During all these years of hi-end Passion I've seen soooo many strange things, some weird, some cute, some clever. So I thought I was prepared...for this.
One day this HEAVY (I mean, heavy) packet arrived into my listening room. It came from Carmine Bocchino, the man behind Bocchino Audio designs (please read the Interview here on TNT-Audio) and it contained some samples of his connectors production.
If you take a look at the pictures on this page you'll get just a PALE idea of how this stuff looks like in real life.
The M13 Monopoles are binding posts so HUGE that it will be difficult finding an amplifier HUGE enough where they could properly fit into :-)
These are top-quality connectors: the idea behind these designs has been clearly explained into the cited interview. In few words I'd say that for a connection to be REALLY GOOD you need a maximal contact area, very conductive materials (pure copper) and a strong clamping force. Now that I have these connectors at home I understand Carmine's words CLEARLY.
Each M13 weighs in a mere :-) 250 g (1/2 pound for the US readers) and the construction is so sturdy and over-sized that you can apply as much *torque* as you want to clamp your forks to these monsters.
The quality of the finish is simply excellent...I've never seen anything like this before. Even the rotation of the connector is precise and smooth along the whole travel...a clear and distinctive sign of top-class craftsmanship.
Do we really need connectors so HUGE? Probably yes, considering the size of some cables in the market. No problem of under-sizing here: these Monopoles can clamp virtually any cable made on Earth.
But don't fret: if the cables you use are just *normal*, Carmine makes some pretty nice *normal-sized* connectors, maintaining the same craftsmanship level and choice of materials. See the picture below as an example.

Also, you don't need to learn how to use your soldering gun: everything can be firmly *clamped* and you should know that a popular issue among the audiophiles is that *clamping* is better than *soldering*. Even better, you can use some ROCOL J166 (an anti-seize compound) on the wire ends as this greatly improves the quality of the sound reproduction.
The Bocchino Audio Monopoles are also gold plated over a silver substrate.

And now let's have a look at the most impressive RCA connectors I've ever seen: the Brenda's. I think that the following pictures speak so much louder than words, here.

I've tested the Brendas with some cables I had at home. The ease of use (even here, no soldering required) and the perfect clamp over the RCA sockets definitely solve every problem with the quality of the trasfer of the signal between HiFi components.
Even the Brenda's are precisely machined out of a solid tellurium copper billet hence they are pretty heavy and, as the bigger Monopole's, pretty over-sized.
Now the question rises again: Do we really need RCA's so over-sized? The over-sizing here is needed to make assembling your own cables easy as it has never been before. You don't need tiny fingers to put everything into place: there's enough room to work without trouble.
Simply put, these are among the best RCA connectors ever made. Yes, they don't come cheap (browse the Bocchino Audio site for prices) but if you want top-quality you need to pay. Here you pay for the excellent quality of the materials used, for the effectiveness of the designs and for the excellent level of the finish and craftsmanship. The Brenda's are also available in pure stirling silver if you think copper isn't just good enough for trasferring your precious stereo signal :-).

Conclusions

A HUGE (what else?) gold plated thank you to Carmine Bocchino for having sent me these wonders for this test.

© Copyright 1998 Lucio Cadeddu