The Old Price vs Quality Debate

[armdnrdy]

Nowadays quality control, materials and R&D make up such a small portion of the total end consumer cost that you can never assume that paying more for something will actually result in a better product.  Production run size, exchange rate and labour laws in the country of manufacture, shipping weight, etc. make it so you can't simply look at a price tag to determine quality.

This may be true in some cases but is far from being the rule.

Let's talk about the Tayda jacks:

If you insert a 1/4" phone plug into the Tayda jack, look where the tip lands. It does not seat properly. This does not make for a good connection as well as the phone plug pulling out with far less "force" then a quality jack. The metal that the tip connection is made of is very weak and bendable compared to a quality jack.

I noticed all of the above some time ago and have stopped using this bargain basement jack.
This jack is of an inferior design, made with inferior materials, and from what I've read above, suffers from poor quality control as well.

I have built a few pedals for a friend's son........He loves what I've built for him! but.....He mentioned that his guitar cables come out of the jacks too easily.

I switched to Neutriks.

[R.G.]

Fast, good, cheap: pick any two.

... if you're lucky, that is. Sometimes you only get one. Sometimes none.

[LucifersTrip]

Here's a few more tidbits to be clear...

- The second nuts on the better jacks have a couple purposes. They let you set the depth of the jack and they stop the rotation of the jack when tightening. They also remove force from the barrel and prevent it from spinning.

- A better flanging also  has multiple benefits. Firstly, it holds the jack together better. When a cheap jack falls apart during tightening, it's the flanging that breaks.  Secondly, it keeps the barrel tighter and there's far less chance of that rotating when tightening. But, you barely have to worry about that when there's a second nut, anyway.

- Technically, when you tighten jacks, you should really not hold the lugs of the jack on the inside with your fingers and tighten with a wrench on the outside. This puts a force on the barrel and jack and overall weakens the jack.  The better way to tighten is with two nuts. You want to hold the inside nut with a small wrench and tighten the outer nut with a second wrench. This way, there is little or no force on the jack.

- As mentioned above, a tight fit is what you want. The looser fits from cheaper jacks simply make a worse connection and will most likely become defective in a shorter time.

[alanp]

Like Jon said, I don't like how you have to grab the connector and YANK hard to get the cable out of the pedal. Sometimes it's fun to experiment with pedal order, or swapping pedals around, and it's not fun to have to haul connectors hard while you're doing that

That said, for certain applications like valve amp output jacks, where if the cable comes out, the expensive, heavy output transformer will die a horrible death under load, I do want the Overly Attached Girlfr--er, Neutrik jack.

[pickdropper]

I've only found the Neutrik open jacks to have the death grip.  Admittedly, I am not much of a fan of those.  They also don't engage as cleanly when the plug is inserted.  No clean break over. The enclosed Neutrik jacks I've used have been fine.

I've liked every Switchcraft jack I've used.  I find their open jacks to be very nice, with a smooth insertion and clean snap.

Tayda is just all over the place with their hardware quality.  Some is OK, but most of what I've tried from them (switches in particular) is really cheaply put together and the tolerances are all over the place.  I enjoy building pedals more than taking them apart and fixing them, so I tend to use hardware I feel I can trust.

[timd]

I have found with those cheap jacks, you can easily manually set the "grip" for the plug. just bend up or down on the tip and insert the plug. Adjust from there if not perfect.

[Kesh]

They just won't screw down tighter than a certain thickness, and attempting to do so will gnarl the thread so it spins endlessly.

Solutions: use thicker enclosure, washers, or sand down the socket's edge a mm so the screw will fit closer.

[Arcane Analog]

I take back the "cheap" comment. They are junk. Period. No exaggeration there.

It seems to me the majority of folks in this thread agree with me. Making a jack out of malleable plastic material is just a bad idea. You cannot tighten them properly and they simply compress. As noted by several folks, the threads are hit and miss. I have also found they do not seat nor grip 1/4 connectors very well and they lose tension very quickly. You can bend them back but that just weakens an already weak product. I buy loads of components from Tayda but their jacks are too poor to use for test boxes let alone builds. If you sell a pedal with these jacks in them plan on getting a "customer inquiry" shortly after.

No. No and NO. (not that I dislike neutrik, but to say they are far too cheap is beyond exaggeration)

I like their plastic switchcraft style jacks.

This. 100% agreed with Luci.

If you're going to spent time researching, breadboarding, tweaking, soldering & boxing a pedal, it would seem crazy to skimp on the one part that will be used /plugged /unplugged over & over again.

