Best resistors for use in phono stage?

Link all components, the Vishay foil have a 'sound' due to the leaded construction inductance. I question the use of 'naked' foils other than for cachet as they are subject to both mechanical and environmental conditions.

Fanatical resistor precision is swamped by capacitor tolerances which are orders of magnitude larger.

Z-Foil Datasheet

That's quite true, but I am convinced that much of what we listen to is dielectric absorption, or DA. This seems to be minimal in five components: bare wire, vacuum caps, air gap caps, nichrome wire resistors, and slightly behind these, Vishay VAR.

Also, you can get exceedingly close to exact RC values by measuring capacitance and then specifying the resistance to high precision, which Vishay's Advanced Products Division (or whatever it's called now) will manufacture to your spec for a small fee. But it's rare to have an application which is critical to even 1%.

Anyway, Vishay is one fine company to deal with, unlike some others I won't name.

"hoping to get a consensus opinion".  LOL.  

Fanatical resistor precision is swamped by capacitor tolerances which are orders of magnitude larger.

Just a general note for all (not aimed at the above poster, but that some may use such missives to dismiss):

That is indeed true but it does not mean that a decent quality trained ear can’t hear the differences in resistor qualities in a well executed circuit. so the idea of swamping does not hold true.

Iffin’ you can hear a voice in a room at a party, with huge amounts of background noise..which just about every person in existence can do, then the idea that the resistor qualities are swamped by capacitor distortions is on shaky ground.

We can suss out, we can separate it out, we do it every day in all our senses, in ways and levels and complex methods, etc..that the vast number of people are wholly unaware of, even though it is part of every millisecond of their biological and complex highly filtered and separated out life..

Realistically, very very few people understand their senses or their minds, or self. Projection is the norm - projection out of the given box.

I read an article just the other day on the cilia of the ear and when we age they get to being impacted with one another, physically, so that is apparently the source of how some can’t separate out complex sounds, whereas others can. Some have different ears, physically different and more capable ears than others. ears are individual, like mental capacities.

One persons ear-Q is not another's Ear-Q, and the same for the given processing intellect, so it is unwise to make assumptions about self and impress such upon another.

thanks.

That is indeed true but it does not mean that a decent quality trained ear can’t hear the differences in resistor qualities in a well executed circuit. so the idea of swamping does not hold true.

Apples and oranges. As stated previously everything has a sonic signature and everything interacts. Agreed that not all can hear signatures.

Unless one matches capacitors or matches resistors to measured C, there are audible deltas that some may misattribute to component rather than FR errors. A single 5% part at its ± value extremes yields ≈1.9 and 2.1. Such deltas are readily audible in the critical 2-5kHz region.

Some manufacturers go to such lengths to match values so the product matches the spec. One was Spica. When I rebuilt my TC-50 XO, I measured the drivers, inductors and resistors and then selected capacitors to match specification as closely as possible. The imaging improvement was astounding relative to the aged originals, all of which still measured within their tolerance. We could debate the contribution of replacing EL & Mylar w PP vs. tolerance compensation.

Bottom line:  E V E R Y T H I N G  matters