Originally Posted by Johnny2Bad
Lexicon adds a more robust chassis. Regardless of the intrinsic value of those parts, it may help with certain aspects of audio performance (or it may not, but my experience is it often does).
Really? Do you have any proof for this?
Well, I'm not sure what would satisfy you in the way of "proof". I said "certain aspects of audio performance". and I didn't make a claim that the Lexicon version enjoys a benefit. I said it might or it might not. I've never seen the Lexicon in person, and I probably never will, so I'm not going to make absolute statements about what it definitely does or does not do. I do feel I'm free to offer conjecture, so I did.
But, taking your question at face value, with equipment I do have direct experience with, I'll bite.
I will give one example, but it isn't a matter of one-size-fits-all. A good chassis can offer benefits on a number of fronts.
Electromagnetic Interference is one rather obvious example. A well shielded piece of electronics not only is less susceptible to EMI and other radio interference, it radiates less interference to other devices that may have less than perfect shielding.
Introducing a "leaky" device into an audio chain can adversely affect components that otherwise performed better when the new thing wasn't around, while preventing EMI from affecting the component under test is just good design practice.
Ever notice that you can't really buy a "modded" computer from a mainstream manufacturer? Take out the shielding and replace it with a plexi window, and it no longer meets FCC specs and can't legally be sold, because computers by their nature emit a lot of EMI.
That's why people mod them as a hobby, or if you do buy such a computer, it's from a shop that assembles them from components they sell. A bare case does not have to meet an FCC standard; it has no electronics in it out of the box. Those shops don't submit the assembled end product to the FCC. They wouldn't dare, actually, but nobody expects them to either.
If you look at broadcast equipment, where the environment pretty much has to contain a huge amount of gear, and where small signals are amplified (eg microphones & mic cabling), where cable runs are bundled, run parallel, are connected in patch bays with adjacent connectors that are "too close" but that can't be helped much, and where crosstalk is a constant issue, they are shielded at multiple levels. Individual parts inside are shielded, stages inside the unit are shielded, the casework is built around them with more shielding. They do that because it works.
Although you can "overkill" anything, it's hard to overkill shielding. It's one of the rare cases when too much is just enough. There are lots of people who have fought with the cab company's dispatcher coming over the stereo, where the wifi dies every time the neighbor across the hall pops a bowl of soup into the microwave or the portable phone rings. All audio components are dealing with small signals at some point and they are all vulnerable to EMI; the ones that shrug it off the best have robust shielding on all six sides and usually more inside. To do shielding right, the material has got to be metal.
Any audio component that is mechanical in nature is also susceptible to vibration; everyone knows someone whose CD player can't handle the bumps. Mass helps here. (Okay, two examples).
And so on.
I don't know if that comprises "proof" to you or not. But, it's not like it was my idea; the concept has a wide level of acceptance by people smarter than me, and was being taught to engineers when the hottest plane an airline could buy came with a prop.
