Wide spectrum of distortions - yes, power supply filtering could be better - yes, high output resistance - yes, but where did you get that "poor and load dependent frequency response" from? As far as I know, any amp with high output resistance being loaded on frequency - dependent load would show that. Including your Red Light District.
1 Japanese out of 75 is a high net worth individual, and of them, 8 of 10 are pre-'55 generation.
Sitting ducks, marketing wise.
(me Always see giant boobs in PP-Paintings, save the Japan series, that has other giant parts)
Last edited:
The RLD is a cheap little amp with orders of magnitude better distortion and ten times lower output impedance. And I don't sell it.
It does not matter if you sell it or not. Just load equivalently to it's output resistance to match load of that blamed amp in respect to it's output resistance and measure.
It is interesting that 'fashion' is mentioned.
This started with Mark Levinson when he first worked with Dick Burwen, back about 1972. Mark hired a designer to make his LNP-2 preamp, and LNC-2 crossover, and some pro mixer cases. Dick instructed Mark on how to make first class supporting circuitry, and Dick supplied the active modules that made them work.
Later, when Japan became an important customer for this sort of high fidelity, we had to put a great deal of effort into 'fit and finish' in order to satisfy the customers.
In the case of the JC-80, the Japanese importer had his own gold plated boards made especially for Japan, and put in at the factory in the USA.
Later, when this same importer brought Vendetta Research into Japan, he was constantly complaining about 'details' such as connecting wire, connectors, etc. He also changed the price from $2500 (USA retail) to $7500, and he bought them from me for $1500 or less. You can imagine how I felt, getting only 20% of the final price for all my effort to make them.
Still, look, fit and finish is just as important to the people who buy these components as does the sound quality, and we have to allow for it, or just sell to a local market to a few friends. That's reality, folks!
This started with Mark Levinson when he first worked with Dick Burwen, back about 1972. Mark hired a designer to make his LNP-2 preamp, and LNC-2 crossover, and some pro mixer cases. Dick instructed Mark on how to make first class supporting circuitry, and Dick supplied the active modules that made them work.
Later, when Japan became an important customer for this sort of high fidelity, we had to put a great deal of effort into 'fit and finish' in order to satisfy the customers.
In the case of the JC-80, the Japanese importer had his own gold plated boards made especially for Japan, and put in at the factory in the USA.
Later, when this same importer brought Vendetta Research into Japan, he was constantly complaining about 'details' such as connecting wire, connectors, etc. He also changed the price from $2500 (USA retail) to $7500, and he bought them from me for $1500 or less. You can imagine how I felt, getting only 20% of the final price for all my effort to make them.
Still, look, fit and finish is just as important to the people who buy these components as does the sound quality, and we have to allow for it, or just sell to a local market to a few friends. That's reality, folks!
Can't argue that at all, you gotta eat. I remember reading an Asian audio review magazine some years back where one of the most important factors in the ratings was "prestige."
If horns have varying impedance with frequency, then it's a tone control. And a tone control with high distortion. Some may prefer that, but it would be easy to duplicate the effect for about 0.5% of the cost.
edit: Actually not a tone control, a fixed and uncontrolled EQ. Sorry for the sloppy terminology.
If horns have varying impedance with frequency, then it's a tone control. And a tone control with high distortion. Some may prefer that, but it would be easy to duplicate the effect for about 0.5% of the cost.
Yes, if you sense directly voltgages on speaker binding posts instead of listening to sounds.
I did that when I was a kid and did not have a voltmeter. I checked such a way batteries. The sourer are they, the fresher they are.
Eating is good. And profit is good too, albeit elusive.
This reminds me of would-be businesspersons, usually chafing in their day job, who look under the hood of some existing product, do a quick estimate of the Bill of Materials cost, and reckon that the machine is overpriced horrendously. One young man (well he's a lot older and presumably wiser now) decided he could make a product to compete with the Valhalla Scientific power meter, and sell it profitably for about double his parts cost!
Aside from living at home, eating and sleeping rent-free, and having a free workspace (the garage), he was hopelessly unaware of the intricacies and requirements of running a manufacturing business.
And another friend, who ought to know better, but again has never manufactured anything, also somehow believes that he can sell a piece of test equipment for not a lot more than a similar markup on parts. Despite being in his eighth decade and a one-man band, he expects as many as 40 or more customers to pay a substantial sum for an instrument that will somehow require no support from him (well, there won't be anyone else!). I asked him why he was doing this, and his answer was: To make money!
Brad
Sy,
Funnily enough, the US is AFAIK the only country that has actually trade enforceable standards regarding amplifier advertising/measurements. If you feel that there is something going on that violates these maybe you should, instead of airing your complaints here take them to the correct authorities.
