Do Gold Posts Make Any Difference?

There are a few things in the clarinet world that just won’t die: debates about makers, ligature controversies, and the idea that gold-plated posts somehow make your clarinet sound “warmer.”

Let’s clear this up right now. They don’t. 

The Physics Nobody Wants to Hear

Your sound—the tone, projection, resonance, all of it—comes from one thing: the column of air inside the bore. Not the metal on the outside. Not the color of the posts. Not even your choice of ligature (sorry, Silverstein).

The air vibrates. The wood contains that vibration. The posts and keys? They’re there to hold the mechanism together so the keys don't fall off. (Quick aside: of course there are good posts and bad posts. Good posts are screwed into the body of the instrument, and are affixed with multiple attachment points so they don't rotate. Bad posts are press-fit with glue into a hole. See this Amazon clarinet for reference. I mean, the brand is freakin' called GLORY. Does that mean the tone holes are branded "Glory Ho..." oh, never mind.)

Anyway, back to gold vs. silver: if you replaced every silver post on your clarinet with gold tomorrow, the acoustic result would be zero. You wouldn’t suddenly sound like [Insert Your Favorite Clarinetist Here] at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. What you would have is a clarinet that looks like it belongs in a Bond movie.

But… Don’t the Makers Say Otherwise?

Of course they do. Marketing departments have to sell something. Yamaha once claimed that a gold-alloy “Hamilton” plating darkened the sound and made it creamier. (Creamy. For metal.) Buffet’s Elite clarinet had gold posts and no metal rings—and a thinner wall—and everyone credited the gold for the tone instead of the wall.

The truth? There’s no scientific evidence gold changes anything sonically. None. No controlled study, no measurable difference in spectrum analysis, no blind test where anyone could tell one from the other. The only thing gold definitely changes is the price tag. (But only moderately.)

Why (I Think) Players Think They Hear a Difference

I think it’s psychological. We want the stuff that looks special to sound special. And it’s not crazy—confidence changes how we play. If you pick up a clarinet that makes you feel like a million bucks, you might blow with a little more freedom, play a little more boldly, and—guess what—sound better. It's like how we carry ourselves when we're dressed in something that makes us look awesome. We feel awesomer, so we look awesomer.

So when someone says, “I swear my gold-post clarinet sounds darker,” what they really mean is, “I feel like I should sound darker, so I do.” That’s not delusion; that’s performance psychology.

What Gold Actually Does

Gold plating does have a few practical perks:

• It doesn’t tarnish. Silver will darken faster than your attitude during Wagner's Ring Cycle. Gold stays shiny. And for that matter, nickel corrodes with time from finger acid. This is why we don't like to stock any nickel-plated clarinets.
• It looks fancy. Against silver keys, gold posts scream “custom.” (To your wife/husband/partner, they whisper “correct: they have no self-control”)
• It feels smooth. If you ever go for full gold keywork, you’ll notice it’s buttery to the touch. It actually feels fantastic. But on posts? You won’t feel a thing—because you never touch them.

Mechanically, it’s identical. Structurally, it’s identical. Acoustically, it’s identical. A clarinet with gold posts sounds exactly like the same clarinet with silver posts—because it is the same clarinet.

So Why Buy It?

Because you want to. Because you’re tired of polishing tarnish out of tight corners. Because you like how it looks under stage lights. Or because you want to hand your clarinet to someone and watch them say, “Whoa.”

Those are all perfectly good reasons. Just don’t let anyone tell you you’re buying a different sound. You’re buying a different finish.

The Takeaway

Gold posts: beautiful, low-maintenance, acoustically irrelevant.
Silver posts: classic, higher-maintenance, exactly as resonant.
Nickel anything: screams "student" clarinet, is toxic to many people, and corrodes. Ew.

So if you want your clarinet to shimmer forever and make you feel like you’re playing a luxury watch, go gold. If you’re fine polishing every few months and prefer your instrument to look like it’s been somewhere—go with silver.

Either way, the audience can’t tell. But you can, and that’s what really matters at the end of the day.

---

Nerd Corner: Why the Air Doesn’t Care

The clarinet’s tone comes from standing waves inside the bore—that’s the air vibrating between the mouthpiece and the open tone holes. Nearly all the acoustic energy is in that air column. The instrument’s body vibrates a little, but those wall vibrations contribute less than a tenth of one percent of the sound energy we hear.

That means as long as the bore is smooth, stiff, and airtight, the material around it—wood, plastic, metal—doesn’t significantly change the sound. Experiments by Arthur Benade, John Backus, and others found that when two clarinets have identical bore geometry and tone-hole placement, they produce the same spectrum of sound, regardless of whether they’re made of grenadilla, Delrin, or metal.

Material differences show up in feel, not tone. Wood absorbs tiny vibrations and reacts to humidity, which can change resistance or pitch stability over time. Synthetic materials don’t move as much, so they feel slightly different under the fingers and in the hands, but the air column doesn’t “know.”

In short: what we perceive as the clarinet’s “sound” is almost entirely a product of the bore design and the player. The body’s material only affects how it behaves, not how it sounds.