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Posted
54 minutes ago, cafe67 said:

Suddenly, everybody's Tim de Paravicini 


I was lucky enough to meet Tim before he died and talk electronics,  digitisation of design, and a range of other things.  He was a great designer and engineer and a real gentleman, he understood the importance of circuit design, circuit layout, component spacing, manufacturing quality and build quality.  There’s no way he would have released something as poor the subject of this thread under any of the brands he worked with.

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Posted

I think the really sad thing is, the actual design looks like an all-out assault and best-of-breed.

We know that no two designers are ever going to agree on every design decision Mr. Evans has made on the unit in question, but nevertheless, I bet it sounds great!

Given some better engineering and a sane price-tag, the unit could be a real winner!

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Posted (edited)

The Tom Evans phono stages do sound superb.

 

The dual mono quad boards take up a lot of room inside the phono, so making them sit on top of each other was no doubt a design decision to fit into one box.

 

Worth 25k pounds, no.  But Tom Evans is not unique in this world of overpriced hifi.

 

BTW  -  this infamous Supratek preamp birds best certainly looks a lot worse.

 

17319290497645359550737287240661.jpg.be3f04c1879472b774741d4805d553c4.jpg

Edited by metal beat
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Posted
9 hours ago, metal beat said:

The Tom Evans phono stages do sound superb.

 

The dual mono quad boards take up a lot of room inside the phono, so making them sit on top of each other was no doubt a design decision to fit into one box.

 

Worth 25k pounds, no.  But Tom Evans is not unique in this world of overpriced hifi.

 

BTW  -  this infamous Supratek preamp birds best certainly looks a lot worse.

 

17319290497645359550737287240661.jpg.be3f04c1879472b774741d4805d553c4.jpg


Wow, that is worse than any DIY thing I’ve ever seen.  Was it released for sale like this or is that a prototype?  Who owns Supratek?  Unbelievable that they would release something like this.

Posted

I know that a lot of the cost of these devices is in parts matching and binning to ridiculously tight tolerances with very expensive tightly calibrated test equipment, and when you are regarded as being among the best in the world you do get into the "name any price and they will pay" territory, and I don't want to diminish Tom Evans work in any way but when your average Joe or casual hi-fi enthusiast sees the price tag, then sees what's inside and how it has been made they don't sit there and think "oh there's a lot of value there in circuit design, parts and labour", they see "poorly built rip-off with a $30,000 markup" and that's sad.

 

A small amount of care in presentation inside and out goes a very, very long way in perceived value, especially from people who might have an interest in exploring high end, but have never dived into it.

 

The other thing that rubs people the wrong way and cheapens your perceived value is sanding the numbers off parts, it's not about discouraging cloning (the video proved anyone with some knowledge and time can map out the circuit and identity components), its about covering up that your design is based around industry standard parts like NE5532 opamps, and standard linear regulators.

 

 

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Posted
2 minutes ago, GaryT said:

I know that a lot of the cost of these devices is in parts matching and binning to ridiculously tight tolerances with very expensive tightly calibrated test equipment

 

 

However,   better designs will not require such expensive and time consuming matching and setup.   Sometimes there is no choise, but in instances, such as his use of 4 parallel opamps (require said matching and high tolerances) to reduce noise on the MC input, I know there are better ways to do it.  

 

6 minutes ago, GaryT said:

The other thing that rubs people the wrong way and cheapens your perceived value is sanding the numbers off parts, it's not about discouraging cloning (the video proved anyone with some knowledge and time can map out the circuit and identity components), its about covering up that your design is based around industry standard parts like NE5532 opamps, and standard linear regulators.

 

Yes, it's wrong, and will make service people dislike his stuff,and charge more, while laughing at the attempt.

Posted
2 minutes ago, aussievintage said:

However,   better designs will not require such expensive and time consuming matching and setup.   Sometimes there is no choice, but in instances, such as his use of 4 parallel opamps (require said matching and high tolerances) to reduce noise on the MC input, I know there are better ways to do it. 

 

Quite right, since I suspect the opamps are standard (but still very good) ne5532's or similar there are better ways to do it, and lower noise and signal matching can be achieved with a proper PCB design and SMD parts.

 

Then comes the chassis design, I know some people will talk about the benefits of low mass and non-conductive enclosures, but until I see definitive measurements proving method is better than CNC-ing a solid billet of aluminium with perfect cutouts for each board and breakthroughs for wires between sections like Boulder or many other well reviewed higher end manufacturers do (often at a much lower sale price...) I will still prefer heavy, non-resonant, non-static, metal enclosures.

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Posted
7 hours ago, POV said:


Wow, that is worse than any DIY thing I’ve ever seen.  Was it released for sale like this or is that a prototype?  Who owns Supratek?  Unbelievable that they would release something like this.

 

Supratek is a well respected Aussie audio company out of WA.