I've got to say to go with at least Neutrik, Switchcraft on even higher quality if you can find em priced reasonably. There's few things worse than wasting time debugging a pedal for hours only to realize the guitar jack is not making a perfect connection with the 1/4" jack.

[mremic01]

http://www.taydaelectronics.com/6-35mm-1-4-mono-chassis-socket-jack.html

I use those jacks all the time. Yeah, Neutrik's are a lot sturdier, but if I'm swapping pedals in and out of my chain, sometimes they grip the plug too well and I want something looser. If I'm doing a heavy duty build, or one for someone else, I'll use Neutriks. For my own stuff, the Tayda jacks are fine. I've never had an issue with them. Not a single one has worn out on me and they're much better than the flimsy crap I got from Futurlec. They aren't that much cheaper than Neutriks though. I wouldn't bother with them if it weren't an issue of saving on shipping by ordering all my parts from one supplier.

[Arcane Analog]

http://www.taydaelectronics.com/6-35mm-1-4-mono-chassis-socket-jack.html

They are poor quality. No way around it.

[mremic01]

No way around it? They do the job just fine. You might not be comfortable using them in your builds, but they work and they've held up so far in every pedal I've put them in. Futurlec's jacks were unuseable, but I've yet to get an open jack from Tayda that was garbage. Their 1/4 inch plugs, on the other hand, aren't something I'd make instrument or speaker cables out of. I used a few to make speaker cables for a Ruby project, but for anything more I don't trust them.

[Arcane Analog]

As Luci said, why spend the time building a pedal and use substandard parts - especially sub-standard mechanical parts.

Makes no sense.

[armdnrdy]

1/4" plugs & jacks, also known as 1/4" phone plugs & phone jacks came into being as a way to physically change/switch a telephone connection on a telephone switchboard. (humans were the switches)



The switching was usually performed by women, who's hand strength was not equal to a man's. 



There are exceptions of course:




The "death grip" that some of you have complained about would have been very bad for these female switchboard operators and for the caller on the end of the line. The caller would have to wait patiently while the operator used her foot and both hands to try to "rip" the plug out of the jack.

In this scenario.......death grip bad!

Now let's move to the modern day use of 1/4" "phone jacks.........Stompboxes.

"Sometimes it's fun to experiment with pedal order, or swapping pedals around, and it's not fun to have to haul connectors hard while you're doing that"

I agree with this statement.......but.....I would rather have to apply a bit of pressure to remove a plug from a stompbox than to have an inferior connection that can be pulled out easily by an overzealous lead singer as he struts across the stage.
A pedal board is not a switchboard!

In this scenario.....death grip good! 

[mremic01]

As Luci said, why spend the time building a pedal and use substandard parts - especially sub-standard mechanical parts.

Makes no sense.

Sounds like you've just got it out for the Tayda jacks. I'd say they're pretty standard. Not substandard. A better way to put it would be 'why not use the best part?' The answer being that not everyone wants them that stiff. I'd rather have my plug pop out of a pedal when tripped over than have my foot break a cable, or mess up the input jack on an amp. Actually, I'd rather it just pop out than trip me while I'm holding a guitar. Sometimes the Tayda jacks can fit into tighter spots where a Switchcraft or Neutrik would short on something. Sometimes it's just what I have on hand and it does the job just fine. Sometimes I'm placing an order with Tayda, and I don't want to pay the extra shipping charges that come with ordering my jacks from somewhere else.

If know exactly where a pedal is going on the board, I plan accordingly. Pedals that get fixed in place get nice sturdy jacks. I want those to have nice solid connections, and pulling them out is something I don't expect to do very much. Pedals that move around a lot might get looser ones. The ones that I'm plugging into and out of often, it's those guys I'd really want to have looser jacks. Maybe someone else would want those spots especially to have sturdier for long term reliability. I haven't had any reliability issues with the looser, cheaper jacks, so I don't worry about it. In that case, the cheaper jack is the better jack. That's because it has the qualities I want, regardless of price.

I think my biggest beef with the Tayda jacks is the sleeve solder lug. The tip lug takes solder pretty well if you sand it a bit, and it looks coppery underneath, but the ground lug silvery even when you take off the top layer and solder doesn't like it as much. They seem to be made out of different material. I don't get bad connections, but the joints never looks as I'd like them to.

[pickdropper]

Well, if I just read the above description, I would consider them sub-standard , even if I had not tried them.  There are lots of 1/4" jacks out there.  The standard quality level does not require rework or sanding to function properly or  take solder.  Sub-standard also does not mean unusable, just that the average unit is better.

