Well.... If you had said something relating to the fact that you're involved with audiophiles, I wouldn't have said anything. I have a friend who makes audiophile-level tube amps professionally. Some of the things the audiophiles believe is ridiculous. They're a constant, never ending source of laughs.
That just... totally astounds me. The amount of artistic license the author has taken to describe their product is unbelievable. Its a knob that looks nice.
Ghehehehehehe. I'm going to buy a project box, put a first order bandpass filter in there that cuts out subsonic and ultrasonic frequencies, and sell it to the highest bidder. I'll make a bundle by calling it a sound enhancing device, that 'cuts out unwanted, superfluous noise'. Edit: Now I think of it, I remember seeing something that wasn't even plugged in to the sound system, but it absorbed bad frequencies and odd order harmonics or some mumbo jumbo to that effect. It was just a black box that sat under your speakers. It was something like $300 a piece and you needed one for every speaker. Funny little audiophiles My dad's one. I swapped an optical cable out once from the DVD player, I took out dad's expensive (€50!) 2 foot optical cable and replaced it with a cheap brand. He hasn't noticed the difference yet
That's no good, it follows clear physics. For true snakeoil it must be impossible to measure the effect of the gizmo, leaving it down to faith. Here's one that fits the bill in most respects, though it's too cheap at $20 to be any good; a $2,000 model would work better.
Reference Audio Mods can only mean one thing.. The super-voodoo-snake-oil-pixie-dust C37 treated knob of wood that they want US$499 for.. Gee whiz..
Too much work, just get a box a pair of gold plated on each side solder them to getter. and fill the box with non transparant epoxy. Then sell it as a sound enhancing device. Think up some vague claims it it makes the air of the sound better and sell it for $ 5.000
You're so out of date... I've said you shouldn't laugh till you've tried it, but the occasional smirk is allowed. I know one guy who is convinced his heatsinks made of bell metal produce a more musical sound than standard aluminium ones.
The Cardas GRFA's are nice.. They don't oxidise easily and are extremely tough.. That said, I have witnessed scratched (down to brass) Cardas GRFA sockets before. The user basically managed to rip a WBT locking RCA out without unlocking it. He didn't know that you're supposed to unlock them before unplugging the cables. That's the only time I've seen them being scratched though.
You would think that with all these subtleties that affect the sound, those people would have their amps in a vacuum chamber, surrounded by a Faraday cage, and not mechanically attached to anything. Or have I spoke too soon. On the topic, I just use what I have been using for about 7 years: 60/40 0.8mm solder for both through hole and SMT.