Quote:
Electrically, a crimped connection is highly-conductive-wire to highly-conductive-connector.

A solder joint has poorly-conductive (comparitively) tin/led inserted between the two, producing more of an impedance mismatch, and therefore more signal reflection from the joint.

Cheers


While I don't have an ohm meter sensitive enough to dispute what you’re saying I disagree. A crimped connection only touches wire to wire at the pressure point. While a silver solder or even tin/lead solder will totally wrap around the wire making much better conductivity because of more wire surface contact. The difference between lead, silver and copper conductivity is very small. If the change in conductivity is of any concern just interlace more of the wires and make the solder connection longer. This will increase the surface area of contact lowering resistance (a minute amount).

In the old days radios did not have circuit boards and were put together by wrapping wires around posts. This technique is similar to crimping in that it is just a wire to wire connection prone to corrosion. We now have circuit boards with soldered in components. If solder connections introduced a significant voltage losses and were not superior we would still be using wire wraps. Granted we now live in a world of “cold solder joint” but it is a much better world. Cold solder joints are not an issue if the right procedures are used, the right materials and the components are kept from physical stress.


See a “A Solder Primer” section -> http://www.welbornelabs.com/solder.htm