CRITIQUE OF HARDWIRING
There are hardwire 'experts' that believe that hardwiring is better than a good termination.
Or that hardwiring is cheaper than a good cable termination and therefore better!
Wrong!
Hardwiring turns your hardwired cable into a massive aerial directly soldered to your circuit board.Nothing could be more stupid than direct soldering the interconnect wire to a circuit board,
OR ANY WIRE DIRECTLY TO YOUR APPLIANCE CIRCUIT BOARD!Firstly:
An appliance is an integral product.
Direct soldering a wire to the circuit board will lead to damaging the circuit board with
tracks being lifted, damaged at the slightest bump.Secondly.
To do a best possible solder to the circuit board it is best to use an excellent RCA socket to
start off with and then excellent fine gold or linear crystal silver or copper from the connector to the
circuit board tracks.
This will give the absolute best contact through to the appliance electronics.
Fine Gold wire 0.5mm in Teflon insulation has a much higher skin effect frequency than either Copper or Silver.
Skin effect being the noise that a cable generates by virtue of propagation of electricity
within it.
For copper SF is 20KHz @0.9mm radius; Silver @0.6mm radius; Gold@ 1.5mm in radius.
Hence being a good electrical conductor has both advantages and disadvantages.
Gold does not oxidise; Silver delivers the absolute best but you have to keep it thin and
narrow diameter and not bunched, Copper sits comfortably in the middle but still needs to be electroplated to protect it from oxidising.
I am a great fan of narrow diameter solid core, better still thin shim!Direct soldering to the circuit board introduces spurious vibrations due to the entire cable
length being susceptible to any vibrations in the room and this carries through to 'both' appliances that
have been hardwired together via a long distance of cable.The solution is firm highly conductive connectors and sockets and excellent short runs of thin solid core
cabling from the socket into the internals of the appliance.
And so minimising the effects of passing on vibrational and microphonic distortions through to the circuit board.For instance: the large ClawLock on the Brenda B3's, being made from Pure Copper, does its job as a shield better
than any other equivalent device anywhere on the market today.
It is precisely because of its size ( and the fact that it is made from Pure Copper ) that it is able to defeat any random emf and other stray rf which is the job that a ClawLock is meant to do.What the hardwiring 'experts' are saying is that integrated amplifiers are better than separates;
that a true audiophile would be ecstatically happy with an allinone: pre-amp-poweramp-tuner-cd-dvd-and -turntable ontop all-in-one appliance!
The reason for separates is to manufacture these as discrete integral appliances. To minimise power supply and other electronic interferences between critical appliances in the audio chain. The sockets are there to define a boundary and pathway in and out of the appliance. The sockets define an earth plane and a cable terminated into excellent plugs has a discrete and operational earthing shield which enables optimal quietening and comprehensive shielding of the transmission cable from rf and emr interference. ( A cable soldered to a circuit track does not provide adequate shielding, if any at all! ). The solution is to have exemplary interface transition components! If these are made from Copper or Sterling Silver or fine Silver then all the better. All Bocchino Audio Components are standard manufacture in Pure Copper; They are also available in Fine Silver. Brass interface transition components defeat the excellent work of the designer and the performance of the appliance. The resistance to earth is worse with Brass, which is why some 'hackers' hardwire with all its inherent problems. But Brass is cheap! and used by the ton from your interconnect cable terminations to your binding posts!
In summary:
Hard Wiring compromises an appliances integrity ( wholesomeness ) and turns all interconnected appliances in the hardwiring path into one integrated component with all the inherent problems that this generates.
Hard Wiring introduces spurious effects of cable sway, microphony and vibration and may even act as an aerial. Also adding unnecessary and dangerous mechanical stress to the circuit boards of both appliances.