>>Well, I must respectfully disagree. I have 50 year old equipment that
uses standard "open" 1/4 jacks and they work just fine. Ditto for my
PAIA gear from the 70s--and those jacks were anything but expensive.
And I confess that I dislike the "buttery" feel of switchcraft jacks.<<
I wasn't talking about the specific jack, but rather the manufacturer. Switchcraft makes the best open and enclosed jacks, in my opinion. I was with a company that was one of the world's largest consumers of 1/4" jacks, and when we went from Switchcraft to other brands it ended up costing us in jack problems and failures.
Ivan