Partsconnexion: More fake Oyaide!

Remember this little hullabaloo from back in 2008, when PCX was busted for circumventing the US distributor of Oyaide products (Lotus Group USA) and buying from a "3rd party" in Japan, and it turned out they were selling fake Chinese Oyaide (for full retail Oyaide price!) ?

http://www.audioasylum.com/cgi/vt.mpl?f=tweaks&m=160193

Well,now they have a "Bargain Basement sale" on AC plugs: http://www.partsconnexion.com/bbs_ac.html

Scroll to the bottom, they look awfully like Oyaide.  I figured since they were advertised as "Connex," their house brand, they simply had some Oyaide-looking plugs custom made for them.  So, I bought a few, and sure enough they come in a fake Oyaide box, with fake Oyaide instructions, looking like a real Oyaide product at $14 a plug.  

Not sure how long this sale has been up for, but the plugs came in today and after unpacking them I remembered the scandal from back in 2008-2009 and realized what I had bought - their long-forgotten stock of plugs that they sold off after they thought everyone had forgotten, calling them their house brand.  They could have at least stripped off all the identifiers on them and put them in different packaging, then they might have gotten away with it.

We'll see what they have to say for themselves in their return email.

The sound is probably fine.  I know what Oyaides look like inside and Furutechs so once I get home from work today I'll disassemble them and see how they are, and take some pix for the thread.  If they are honestly made out of phosphor bronze (probably brass, if it's a fake) and silver plate/rhodium plate (this will be easy to tell) and they don't seem to be mechanically weak, good cable and wire clamp, then they should be okay to use with my gear.  To be honest, I had a hell of a time the first time I worked with Furutech FI-50s (the big carbon fiber ones) as they can be a little bit flimsy despite the $200+ pricetag per plug, not even the best plugs are flawless (I do love Wattgate plugs though, they are really tough and perfectly designed).  

I could probably drill one of them down with a small bit to base metal without damaging it structurally, perhaps somewhere that isn't visible, to see what the metal composition is.

I'm not sending them back to claim sixty bucks for some plugs that I can surely put to good use, unless they immediately disintegrate :-)

I knew that I was getting an Oyaide-like plug when I bought them for 14 bucks each, I just was oblivious to the fact that they were reselling their old stock of phonies.  

I've got it together.  They assembled just fine, similar quality to Furutech stuff I've used in the past as far as I can tell.  If you're on a budget and want power cables, this is the way to do it.  Same materials/design to Furutech plugs.