Here’s a production lesson we learned over the summer: Black anodizing looks better than silver, and it’s easier to engrave.
Engraving plain aluminum (“silver”) parts requires a special type of spray paint, which costs $70 per can. The parts must be cleaned, sprayed, dried, and then engraved at a staggeringly slow speed on the laser engraver. Then we rinse off the spray paint to clean the parts. It’s slow.
Engraving black anodized aluminum is much friendlier. We place parts in the engraver and set speed to maximum. Finished.
c421 Black Edition
Anyway, Nick has done another fantastic job transitioning c421 case production to our in-house CNC!
The c421 Black Edition actually marks a small internal change. In response to In Ear Matters review in June, we swapped output ferrites from an 11 ohm part to a 2 ohm part (PCB has not changed). It’s an extremely subtle change which can be made to any c421. Black endplates are also available as an upgrade kit for current c421 owners.
Black ODACs
Similarly, our Standalone ODAC and RCA Standalone ODACs are also now built primarily in black.
ODA Update
If you know about NwAvGuy’s ODA project, you already know as much as we do (that is, not much). Judging by his blog, he’s taking an extended break. That’s all we know for now.
Could we be seeing an all-black O2 soon?
It definitely seems like NwAvGuy is taking a long break. He used to update comments every couple days, a week a most. He hasn’t updated them for about a month.
All-black O2′s are coming as well.
You should offer a “black out” combo kit that comes with the black plates for the o2 and the odac
I hope NwAvGuy is well… He’s one of best people in DIY audio…
No Kiddin’ :/