Airloc - Q. What material are the QED Airloc plugs made from?
Answer:
In the standard Airloc plugs we use an alpha brass with at least
63% pure copper alloyed with zinc for the body and beryllium copper
alloy for the spring part. Alpha brass is used because it can be easily
worked when cold during the manufacturing
process and also can be cold welded by the Airloc termination machine.
Because the conductivity of brass is half that of pure copper, we use a
plug of at least double the cross-sectional area of any cable that would
fit into it - thus maintaining the same overall
resistance path. This means that in all cases, the plugs have lower
resistance than the equivalent length of speaker cable. Through the use
of gold plating and cold welding, the interface between the cable and the
plug is stabilised so that in the medium to
long term, the Airloc connection is superior to bare wire or screw
terminals.