Pass X-150

I too am utterly amazed at the quality of parts used on some of these "hi-end" products and how they are laid out.

What i really love is when you have horribly small binding posts mounted very closely together. On top of that, you can't fit any decent sized wire into them. On top of that, they are mounted right above the IEC jack / power cord, which makes things even tougher. This is not to mention the problem with the AC field being right next to the speaker cables, etc...

You really have to wonder if "engineers" design this stuff or if these people actually use the stuff that they design ??? Like i've said before, if some of these guys were designing RF gear, we'd still be using tin cans and strings to communicate with.... Sean
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I agree that changing binding posts can be beneficial in more ways than one. The problem is that this too can be a bigger chore than what one expects, especially if the internal cabling is soldered to the post rather than connected via some type of eyelet or ring terminal.

As far as i'm concerned, the power cord / IEC jack should be located directly in the middle near the bottom of the back panel. Since the transformer(s) should be centrally located between the amplification circuits, which are normally mounted on the left and right sides of the chassis in most modern 2 channel designs, this would allow the manufacturers to install the input jacks in their respective upper corners and the binding posts measurably below them in their lower respective corners. This approach would achieve reasonable separation of input to output signals, minimize crosstalk between left and right channels, reduce contamination from AC cords to signal cables AND allow easy connection to each of the respective jacks.

This seems SO simple yet how many manufacturers get it right or even think about such things ??? Sean
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I was not knocking / commenting on any specific design but on all designs in general.

As far as engineers / designers "messing it up" after having years of experience, i've seen way too many "highly respected" products that had very obvious flaws to them. If such were not the case, the professional modifiers / tweakers that make a living off of such things would either be starving right now or in another line of work. Sean
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