts of the brass binding post can also be made to move with a Neo magnet individually or assembled from 4-6mm away! That can only come a from a single cause... brass contaminated with iron. No other way! You simply cannot make 'pure' brass magnetic... its the law!! BTW anyone can easily confirm my findings on ALL pieces with a magnet. In fairness I have seen light magnetic attraction in other binding posts with nickel plating as nickel is ferromagnetic. But seeing it in non-plated brass is a first for me!
So now we all have binding posts with 4 resistance-causing transitions containing steel parts and encased in 'dirty' ferromagnetic brass. Could things possibly get any worse!?! Well lets compare brass to copper conductivity-wise. As the chart below shows, brass has ~28% the conductivity of copper. However the more important part of that is that brass is 72% LESS conductive than copper!
Without belaboring the point further I'll simply leave you with what others have found to be true. That there is SQ improvement in simply reducing part-count in the OEM binding posts. The steel split ring due to ferromagnetic composition and a double in/out resistance transition should be the first to go. All you'll lose is the increased mechanical reistance at end of thread. Next up would be losing the binding-post tail if using banana terminations. You'll lose some slight damping qualities but due to the Devialet inherent rear panel rigidity likely more than compensate for it due to reduced resistance AND ferromagnetic interference.
Below is a metals conductivity chart where you can see exactly how much signal/current you might be losing compared to other choices available.
The differences in electrical conductivity of various materials used in electrical products are often not well understood. Making assumptions about the electrical conductivity of a material because it looks similar to another conductive material of known ampacity can lead to disastrous results.
Perhaps the most common form of this error is the substitution of brass or bronze for copper in electrical applications. Brass is only 28% as conductive as copper. Some bronzes are as low as 7% as conductive as copper!
Copper is the standard by which electrical materials are rated and conductivity ratings are expressed as a relative measurement to copper. These ratings will frequently be expressed as "28 IACS". IACS is the abbreviation for International Annealed Copper Standard and the number preceding "IACS" is the percentage of conductivity a material has relative to copper, which is considered to be 100% conductive. This does not mean that copper has no resistance (is 100% conductive in an absolute sense), but rather that it is the standard by which other materials are measured. The higher the % IACS, the more conductive the material is. This standard refers to a pure, "standard" copper having a resistivity of 1.7241 microhm-cm at 20°C (68°F).
Armed with this knowledge it is interesting to examine the IACS conductivity values of some common materials.
Material IACS % Conductivity
Silver 105
Copper 100
Gold 70
Aluminum 61
Nickel 22
Zinc 27
Brass 28
Iron 17
Tin 15
Phosphor Bronze 15
Lead 7
Nickel Aluminum Bronze 7
Steel 3 to 15
Statements in my posts are opinion only, not to be construed as fact. Any projects I engage in are at my own risk! Their outcome cannot be assured and may result in success, small/no change or catastrophic failure. I encourage no one rely on anything I say or do as gospel and to realize your mileage may vary!
