brushro said:
I'm looking to tweak my system a bit & wonder if anyone has any experience w/the Cardas Cap covers?
Are they overrated & waste of time/money?
Is there another product that works as well or better for the price?
How about a DYI product?
Cap covers are a solution to a problem that doesn't exist! At 3 or 4 dollars each, this can waste a lot of money depending on how many unused RCA jacks you have on the back of your receiver. At this price, they are more expensive than many RCA plugs!
While I don't have any direct experience with cap covers as such, I have had experience with RFI noise. Years ago I had a problem with a neighbor's ham radio transmitter. When I told him about it, he was quite helpful in fixing it. One of the solutions was replacing my interconnect cables with better shielded ones. Unshielded or poorly shielded interconnect cables can act as antennas for radio signals. The other solutions were done by my neighbor on his transmitter and antenna to block the source of the RFI. Other audible sources of RFI come from such sources as noisy taxicab tranmitters or local airport control towers. If you have such a problem you will definitely hear it. It is not subtle.
Other sources of RFI or EMI are computers and the rechargers for laptops, refrigerators, old furnaces, and some older cordless telephones. These are usually much weaker sources of interference and can usually be dealt with by moving them further away from your receiver, or by using a different electric power circuit.
I don't see how cap covers solve any problem at all other than relieving you of some cash. If those unused RCA jacks keep you awake at night with worry, try covering them with aluminum foil to see if there is any audible improvement. If there is, then you have already solved the problem.
