Underwood HiFi linked from Audiogon is offering this "level 1" modification to your M-200 for $450 or a modified one from them for $750.00.

http://show.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/sh.pl?0&1&adlr&Underwoodwally&1&

Is Outlaw sponsoring this?
Is it any good or is it just another way to "audiophilize" a perfectly good product?
If it is, why isn't Outlaw doing it in the first place?

I have 770 and not m-200. So, this is just out of curiosity.

There was some discussion of this in the Model 200 forum shortly after the amp was introduced. First there was this thread , followed by this equally good or even better thread . I think the bottom line was that it was a whole lot of expense for no practical gain. The connectors are already gold-plated, the addition of balanced inputs to an unbalanced amp design is dubious, the dampening work looks to be needless overkill, etc... 'Tis curious, but I think Paul Stiles summed it up best at the end of the second thread:



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gonk -- Saloon Links | Pre/Pro Comparison Chart | 950 Review

Gonk et al,

I'm completelely off topic but what the heck...

Your mention of "gold plated" in the post above, and other mentions I've seen in the Forum of late, got my attention. The reason is that not too long ago I was talking to a cousin of mine who looks after designing and building multi-million dollar electronic / hi-tech research labs. And he was cursing "gold plated" connectors up, down, and sideways. His claim is that in order to properly plate the gold onto the base connector, the quality of the base connector metal has had to be degraded (compared to the "regular" connector - whatever that is) such that the mechanical strength of the resulting connector is considerably weaker - and they fail much easier due to either absolute load and/or very low cycle fatigue.

In other words while the gold plating gives superior conductivity, in his opinion this is more than outweighed by the fact that the underlying material is crappier - and much more prone to fail.

I have little personal knowledge to either support or refute this claim - but would love to hear what others think. For example, when I went shopping for BNC conncetors (which I, perhaps wrongly, equate with higher quality than say normal RCA or F-type) a while back, all of the "good" ones were NOT gold plated. And when I toured a buddy's brand new video/ soundstage, none of the racks of pro gear (many using BNCs) seemed to have "gold" connectors. Seems like "gold" is not the pro standard. But as I say, I'm outa my league here.

Jeff Mackwood

I've never heard of this before. I do know that when I have had gold applied to copper circuit board traces, they were plated with nickel beforehand.

Gold is a relatively soft metal, and for that reason you won't see it used on things like patch cords that see a lot of plugging and unplugging. The sole justification for gold plating on a connector is that gold is a non reactive metal which will not corrode or cause corrosion. I have seen gold and non-gold BNCs myself.

BTW, I use BNCs as my connector of choice on all equiment I build myself. I like them because of their captive design and foolproof connection. You can purchase ones that have a characteristic impedance of 75 ohms, and ones which don't have this impedance. The latter ones tend to be gold plated from what I've seen.

The nickel plating on copper printed circuit boards is to prevent the gold from migrating into the relatively porous copper (with the risk of copper appearing on the surface and then corroding)as well as providing a harder plating surface for the gold.

Most BNC connectors that I have seen have had the tiny inner connection gold plated. (I do recall some silver ones: they were tarnished badly.) The outer conection area, in most cases, and attached locking housing were not gold plated; probably nickel plated. I have seen some BMC connectors that have had the outer shield (or return path) "fingers", as well as the innner conductor pin, gold plated, with the outermost grip and locking part still "merely" nickel plated. This works for me on an engineering basis.

From a consumer point of view, gold plating equates with quality even when it is not needed or justified from an engineering or reliability point of view. However, one's decor may require...


Paul

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the 1derful1

[This message has been edited by Paul J. Stiles (edited December 31, 2003).]

****In other words while the gold plating gives superior conductivity****

Unfortunately gold is not a very good conductor. The best is silver at 106 (whatever the measurement number represents), copper is next at 89 - 100 (depending upon purity), gold is 65 and nickel is only 12 -16. Gold is only used because of its corrosion resistance and is a better conductor than nickel. I suspect then gold plate on nickel is not a very good conductor. But then there aren't any other good alternatives if corrosion is a problem. Ideally copper to copper or silver to silver (possibly sealed) would be the best, but not practical.
Just some more info for the curious.

Yes, gold, and especially nickel, are not as good an electrical conductor as silver or even copper.

The relative conductivity numbers that MCH presents use copper (pure) with a reference value of 100.

BUT, beings the thickness of the plating of gold and nickel are so thin compared to the areas involved, the underlying bulk metal (copper, bronze or whatever) properties will dominate.

It may be snake oil, but the snakes were designer snakes.

Paul

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the 1derful1

[This message has been edited by Paul J. Stiles (edited January 02, 2004).]