 

https://www.supratek.com.au/

 

 

Posted
6 hours ago, GaryT said:

The other thing that rubs people the wrong way and cheapens your perceived value is sanding the numbers off parts, it's not about discouraging cloning (the video proved anyone with some knowledge and time can map out the circuit and identity components), its about covering up that your design is based around industry standard parts like NE5532 opamps, and standard linear regulators.

 

 

I  used to have a Lavardin IT amp and they went even further by putting epoxy on the boards so you can't even reverse engineer the circuits.  The only way to fix a problem is to send it back to France.

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Posted
19 minutes ago, PKay said:

The only way to fix a problem is to send it back to France.

guarantee they wouldn't remove the epoxy and re-work it , they would just pick up another module of the shelf and drop it in.

 

I've also seen epoxy potted blocks inside of gear that just have wires passing straight through them, purely for show.

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Posted

 

6 hours ago, GaryT said:

...The other thing that rubs people the wrong way and cheapens your perceived value is sanding the numbers off parts, it's not about discouraging cloning (the video proved anyone with some knowledge and time can map out the circuit and identity components), its about covering up that your design is based around industry standard parts like NE5532 opamps, and standard linear regulators.

 

6 hours ago, aussievintage said:

...Yes, it's wrong, and will make service people dislike his stuff,and charge more, while laughing at the attempt.

 

I have come across this before, and I think it reflects poorly on the designer/manufacturer who does this.  A too sensitive personality?  Too much ego?  A paranoid personality?  Or a con-artist trying to deliberately rip people off with an inflated price?

 

However, the primary objection I have to it is that it builds obsolescence into either specialist equipment or high-end equipment.  If I'm going to pay £25K for an item, I would want to be reassured that I am going to be able to get it easily repaired should something go wrong.  And that it will be able to be repaired in a reasonable lifetime for the item (and I would expect 60+yrs for something like this preamp), even if the original manufacturer is no longer around.  Something like this isn't like a $300 surround amplifier or blutooth speaker that you would understand these days would have a limited lifespan and not repairable if it develops a problem. 

 

 

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Posted
2 minutes ago, muon* said:

Does any 30k component look like value inside?

Don't have a look at the Meitner gear - last time I looked it was mostly empty box.

Posted

I'm mostly OK with empty boxes, not every component is equally complex and made up of a lot of large components, but you still want your product range to look coherent and have gear that stacks nicely or looks good on a shelf.

 

 

Posted
16 minutes ago, metal beat said:

 

Have u lost respect for Supratek  Peter?  

Looking at that mess I wouldn’t consider it. Especially when you compare it with Tron or EAR

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Posted (edited)
3 hours ago, PKay said:

I  used to have a Lavardin IT amp and they went even further by putting epoxy on the boards so you can't even reverse engineer the circuits.  The only way to fix a problem is to send it back to France.

If it's only epoxy, it can be easily reworked with heat tools. We used to have to do that with radio equipment from aircraft, when I was in the RAAF. Excavate around the faulty components, repair the fault, then infill the parts you excavated. Luckily it was clear epoxy though, and had no colouring or anti abrasive additives to make it more difficult.

 

Edit: This is something similar to what I was talking about, except the resin completely covered all but the larger components. This is just a pic I found online.

 

54068388907_d9d66687cf_k.jpg.366ac1ca0d4a649dbc032d47a00d9542.jpg

 

Edited by bob_m_54
Posted (edited)
2 hours ago, PKay said:

Looking at that mess I wouldn’t consider it. Especially when you compare it with Tron or EAR

 

Me either 😀

 

But there is not much inside the large Tron 7 phono box

 

17320072763378624377924350705506.jpg.b7b1a7e1b3ebc3d71d073dc257a129b8.jpg

Edited by metal beat
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Posted (edited)
22 hours ago, metal beat said:

The Tom Evans phono stages do sound superb.

 

The dual mono quad boards take up a lot of room inside the phono, so making them sit on top of each other was no doubt a design decision to fit into one box.

 

Worth 25k pounds, no.  But Tom Evans is not unique in this world of overpriced hifi.

 

BTW  -  this infamous Supratek preamp birds best certainly looks a lot worse.

 

17319290497645359550737287240661.jpg.be3f04c1879472b774741d4805d553c4.jpg


Oh sure, s*** can the poor bloke having a go.

It’s not like the input labels have been added with a Dymo……… oh wait 🙈

 

*actually not sure if that was ever factory or user applied. Either way I’d prefer them on the chassis

Edited by Jakeyb77_Redux
Posted
5 hours ago, metal beat said:

 

Supratek is a well respected Aussie audio company out of WA.

 

https://www.supratek.com.au/

 

 

 

Well it's pretty clear that they don't respect themselves.  There is no excuse for that mess.

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Posted
1 hour ago, metal beat said:

 

Me either 😀

 

But there is not much inside the large Tron 7 phono box

 

17320072763378624377924350705506.jpg.b7b1a7e1b3ebc3d71d073dc257a129b8.jpg

It works really well and Graham is probably applying the KISS philosophy. 

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