Just thought I'd give out a public service announcement.
Valab sells some pretty nice looking stuff for cheap on ebay (vintage audio lab). Almost, too nice. Here's the info.
Gold Plated 3.5mm 1/8 Stereo Audio Connector 2 pcs - eBay (item 300366943258 end time Dec-13-09 19:29:14 PST)
I got a few of these to try out.
They're pretty handsome, similar contact assembly to the Hicon, Yarbo, Cryoparts, YA Audio, and others out there - it's a design shared among Chinese OEMs. I liked the rhodium barrel, which appears to be real rhodium (compared to some jewelry that my girlfriend has) plate and it has some set screws to secure the cable to the connector which is neat. However, the red flag here is that they claim to have real OFC copper contact material. I've worked with manufacturers before on this sort of thing, and they say that for connectors that are internally complex (as you have 3 contacts going to the tip, ring, sleeve in a small space) that pure copper is practically impossible to work with and machine. I cut up the contact assembly and sure enough, no pure OFC copper inside, just your standard brass. So...if something on ebay looks too cheap to be legitimate, it may well just be that the specs are exaggerated.
Looking at their other nice-looking, but materials-exaggerated products, they have a platinum plated RCA plug for $6 each and an IEC connector with "pure silver wire clamps" for $4. I guess that's technically kosher, as the contacts can indeed clamp pure silver wire if so you choose.
They already have a nice product for a nice price, its quality is fine. So why lie so blatantly when at least some customers will figure out that it's not real copper? It just makes me doubt their other products, which are quite cool, and I might have ordered them in the future.
Valab sells some pretty nice looking stuff for cheap on ebay (vintage audio lab). Almost, too nice. Here's the info.
Gold Plated 3.5mm 1/8 Stereo Audio Connector 2 pcs - eBay (item 300366943258 end time Dec-13-09 19:29:14 PST)
I got a few of these to try out.
They're pretty handsome, similar contact assembly to the Hicon, Yarbo, Cryoparts, YA Audio, and others out there - it's a design shared among Chinese OEMs. I liked the rhodium barrel, which appears to be real rhodium (compared to some jewelry that my girlfriend has) plate and it has some set screws to secure the cable to the connector which is neat. However, the red flag here is that they claim to have real OFC copper contact material. I've worked with manufacturers before on this sort of thing, and they say that for connectors that are internally complex (as you have 3 contacts going to the tip, ring, sleeve in a small space) that pure copper is practically impossible to work with and machine. I cut up the contact assembly and sure enough, no pure OFC copper inside, just your standard brass. So...if something on ebay looks too cheap to be legitimate, it may well just be that the specs are exaggerated.
Looking at their other nice-looking, but materials-exaggerated products, they have a platinum plated RCA plug for $6 each and an IEC connector with "pure silver wire clamps" for $4. I guess that's technically kosher, as the contacts can indeed clamp pure silver wire if so you choose.
They already have a nice product for a nice price, its quality is fine. So why lie so blatantly when at least some customers will figure out that it's not real copper? It just makes me doubt their other products, which are quite cool, and I might have ordered them in the future.