Do I personally see merit in a 350K Amplifier (regardless of what it measures like)? Nope. But some people do and they are welcome to their 350K Amplifiers.
No, that you cannot. But you can engage in many ways that are likely worse, from an ethics viewpoint. Surely you know about the goings on than me, seeing you directly work in this sector, I only get involved very peripherally in the context of ERP System Implementations, where testing for plastics is now a ridiculously big issue.
Ciao T
Funnily enough, the US is AFAIK the only country that has actually trade enforceable standards regarding amplifier advertising/measurements. If you feel that there is something going on that violates these maybe you should, instead of airing your complaints here take them to the correct authorities.
Do I personally see merit in a 350K Amplifier (regardless of what it measures like)? Nope. But some people do and they are welcome to their 350K Amplifiers.
No, that you cannot. But you can engage in many ways that are likely worse, from an ethics viewpoint. Surely you know about the goings on than me, seeing you directly work in this sector, I only get involved very peripherally in the context of ERP System Implementations, where testing for plastics is now a ridiculously big issue.
Ciao T
I have no idea what they do and don't advertise, nor have I mentioned that. Nor have I "complained" about it- this all seems to be made up from thin air.
I suspect that the "authorities" don't give much of a flying intercourse about overpriced poorly-performing fashion baubles. Nor should they. If someone is stupid enough to buy it, that's their worry, not mine.
Yes, I do. By and large, most industry behavior is reasonably ethical. Materials advertised to have a tensile strength of "x" usually have a tensile strength of "x." No one tries to sell $1000/kilo plastics with vague claims of them making products feel better. Attempts to market materials fraudulently are quite rare- I've seen that happen maybe twice in the 30 years I've worked in the plastics industry. But high end audio is a fashion industry, so I think you'd do better analogizing to (say) the jewelry business or perfumery. Or even the wine business, where I saw dozens of examples of outright fraud in the decade or so I spent doing that.
At the risk of going off-topic (loud chorus of laughter) I have to mention a plastics story.
I have two on-loan turntables, both Heybrook TT2, which if I understand correctly were promoted as something of a poor-person's Linn. One is fitted with an SME V arm and a Grado moving iron cartridge of some vintage.
To begin with, for both turntables they were dead-on-arrival, much to the surprise and consternation of the loaning party. So I have had to replace components in both power supplies (crystal-oscillator-derived signals and a discrete high voltage amplifier for the synchronous motor). Two different crystals are switched via the top rotary switch, a terrible idea, and as well the dry-contact character means the switch gets intermittent, with the thing just quitting in the middle of a play sometimes. But you roll with the punches.
Also, with both 'tables, just sitting there or with use, doesn't seem to matter, the hinges for the dustcover eventually break out of their slots. So they have to be removed and the cover, if used, placed over the machine and positioned carefully. OK, inconvenient but again one r's with the p's.
So one day I noticed that a large accumulation of dust on the cover might do with some wiping-off, and got a dustcloth. I did this, perhaps a bit unwisely, while a record was being played.
The static charge thus induced lifted the SME arm right off the record, to stick to the cover. Electrostatic force 1, graviational force 0, for that round.
It did lead me to speculate about how many times residual electric fields might be spoiling the assumptions of carefully adjusted tracking force.
As one might suppose, I play records with the cover removed now, factoring in the greater need to wash the records from time to time.
Brad
I have two on-loan turntables, both Heybrook TT2, which if I understand correctly were promoted as something of a poor-person's Linn. One is fitted with an SME V arm and a Grado moving iron cartridge of some vintage.
To begin with, for both turntables they were dead-on-arrival, much to the surprise and consternation of the loaning party. So I have had to replace components in both power supplies (crystal-oscillator-derived signals and a discrete high voltage amplifier for the synchronous motor). Two different crystals are switched via the top rotary switch, a terrible idea, and as well the dry-contact character means the switch gets intermittent, with the thing just quitting in the middle of a play sometimes. But you roll with the punches.
Also, with both 'tables, just sitting there or with use, doesn't seem to matter, the hinges for the dustcover eventually break out of their slots. So they have to be removed and the cover, if used, placed over the machine and positioned carefully. OK, inconvenient but again one r's with the p's.
So one day I noticed that a large accumulation of dust on the cover might do with some wiping-off, and got a dustcloth. I did this, perhaps a bit unwisely, while a record was being played.
The static charge thus induced lifted the SME arm right off the record, to stick to the cover. Electrostatic force 1, graviational force 0, for that round.
It did lead me to speculate about how many times residual electric fields might be spoiling the assumptions of carefully adjusted tracking force.
As one might suppose, I play records with the cover removed now, factoring in the greater need to wash the records from time to time.
Brad
- Status
- Not open for further replies.