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Snake Oil Department, Top This

GeorgeBynum

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You seem to have things a little mixed up. Eutectic means there is a single, well-defined melting point. Non-eutectic solder has a range of temperatures within which it is neither solid nor melted. Even a slight movement as it cools through this range can result in a bad joint. With eutectic solder, this is less of a concern since it solidifies almost instantly.
Agreeing 100% with @mansr ; there are eutectic non-lead solders, both 2 metal, 3 metal, and other. From Wikipedia,
Tin-silver-copper (Sn-Ag-Cu, or SAC) solders are used by two-thirds of Japanese manufacturers for reflow and wave soldering, and by about 75% of companies for hand soldering. The widespread use of this popular lead-free solder alloy family is based on the reduced melting point of the Sn-Ag-Cu ternary eutectic behavior (217 °C, 423 °F), which is below the 22/78 Sn-Ag (wt.%) eutectic of 221 °C (430 °F) and the 59/41 Sn-Cu eutectic of 227 °C (441 °F).[19] The ternary eutectic behavior of Sn-Ag-Cu and its application for electronics assembly was discovered (and patented) by a team of researchers from Ames Laboratory, Iowa State University, and from Sandia National Laboratories-Albuquerque.
 

richard12511

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"I do want to add that my friend told me with his setup, Audio research LS16, Vt200, Mcintosh D150, Focal 1028 and transparent ultra speaker cables, he found the transparent reference XL too smooth and preferred the siltech over it. Note : The transparent Ref XL cables apparently can be calibrated for my amps and speakers if I sent it in. My friend told me it was a big difference when he had his calibrated."

I kinda feel bad for Thomas. He seems like a really nice guy, but he's clearly been duped.
 

izeek

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Check it out. Sweet wall outlet that completely fixes mid-range suckout. Probably need the EMI rejecting aluminum faceplate to get the full effect. And, of course there's the 600$ power cord to complete the trifecta.

https://www.cruzefirstaudio.com/maestro
Aaaand the $600 power cord IS sold out.
There was ABSOLUTELY nada in the marketing blurb that made buying a $100 electrical outlet worth the time it took to even read about it.
 

ta240

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Anyone surprised there are no reviews of them on their website?

I actually am. Usually people like to gush at how much they improve things. And if they don't then they just wouldn't publish the review. I know that fake reviews exist on all shopping sites but I really don't trust them on manufacture's sites. I submitted one for the Paradigm PW-Link saying I really liked the room correction but it popped between songs with some bitrates and, shockingly, they never posted my review.
 

thunderchicken

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Perhaps it isn't the most spectacular one, but my favourite one is Audioquest's claim that their ethernet cables are directional.

"Of course all AudioQuest Ethernet cables honor the directionality inherent in all analog and digital audio cables; arrows on the jackets indicate the direction (from source to destination) for the best audio performance."

That one can be legit. Refers to the side of the cable that the shield mesh is connected to. The shielding goes to ground on one end only. Supposed to avoid ground loops while still providing EMF shielding. I don't know how much it actually matters, but at least it's a logical explanation.
 

ta240

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Wow. Does it come with a warning label instructing you to not get the "cable" anywhere near your watch? Those magnets sound like they would tear the hands right off the watch......

They should put a warning; because I used 3 or their pro elite cables next to each other and it created a black hole.
 

ta240

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That one can be legit. Refers to the side of the cable that the shield mesh is connected to. The shielding goes to ground on one end only. Supposed to avoid ground loops while still providing EMF shielding. I don't know how much it actually matters, but at least it's a logical explanation.

But you still have to have a ground wire connected that would be making the same connection as the shield.

I had heard that it was because you want the noise the shield picks up not to go to the next piece of equipment. But that doesn't make a lot of sense because the noise is going to the prior piece then it will just get sent through the other ground wire to your amp or whatever is next. Does the noise really know to go back towards the outlet through the first component rather than towards the next one?

How has nobody come up with interconnects where the shield connects to an external grounding system rather than the component? Think how much those could sell for.
Come on McGowan, hire me! We could partner with Audioquest and have special ground connectors on all your stuff that the new interconnect shield could plug into next to the regular connection. It could route through some proprietary circuitry to the mains ground. I want in on some fools money. Anyone here a patent lawyer?
 

xaviescacs

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That one can be legit. Refers to the side of the cable that the shield mesh is connected to. The shielding goes to ground on one end only. Supposed to avoid ground loops while still providing EMF shielding. I don't know how much it actually matters, but at least it's a logical explanation.

Ethernet and TCP/IP are robust protocols that work in all kinds of extreme conditions with all kinds of cables. The quality of the cable only affects the amount of data that can be transferred by unit time, but, the data will reach the other end anyway, always, without one bit lost. If a packet gets lost or corrupted it is sent again. Just go to a pro store: they have all kinds of balanced and instrument cables, but they don't have premium ethernet cables.

Can the ethernet cable noise affect the analogue section? Well, if you plug the ethernet directly to the analog output it will add some noise indeed, but designers are supposed to be aware of this. Pretending that this can be solved by a better cable is absurd.
 

Cbdb2

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And very little ethernet cable is shielded. If it is, it needs special switches/routers that ground the metal jacket of the connector. There are no shield pins on the jack. No one has these at home. So there cables are snake oil.
 

xaviescacs

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And very little ethernet cable is shielded. If it is, it needs special switches/routers that ground the metal jacket of the connector. There are no shield pins on the jack. No one has these at home. So there cables are snake oil.

And even in that case, the benefit of a better cable is the amount of data that can transfer per unit time, but the data will eventually arrive at destination anyway. Which is impossible is that data arrives unnoticedly corrupted, as the protocols are robust in that matter. So the only issue is speed, how much data per unit time. For audio applications, Cat 6 is enough. Furthermore, many routers and chips don't support anything above 1 Gbps, so buying more than Cat 6 is a potential waste of money.

https://www.electronics-notes.com/a...ieee-802-3/cables-types-pinout-cat-5-5e-6.php
 

Spkrdctr

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The guy found a use for his Tesla coil toy. Everything he did or said was pure techno nonsense. He even said he makes up things and then his engineer (one guy?) tries to make a product for him. If he was coming up with any ideas with merit, he would need a small engineering team of maybe 4 guys working full time to do the ground breaking research and testing needed. OMG, the pure BS that guy has.
 
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