That's an important question nowadays. As you may know, tin is the majority ingredient for all solder (especially lead-free solder, which is over 95% tin), and the worldwide price of tin has been skyrocketing (due to huge demand by industrialized China and India, as well as the declining purchasing power of the US dollar). The price of tin has more than tripled in the past two years!

These ongoing, dramatic cost increases for solder ingredients are so rapid that major electronics distributors won't even post a fixed price for solders on their active websites, instead posting the price as "market price". "Market price" - that's how they price exotic, expensive items like lobster in fancy restaurants! We've already had to make minor solder price adjustments based on our existing tin stock, and bigger price adjustments are inevitable soon when we buy more tin - so grab it while you can still get it at this price!

Solder has suddenly changed from a cheap commodity we used to take for granted, into a premium priced ingredient of an audio component. So it's important to take a sober look at your true cost for solder.

We conducted a simple test. We weighed an unsoldered PC board with our lab scale (accurate to 1/100 gram), then we soldered a whole lot of its holes, and then we weighed it again, to measure how much solder we had added (as a double check, we also weighed the hank of solder we used, both before and after, to measure how much solder had been consumed). From there it was simple arithmetic to compute how much each solder joint cost, when made with Wonder Solder (we used the more expensive thin Wonder Solder, at its current price of $49 per pound).

So, what's the cost of using premium Wonder Solder to make a solder joint? Just 1/10 of one cent !!!

Now, let's look at what this scientific measurement finding means.

Sonic Improvement

First, let's talk about sonic improvement. Wonder Solder is world famous for sounding better than any other solder - better than premium solders that cost about as much as Wonder Solder, and far better than ordinary solders that cost somewhat less.

You can actually hear the sonic improvement from just one solder joint, being made with Wonder Solder instead of some other solder. Think about what this demonstration means. You are hearing this sonic improvement of course via your whole audio system. Thus, you are improving the sound of literally your whole system by investing just 1/10 cent in one solder joint, made with Wonder Solder!

Note that, when you hear the sonic improvement in your system from changing just one solder joint to wonder solder, you are still listening to the music signal via a system chain that contains hundreds of other solder joints made with inferior solder. So, since you can already hear a sonic improvement from just one solder joint, imagine the much greater improvement you'll hear if you change all those other solder joints in your system, through which the music signal must pass, from inferior solder to Wonder Solder!

How much might this cost? Suppose that a typical audio component (say a preamp) has 400 solder joints. It would cost you merely 40 cents to upgrade every solder joint in that whole component to Wonder Solder! Would you invest 40 cents to thoroughly make over the sound of every solder joint in your whole audio component? Incidentally, Wonder Solder can still dramatically improve the sound of each solder joint by merely adding it to each existing joint, in a reflow process that's simple, quick, and easy (so you don't have to wick away the old inferior solder, if you don't want to do that extra step).

It's also important to compare the cost of Wonder Solder to ordinary solders, for making new solder joints. Suppose that Wonder Solder costs twice as much per pound as ordinary solders. This means that your incremental cost for using Wonder Solder instead of ordinary solder is merely 1/20 cent per joint, or 20 cents for a whole audio component with 400 solder joints. Would you invest 20 cents extra, to make a whole audio component sound much better?


Wonder Solder's True Cost: Better than FREE !!

Wonder Solder is also world famous for being much faster (and easier) to use than other solders. Wonder Solder melts faster, and is much, much faster at wetting the joint, flowing into the joint, and saturating the joint. So you complete each solder joint in much less time with Wonder Solder, compared to other solders. And time is money.

We measured the time and labor cost for making each solder joint, for Wonder Solder vs. other solders. Suppose you pay your assembler merely $10 per hour (or suppose your own time is worth merely $10 per hour). Then, by our actual measurement, each Wonder Solder joint costs about 1 cent in labor. Note that this labor cost for each solder joint is 10 times the cost of the solder itself. If you have a shop or factory, your true labor cost is closer to $20 per hour, including benefits and plant overhead, so each solder joint costs 2 cents in labor (plant overhead is important - for example, if each solder joint takes twice as long with an inferior solder, then you have to provide twice as many solder stations, hence twice the factory square footage, to get the same workflow done).

So the true labor cost for each solder joint is about 2 cents (when made with Wonder Solder). This labor cost is 20 times the cost of the Wonder Solder itself for each solder joint, even at Wonder Solder's premium price !!

Then, to be more realistic, recognize that you have to buy some kind of solder to make the product, so let's look at the incremental cost of premium Wonder Solder over cheap ordinary solder, which costs say half the price per pound. This means that the labor cost for each solder joint is about 40 times the incremental cost of premium Wonder Solder over cheap ordinary solders.

What does all this mean? Simple. Since your labor cost for each solder joint is 40 times your incremental cost of using premium Wonder Solder for each joint instead of ordinary cheap solder, this means very simply that, if Wonder Solder

(Continued on page 23)