By Paul McGowan From PS Audio

Faced with two choices for chips, one with sea salt the other with just ordinary salt, I will always choose the former. I have no idea if sea salt is better than the regular kind but that little modifier at the beginning suggests it probably is.

I want better.

Faced with two choices in cables, oxygen-free copper and regular old copper, I will always choose the former. I have no idea if oxygen-free copper actually sounds better than regular old copper. But it seems like it should.

I want better.

And even if there’s no discernable difference between the two why would I not choose the special one? Salt from the sea is said to have more beneficial minerals and copper free from oxygen should have fewer impurities.

I want better.

There are certainly benefits to any number of specialized products that can be demonstrably better than the regular kind without them: PCOCC copper, film and foil capacitors, higher speed, lower noise, greater linearity devices.

The challenge is to wade through the chaff of that extra modifying word that promises a step up from the ordinary variety.

I suppose this is a somewhat cynical view and that’s not my intent. High bias class A circuitry definitely outperforms the regular kind in an amplifier passing music but I am not so sure about ultra-linear or femto-accurate.

I guess my point is to add a small sprinkle of caution to our choice making process. As consumers, we’re inundated with marketing modifiers to the point of exhaustion—or at least acceptance. Why not choose the one with something special? Well, because it just may be that the original kind is not only as good it just might be better. So we wind up with an entirely different set of modifiers like original formula, traditional method, heritage pure.

Whatever the modifiers you are faced with my best advice is to look to the source of the words. Is it from someone you trust? Then it’s probably just fine and their way of jazzing up an otherwise boring copy.

Now, where were those non-GMO, gluten-free, homogenized, pasteurized, expeller pressed, clarified, purified, fortified, chips I was going to eat?

Oops, forgot sea salt.

For more on this story go to: https://www.psaudio.com/pauls-posts/sea-salt/