Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Technical Questions Audio/Video Cables

Do you know how long it takes for gold to tin connections (not soldered, but cable to component) to de-grade?

Unfortunately there is no clear cut answer to this question as there are a few variable's, the most important being Temperature/Humidity. An outdoor connection will oxidize much quicker that a relatively Temp/Humidity controlled room in your home. The good news is in an indoor environment it will take years to have any signs of a problem. Cleaning connections occasionally with Isopropyl Alcohol is a good thing to do. Even if you have any contamination it usually will be on the Outside Diameter of an RCA type plug and can be cleaned with a very fine scotchbrite pad and you will be all set. If I haven't put you to sleep yet I end the conversation by saying "Don't be overly concerned, you will probably never have a problem." getting off track a bit do you have a 3805 receiver now? I was recently contemplating the 2805 or 3805 and was leaning towards the 2805. Any opinion to offer?

"I went the compression route (v. solder) because I know I can crush things, less sure about my ability to melt metal on things."
That is great.
I'm glad I'm not the only one around here who thinks that way.

I thought I would give you some additional info since my last response. Most RCA Connections are either Gold Plated or Silver Plated (Not Tin), therefore the Denon probably has silver plated connections, note that similarly priced Yamaha's are the same way. Many people insist that the silver is actually better than the Gold and will improve sound quality. Well if you can hear any difference you will have a thousand scientists wanting to study you. The Silver will tarnish (oxidize)and require occasional cleaning if you want to be , shall we say carried away with cleanliness. There are obvious issues with Tin & gold as I previously stated (when soldering) but a mechanical connection between gold cable connectors and silver plated RCA Jacks should not be a problem, one is just a slightly better conductor than the other. A Materials Engineer may be able to come up with some reasoning that mechanically connecting the two dissimilar metal are a problem but I know with many military connectors silver coated copper braid is terminated to gold plated connector components. I don't think there is any problem at all, use gold if you want to.

o.k. i've decided that if i start to hear any sound degradation...i'll just turn the volume up

i do wish the 3805 had gold jacks, if not for the prettiness, then for the warm fuzzy feeling that they didn't cut corners to save the few cents extra per jack.

as far as 3805 vs. 2805:

i wanted the denon link, as i was getting the 5900. although, i still had to use audio cables for sacd because denon didn't get approval to use d-link for sacd until fairly recently. but, i haven't even bothered to get the update.

as you probably know, the 3805 has a little more power, which if i'm honest with myself, probably influenced me a bit.

the Audioholics review of the 3805 didn't hurt my decision, either.

i am surprised i haven't thrown the remote at the wall. it stays illuminated just long enough for me to find the function i'm looking for and goes black before my finger reaches the pad. and it eats batteries pretty good.

i assume you've checked the denon site for the spec and component differences between the two. if not, that's always a good way to strain your eyes.

i got 25% off at an authorized brick and mortar store through a friends and family discount. i found that to be a pretty good price. plus, the store is two minutes from where i work. for me price was not that big of a factor, other than i knew i could not afford the 5803.

the store i bought from had a 100% upgrade policy. maybe you should look for a store that does that and get the 2805. if it works for you, don't look back. i don't think you could go too far wrong with either one of them.

oops, i almost forgot...i bought the auto-setup mic...it's still sitting in the box. i find that i play with all the levels, all the time, depending on what i'm listening to.

i'm replying to myself, i guess...i went to find info on the sacd update and apparently it is a ways off.

as a matter of fact, i did a google search and one link brought me to the axiom forums...you guys were talking about this when i was out of town a couple of weeks ago

i don't know if anyone is going to see this, but if there's any new info, please let me know.

my concern is with getting an update to the 5900.

thanks.

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i am surprised i haven't thrown the remote at the wall. it stays illuminated just long enough for me to find the function i'm looking for and goes black before my finger reaches the pad. and it eats batteries pretty good.

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there's a section in the 3805 manual that shows you how to change the illumination times for the remote. and its some secret-squirrel combination of buttons too, definitely NOT something you'd find in a menu. believe me i've felt your pain too. but i cant say that i've had an issue with batteries, i dont think ive had to change mine since i got it in december.

vettenut01,

I was just recently considering the 2805 vs 3805 and after speaking with owners of both systems, I went with the 2805. Bray and MarkSJohson were of great help. One of the mentioned that the extra 20 watts per channel only equates to 1db! Yes, I realize decibels are on a logarithmic (sp?) scale but still 1db isnt much in my book.

Also, it kinda peeved me that denon includes the $60 mic with the 2805 and not the 3805. WTF, shouldn't it be the other way around? So basically it all boils down to features and from doing a direct comparison, they are VERY close in the feature set. Denon's site has some a pdf showing every feature on all their receivers. IMO, the only major differences are 20WPC, better remote, 3rd zone, and denon link.

If you're bent on getting the 3805 then by all means get it. If you're looking for the best value then go for the 2805. Also the 2805 is identical to the 985 so start looking around for that model instead (its $50-100 cheaper) since Denon probably didn't wanna piss off their auth dealers.

Best bang for the buck: 2805/985
Upgraditis: 3805 (not that there's anything wrong with it)

The 3805 seems to have all kinds of nice additions (a truly neat looking remote, for example), just seems like most of them won't affect the sound. Someone posted recently that only the 3805 has DenonLink -- that would be the only thing I would think about as being maybe worth extra $$...

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Someone posted recently that only the 3805 has DenonLink -- that would be the only thing I would think about as being maybe worth extra $$...

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I thought so too, until it was confirmed that SACD won't be passing through the DenonLink till late 2006!!!

Geez, it'll be obsolete by then. Get a 2805 !