Originally Posted by tvphobic
OK folks, I know the Veloce cogs very well and had a Mirage cassette on my 2002 Bianchi San Remo which I sold in 2004. I will argue that the difference is really cosmetic. The sprockets were exactly like the Ultra-Drive Veloce cassette that had been in the line for awhile, the ramping and cutouts were identical. The sole difference, what urbanknight asked for, is that Veloce cogs are nickel plated (Campagnolo calls it "nickel-chrome" but I suspect the chrome content is low) and the Mirage cogs are plain steel. If you inspect the Mirage cogs their color is mottled from the heat-treating stage; the Veloce or old ED-C cassettes are consistently nickel colored. I believe the nickel or chrome plating adds little to the wear resistance of the cogs as it is not as hard as heat treated steel (look it up in a table if you doubt)
I would buy, in fact I plan to buy, a few Mirage cassettes soon, they function flawlessly.
You are correct about the plating. But, all Campy cassettes are hardened. The plating serves more as a protectant and wear resistant. When my father was still running his punch press business, we had many parts hard chrome plated. Hard chroming is very hard and resists wear much better than bare steel no matter how hard the steel is. Campy cassettes are all basically the same from Chorus down. They just save money by eliminating steps on the lower level groups. Like plating and machining. In most cases the end user can't tell the difference. If the Mirage isn't plated I personally would not use it. Good luck on whatever you choose.
Tim