Wow, such undeserved words of kindness. Thank you so much.
I no longer work in the field, although I do miss it. Stupid story, if you all will allow. American manufacturing is about as bad as things can get. In my previous job, I developed a product line that would return the company to its former self sufficiency from a materials standpoint.
The two facets of our business which no foreign company could touch(and only one in the USA could - 3M) was our chemistry and our process. The chemistry I developed was given to our supplier, because it was better than theirs. The supplier would sell to anyone who ordered it.
The day that the Chinese came in with pictures and video cameras to film our process, I knew it was time to go. I argued with the bosses that if they had our product and process, and could sell for 10 cents on the dollar, we would be sunk. They called me an alarmist.
I immediately switched into the IT field, and have been stable in employment since. The company which numbered over 150 is now a bit over over 10.
I would like to see how Rsachek's investigation of palladium turns out. This is an exciting experiment! As I stated above, and Rsachek reaffirmed with his assessment of the cost, we are absolutely RAPED by those who manufacture cable for the most part.
I would also state that to get the true feel of the way Pd sounds, be wary of the terminations. I have found they can do a great deal to influence the sound. In fact, I would investigate initially going with NO RCA plugs at all. Just hook the wires, positive and negative, insulated of course, up to both pieces of equipment. Otherwise, you may be clouding a great discovery via the gold plated brass plugs which are the norm. Once you get a handle on whether this metal offers something worthwhile, you can then seek out a termination that maximizes its strengths. At that point, you may want to consider Audio Note solid silver RCAs, which may offer you increased performance over the typical brass or copper plug(including WBT).
