D200 Mod 2.0.1

[yabaVR]

I am interested in the rational behind these modifications, that is what issue exactly are you trying to mitigate?  Please don't take this negatively, I am not dismissing your good work here, I am just trying to understand it.  In fact, I have quite a history of 'modding', although in my case with cars, not electronics.  So I get the pleasure of all this, driving a quick car is fun, but driving a quick car that is quick because you have rebuilt and modified the engine yourself adds an extra level to the joy!  I presume the same thing applies to hifi.

So, back to these pin connectors.  Is the idea here to replace the pin connectors because they are a 'weak link', with the pin itself or the soldered connection of the pin offering higher resistance versus a decent soldered cable?  As it happens, I did experience a car breaking down once.  The fault was with the relay that switched the fuel pump, this had a pin connector that must have been running as a high resistance connection, had been getting very hot and had actually burnt the solder around the connection.  At a glance, this looked like a perfect soldered joint, but looking closely, you could see the solder had burned away from the pin, leaving the pin running through a perfect cylinder of solder, but connecting nowhere by an absolute fraction of a millimetre.  This was a hard fault to find, but was fixed in about 10 minutes once found.  It didn't need large cables to fix though, just decent quality soldering.

So, I can see the issues with pin joints, they are a bit fragile, but I am thinking that if the soldered joints are high quality and executed as they should be, then all should be well.  Is this not correct?  Can it be shown that they offer resistance?  Although noting Antoine's experience with his 250 Pro which required remedial soldering on delivery, maybe Devialet's execution of the soldering of these pin joints is not the best?  I have no idea, I've never ventured inside mine to take a look!

I know it's hard to not think of meassuring   .

But as you mentioned the car...let me give an analogy.
Imagine the perfekt race track. Completely even surface, nice grip. It's fast and fun to drive. Now someone does a copy of this track but with poor skills. He meassures the length, the width, gradients etc. Then he starts building to the exact values he meassured but messes up with the surface (something he has not even thought of). The surface got steps, slick parts, gravel and the like. Everything he meassured is correct. It's the same track when viewed from far away. But if you drive the track you won't go that fast and it's of no pleasure to drive on.

What I want to say is that a Pin Connection and a Direct Wired Connection might meassure nearly the same but only on the meassuring you are used to. You can only meassure values you know of...but I can imagine that 'science' does not have the whole picture yet. I don't have either. But I've got some very good ears...and I trust them 

When I think of modifying something I'm looking at the original design and multiply this to its extrems. Let's say you don't use a 2x10 pin connector but a 2x100 pin connector and compare this to a single solid core cable. Now...yourself being the signal which path would you like to take? This view maybe very unscientific...but includes at least some truth. Keep signal paths short and of pure material. Don't change material, profil, less joints...keep it simple. Same as the latest WBT 'Next Gen' or Furutechs latest plugs/connections. Less & pure is more.

gui