By Lam Seng Fatt
The Eichmann Bullet Plugs have already become a household name among DIYers and some cable manufacturers.
The Australian designer, Keith Louis Eichmann, has come up with another series of RCA plugs under under another brand – KLEI, which stands for Keith Louis Eichmann Innovations. How he got to this situation from his original Bullet Plugs is a long and tedious story filled with legal tussles.
I met Keith on the bus from my hotel in Munich, Germany, to the High End show some months ago. He was pleased to find out that I use his Bullet Plugs in one pair of interconnects in my collection and he gave me a set of his new KLEI Classic Harmony Phono/RCA Plugs.
Just like his original design, Keith eschews the use of thick metal connectors and prefers the less-is-more philosophy in his KLEI plugs. The signal pin is hollow while the ground pin is a tiny bit of metal on the side of the plug.
The theory behind using as little metal as possible is to improve conductivity and streamline the flow of electrons by reducing eddy currents. In fact, after the successful launch of his original Bullet Plugs, a major manufacturer of RCA plugs and connectors came out with a range of connectors featuring thinner metal conductors.
KLEI’s range of RCA/Phono plugs start from the Harmony range. What he gave me was the next-step up model, the Classic Harmony. Others in the range are Copper Harmony, Silver Harmony, Pure Harmony and the top-model, Absolute Harmony.
Compared with the Harmony, the Classic Harmony features:
- The Signal/Ground pins utilise KLEI™PureCopper with >101% IACS
- The Signal/Ground pins are formed/manufactured to optimize/enhance electron flow, in accordance with KL’s (proprietary) Classic Signal/Ground formula
- The Signal/Ground pins are now much stronger and shaped like a tag, which makes soldering small/large/multiple wires, very easy
- The Signal/Ground Anti-Short shield has been added between the Signal/Ground solder tags
- The Signal/Ground pins are arranged to maintain a maximised distance from each other, and the utilised foil technology ensures that Capacitive, Inductive, and EMF effects are minimized
- The Head Assembly jaw structure has been redesigned and mechanically improved, to allow an easy snap-like connection to a Phono/RCA socket, ensuring the ultimate connection with easy removal
- The Ground pin includes thread teeth to ensure that if a conductive Housing, ie metal/carbon fibre/etc, is utilised it is star-point grounded
- The Housing Assembly uses 2 screws to retain and secure the Cable
- Extremely high temperature melting point thermoplastic polymer has been utilized.
- Recommendations: >125hrs Burn-in, Cable OD sizes from 4mm to 9.5mm.
I have yet to make a pair of interconnects with the KLEI Classic Harmony RCA plugs, but they are visibly well-made and well-designed plugs with much thought put into them.
Once I have the chance to test them, I will post about my experience with them.
KLEI’s products include speaker cables and power cords. Go to its website http://kleinnovations.com/ for more details. You can also buy online from his website.
