I'm skint. adjective. pertaining to being poor, out of money or broke. British in origin, it derives from 'skinned'. "I'm way too skint to go drinkin' tonight."
From my recent news post: In the UltraFi Olympics, Denmark just unleashed a whole team of Ansuz challengers spanning flagship cables and power distributors. "When used in the right quantities and in combination with silver and copper, gold can dramatically improve the sonic potential of all our technologies. Zirconium is another material we tested in various products which gave them unprecedented levels of resonance control. It was only logical to include zirconium in the new Gold Signature series." Gold thus shows up as cable conductor, ground wire or base wire for dual tesla and resonance coils. The housings of the Signature range's power distributors finish in a new coating of zirconium, tungsten, aluminium titanium nitride and a final outer layer of zirconium again. Their laminate plinth finishes in titanium skins whilst the company's analog dither tech is in its now 3rd generation. A la Audioquest, even the Teflon dielectrics of these best new Ansuz cables are now charged with a small standing voltage for still lower distortion. Zirconium also features in proprietary Ansuz noise-reduction tech.
A day later, Mono & Stereo's news page had this: Audio Engineers' Zen Disc vibration control isolation devices are made from a highly effective combination of materials and technologies used in space technology, advanced aircraft and automotive manufacture. The outer housing is non-magnetic aluminum-silicon-magnesium alloy or high-strength stainless steel. The isolator balls are gunmetal (special brass alloy), ceramic (silicon nitride) or tungsten (wolfram carbide) to provide different load capacities and extreme damping. The balls are grade 10 and 5 so almost perfect spheres. Ceramic and tungsten are extremely hard, reaching 9.5 and 9.75 hardness on the Mohs scale very close to diamond's 10. Each Zen Disc and ball also features special nano-ceramic surfacing.
From my ScansonicHD review for darko.audio: Some of the most sophisticated tone my present system has made yet came compliments of Raidho’s TD-1.2 monitor. Its mid/woofer with compact wind-slip N52 super-neodymium motor had visited the Aarhus Tribology & Materials lab of the Danish Technological Institute. Their research isn’t chemical but bombards materials with divergent atoms under high kinetic energy. For the Raidho’s 6½" mid/woofer this meant adding to an aluminium core with ceramic skins an outer layer of harder tantalum then still harder diamond. The layering process occurred inside a magnetron sputtering unit. Its chamber’s oxygen was first evacuated with high-vacuum pumps and heated before being flooded with argon gas. Argon atoms then fired at the driver’s ceramic surfaces to eliminate all trace oxidation. Next, the particle bombardment switched to tantalum and applied 1’000V. Finally, carbon built a diamond layer which took still longer processing than the tantalum skin.
From my Monitor Audio preview: To gain more perspective, remember how Børresen's radically immodest €100K M1 two-way monitor gets a composite cone of aramid core with spread-tow carbon skins then a titanium coating with layers of zirconium, tungsten and finally aluminum chrome nitride all set into a 3D-printed zirconium basket. Magico coat their best beryllium tweeter with diamond and use graphene in their bigger membranes. Raidho lay up their aluminium/ceramic cone with tantalum then 1.5-carat of synthetic diamond for their dearest TD range. Monitor add to their ceramic skins two layers of directional then crossed carbon-fiber.
From a private e-mail exchange with a manufacturer of isolation footers, I learnt that they too are investigating cooperation with an aerospace lab to apply nano skins of ever harder materials to their existing design. Zu have enhanced their cellulose drivers with nano treatments for over a decade already. It's popular to proclaim nothing new under the hifi sun. Looking closer, there's simply plenty of proof to the contrary. Today's short feature focuses on feeling skinned by so much evidence of hi-tech materials science being applied as micro skins to our hobby's drivers even footers and chassis. And yes, with some of this stuff one could very well be skint post purchase; like having lost one's scalp to a Comanche. But that's another discussion….
