Audiophile oddities


Since I changed my beloved YBA 2 preamp to a YBA 1 preamp, my 2 was lying on my work table. Yesterday I opened it up to see what was inside (a really beautifull inside...) but unlike the other time I opened it I went further in the body of the beast by opening those little black tinted box caled "YBA line module" ( I tought I would find some kind of esoteric electronic device...) and what I found was something I never imaginated I could find in a preamp: some kind of ziplock bag with some sort of black little rock (like those in fish aquarium) and absolutely NO ELECTRONIC PART!!! Just a plastic bag full of S**T. I tried to find if they where any electronic device under the board but again their was nothing. I will open up my 1 preamp to see if that is the same thing as the 2 but let me tell you that I'm a little bit disapointed that a profesional conpagny like YBA are using some kind of voodoo things...

dismalonyx
You are the final winner. Please show up at the YBA factory Monday morning at 7 O'clock sharp for a magical experience.
Did you buy the unit used? Perhaps at one time it was a gift from Lex Luthor to Clark Kent and somehow you ended up with it.
I can't tell you what they are but I can tell you one other story. A long established European amp manufacturer had 4 little black boxes in his 60 and 100 watt amps. I was helping him stabalize the amps for the US market -- Europeans think that because 240 V is 240 V that 110 is 110, not 95-125V. Anyway, as I was checking biases and taking measurements at different places on the boards, I could not figure out what the little black boxes were. They were about 1" cubed. I finally asked. Somewhat serious and somewhat joking he said that they were special transistors that gave the amp its special sound. I shrugged it off but came back to it a week later. He finally told me. "Everyone expects special components because they do not understand or accept that a simple circuit is best. They are little 5 cent transitors that work very well. There is nothing better sounding. There are three of them hot glued and epoxyed up in the box." So, this person needed to hide 60 cents of transitors in his $2000 and $3000 amps. So, you have might just have the French version of the little black box that adds lots of "PERCEIVED VALUE." It would be interesting to find out what they really are. Dig into it and find out.
Is it possible that these boxes were intended to house a future plug in modular circuit that was never implemented? Could these rocks be an anti-resonant device used in the meantime? Did Enron's tanker ship going through the Bermuda Triangle REALLY cause their collapse?