Audio Note RCA Chassis Socket

AN-CS: Audio Note non-magnetic, Teflon insulated socket suitable for panel / chassis mount, with a very thick silver plate over a brass base material. Great for your own projects or for replacing substandard original RCA sockets.

• Mounting hole Ø 10mm.

Background Information

Audio Note 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 them.

The solution came to them after trying some home made solid silver banana plugs, which promptly snapped, perhaps if the silver plating was made really, really thick, not the usual 7 - 10 micron traditionally used, so they had some standard sockets and connectors stripped of the gold plating and plated with 60 - 70 micron of high grade pure silver. Just having a silver plate does still work as the majority of the signal travels through the silver not the base material as the silver is more conductive and the audio tends to travel near the surface anyway!

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 have 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 Audio Note has found that the corrosion has far better sonic properties than virtually any other material, so most of the sonic advantage is still present even when they are black with corrosion!