I was quite surprised to hear this email below few days ago. Yes I knew that some Cardas SRCA has Cardas logo, found on their reference or factory terminated cable – but I didn’t know (or didn’t realize) if their separate selling of the SRCA (plug only) shouldn’t have this logo.

According to Josh Meredith, the SRCA with Cardas logo is a fake or counterfeit one. Except if you buy a factory terminated cable.

Should I say I’m lucky or not? That I have both type of SRCA on hand… >.<

I bought the ‘considered fake one’ on the common public online marketplace ‘where you can buy almost everything’  – I do hope you got my clue. I bought at similar price with common retailer like PCX. The reason for me to buy from that marketplace was the delivery time was faster as the seller was from Asia, instead of – let’s say PCX – which located on Canada. And that kind of shortcut leaded me into throwing money into garbage bin. Since it’s already happened, there is no reason to cry. Let’s see what is the different from the physical side between those two.

From the physical side, in general, they are similar. But there are some visible clue like shown below. The tip of the plug on the fake one is well rounded, while the original one is slightly sharper. Off course, no logo on the original one as mentioned by the email above. Last, the reflection of the copper barrel also quite different. A little bit difficult to be seen with bare eyes, but quite clear on the photo.

Zoomed version of the copper barrel. Can you see the different? The original one got better texture and build quality, also leads into better reflection on the photo.

The Teflon shield to separate the ground and the signal also got some gap on the original one. Meanwhile the fake one got a flat style.

The signal side also smaller and shorter. The build quality also not as good as the original one.

Inside shoot of the Teflon separator between the signal and ground connector. The fake one got a flat model, meanwhile the original one got an extra gap there.

The ground connector also got slightly different model.

Another ‘best’ thing is the Cardas logo – even it’s fake – it’s really well made. Below is two copper barrel of the fake SRCA. I use Brasso Metal Polish to polish the barrel. Normally, this kind of fake stuff will use cheap stamping. If that’s so – surely the logo shall be removed easily with Brasso – as this is quite strong cleaner. But as you can see, the left barrel has been polished (and got brighter and shiny color), but the Cardas logo remains intact! I tried to wipe them seriously, but got no result to erase it. Despite it’s fake status, I think this is really a ‘serious and well made’ item. I put two thumbs up for the build quality of this fake Cardas SRCA (but off course, I don’t agree with counterfeit item). So, fake is a fake… and spending money to buy fake item was not a good experience in my life 🙂