The Tayda ones are, in my experience (which does not reflect trying every jack ever produced)  made to a lower quality spec than better samples from Switchcraft, Neutrik, Amphenol, etc.  I've seen plenty of no-name Chinese jacks that were inexpensive but well made, so this isn't a case of brand snobbery.  I've also found name brand jacks at Mouser for 75 cents or so that had smooth insertion and were well made, so it isn't simply about cost either.

I guess that is why I am not enthusiastic about their jacks (and quite a bit of their other hardware).  If people like it, then they are absolutely free to use whatever they want.  I'll shop at Tayda for the parts I like from them and skip the stuff I've found to be problematic, which is what I assume most people do.

[mremic01]

I always sand my lugs a bit to get a nicer joint, even with Neutriks. I don't have to with Tayda's, but it helps. The ground lug just never looks nice, which is something I can live with. I'm not necessarily recommending the Tayda jacks, but some of the disregard for them in this thread is a bit silly. I'd call them better than average, if only because I've found 'average' jacks pretty flimsy. Name brand jacks are well above my needs for quality. These are certainly useable and reliable. And if they're not, you can always open a ticket with Tayda.

This thread was started over a nut threading issue, and that's something that I haven't encountered yet. If I had ever had that issue, I then I would agree with the guys who say they're substandard jacks and I'd be trying to get my money back. As far as reliability, I don't see what could go wrong with them over time. If it gets loose, you can just bend the tip back into place a bit. They're sturdy enough that it's not going to snap them.

[Arcane Analog]

Sounds like you've just got it out for the Tayda jacks. I'd say they're pretty standard. Not substandard. A better way to put it would be 'why not use the best part?'
...
I think my biggest beef with the Tayda jacks is the sleeve solder lug. The tip lug takes solder pretty well if you sand it a bit, and it looks coppery underneath, but the ground lug silvery even when you take off the top layer and solder doesn't like it as much. They seem to be made out of different material. I don't get bad connections, but the joints never looks as I'd like them to.

I do not "have it out" for Tayda jacks. I am simply pointing out the obvious. In this thread I have stated that I recommend and use Neutrik jacks. They are clearly not the "best part" available. They are, however, more than adequate for commercial stompbox building - and certainly DY projects. Neutrik will last a long time under heavy professional ab/use. The large difference in price with a marginal difference in quality bewteen Neutrik and Switchcraft make the Neutrik much more attractive. The small difference in price but the large quality dispairity between the Tayda jack and the Neutrik make Tayda's product look very poor.

You have proved my point with your last statement. An average jack does not take any amount of prepwork to have solder adhere - that is a trait of a substandard product as are flimsy contacts, poor tension and threads prone to stripping. The nuts have no locking teeth on them either which is another negative. I suppose these jacks are fine for someone who never leaves their bed room with their pedals but they would be completely unreliable for anything in the real world.

100% agreed with the following statements.

Well, if I just read the above description, I would consider them sub-standard , even if I had not tried them.  There are lots of 1/4" jacks out there.  The standard quality level does not require rework or sanding to function properly or  take solder.  Sub-standard also does not mean unusable, just that the average unit is better.

The Tayda ones are, in my experience (which does not reflect trying every jack ever produced)  made to a lower quality spec than better samples from Switchcraft, Neutrik, Amphenol, etc.  I've seen plenty of no-name Chinese jacks that were inexpensive but well made, so this isn't a case of brand snobbery.  I've also found name brand jacks at Mouser for 75 cents or so that had smooth insertion and were well made, so it isn't simply about cost either.

I guess that is why I am not enthusiastic about their jacks (and quite a bit of their other hardware).  If people like it, then they are absolutely free to use whatever they want.  I'll shop at Tayda for the parts I like from them and skip the stuff I've found to be problematic, which is what I assume most people do.

[Arcane Analog]

The quality of this video is as low as the Tayda jack.

[slacker]

What's the point of that video? 2 seconds to bend the contacts would tighten the loose one, the same 2 seconds of bending would loosen the other one.

Agree with you though, for all the problems people have with them, the Tayda ones don't seem like a good deal.

[Arcane Analog]

What's the point of that video? 2 seconds to bend the contacts would tighten the loose one, the same 2 seconds of bending would loosen the other one.

Agree with you though, for all the problems people have with them, the Tayda ones don't seem like a good deal.

That is as tight as the Tayda goes. I had to bend it to get it to make that much contact and the tip connector is starting to show small cracks. Granted, with a cable, it will not swing around like that but the tension issues are always a problem. By the looks of it, after a few retentionings, the jack tip will break.