Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you travel back im time you’ll find audio connectors corroded. It was standard practice to use an eraser to polish the jacks. Monster offered gold plated connectors. It really made difference. Any benefits beyond non corrosive is questionable.
Back in the day, Radio Shack offered gold plated connectors on their cables, too (IIRC, there was "Archer" and "Archer Gold"). To this day I always get a little prickly at people who sneer at audiophile cables and specifically rag on gold-plated connectors rather than, I don't know, oxygen-free silver cables or whatever. The gold plating was actually a real valuable thing, and the cables could still actually be prett…
My town has a radio shack still, and I visit them as much as I can, but I have yet to find a cable that nice