Hey Mike,

I'm by far no expert on this issue.  That said, I do have both of the Decware ic types and the silver speaker wires and am very pleased  with all of them.

I'm quite sure you will get some better advise from others.  
Good luck and congrats on the new equipment.

Dennis

If I am not mistaken, even if silver plating on the connectors, this is a 'better' mode for signal transfer.  I've also been told (by a fancy brand that sells a lot of silver cable) the black oxidation is actually GOOD as it is conductive and only improves the connection.  They said don't clean it (from the areas it touches other metal).

Said another way, silver plating is fine, and I would trust was Steve, the RCA plug designers did.  Solid silver might not even be good mechanically and it needs to be plated over another metal.

I've heard, and it seems to make sense, If you have silver RCA jacks use a silver RCA connectors. If you have gold plated RCA jacks use gold plated connectors.

I haven't tested this to see if it does make a difference or not.

I've never considered that argument about gap filling.  I was just commenting on the silver oxide is a better conductor question since this has come up before.  I eventually terminated my solid silver speaker wires with solid copper bananas but before that I never bothered cleaning the wires.  I sort of figured that in a tight connection, oxidation wasn't much of an issue.  I'm probably wrong about that.

What surprised me was that while everyone points out that silver oxide is a great conductor, what is actually on the silver is silver sulfide.  I doubt .01% of people who care about wire materials even know this.

My comments are only intended to add to the conversation, not to attack (or defend).

 No worries, I didn't think you were.  

I have almost always used higher quality silver IC connectors whether the component had gold plated RCAs or silver plated. I have tried IC ends of pure silver, silver alloys, gold plated copper, silver plated copper and rhodium plated copper. And though I keep liking the overall resolution of pure silver, and also well done highly conductive silver alloys, there are also connectors I liked a lot with Rhodium or gold plate also, both of the latter considered poor to relatively poor conductors.

The variety of electronic conductivity that measurements of various metals imply would seem to be plainly audible in a negative sonic way, but to me they are not (necessarily). The measured differences seem much more extreme that the differences I hear, at least when using good metals and designs. To me, all decent connectors made with relatively pure metals seem to work.

But working on refining cables for many years, for more ultimate sound refinements, then everything matters....low mass versus high mass, different metals and purities, hardness and purities of the base metal and plate, associated materials used for the barrels, solder used, damping materials and application.... these and more can take us many places when getting into the subtleties of tone, resolution and speed.... and this is not even getting into the wires and all else that makes a cable.

As an example, not an IC end, but when I changed my stock gold plated binding posts on my Torii to an also heavily made Cardas copper post that was plated with silver and a "Rhodium Flash," my system was quite notably improved for me and my wife, perhaps the biggest single improvement (at that time) after many months of progressive modifications. After putting on some music, she said, wow, what did you do, "that was a big change for subtle clarity, textures, and dynamics." And I agreed. Yet Rhodium is said to be a very poor conductor.

I can only talk about what I have experienced, but I have never paid attention to matching metals between connectors, and gotten great results with cable improvements. I can see how matching could be good with very pure materials, but in fact, most RCAs and binding posts are not silver or gold...they are plated, some with good metals underneath, and many with some pretty sorry alloys for sound underneath.

Regardless, changing to cables that I enjoyed the sound improvements from.... my favorite of these have most often had some form of pure silver for the IC ends. And no matter if connecting to gold plated or silver plated RCAs, the sonic improvements from a nice cable, potentially truly awakening, are the primary take-aways for me.

As to cleaning silver....I don't have to do it much, but if it starts to yellow, then the sulfurization has begun, and as mentioned silver sulfide is known to create a conductivity degradation. I have found that cleaner/coatings  like Cardas and some graphene "cleaners" do improve the sound, presumably in part from filling the fine pits in the metal with good conductor materials, and from creating greater contact. I used to use Deoxit gold for years, which to me was good, but only if you polished it off pretty fast. If I let it sit too long it actually dulled the sound for me. But with a fast polishing it sounded better to have cleaned and treated the metal with it.

For an easy to use cleaner and conditioner that I think sounds good, Cardas seems to work easily while improving the sound, and seemingly reducing the chances of sulfur working into silver as quickly. I like it on any connector, it is just that it appears to protect silver some too.