sorry, its a blunt and random question but totally literal. here is my story, bought a chinese el34 integrate several months ago, the thing smelled sharply of 'paint shop' odor, so i had it in a separate room with long signal wires running from behind a closed door. the sound was still exquisite enough to turn me into a tube dedicate, ultimately. but the amp wouldn't keep stinking up that awful toxic smell, so i finally got it partially refunded. it's for this generous service that i refuse to mention the manufacturer's name. now i'm looking for another tube integrate, and would like to know which brand models smell and which doesn't. the kind of smell i'm talking about is usually of the transformer varnish that should have dissipated during assembly but still doesn't after months of continuous use. it smells of paint. and the other smell is.. well, paint on the chassis. again, it should have been dried off before purchase but it doesn't, since it's of poor quality.
why such a fuss over a minor odor, some might say (especially the sellers). but my amp was releasing heavy fumes. it soaked into the fall wear clothes that i had in storage in that room in a duffel bag. when i opened it up yesterday to move them to the dresser, i reeled from the sharp smell. every single one of my clothes were bleached in that paint smell which didn't air out after half a day. i spent rest of that day laundering all my clothes and my girlfriend's. i should bow never to purchase a chinese amp again, but their value is just too great to ignore. diy is a much more hassle for me and not that economic since i'm living in china which means paying half of my project budget on shipping from overseas.
so please let me know, does your chinese amp smell during operation? did it ever from the initial unwrapping? thanks. cheers.
why such a fuss over a minor odor, some might say (especially the sellers). but my amp was releasing heavy fumes. it soaked into the fall wear clothes that i had in storage in that room in a duffel bag. when i opened it up yesterday to move them to the dresser, i reeled from the sharp smell. every single one of my clothes were bleached in that paint smell which didn't air out after half a day. i spent rest of that day laundering all my clothes and my girlfriend's. i should bow never to purchase a chinese amp again, but their value is just too great to ignore. diy is a much more hassle for me and not that economic since i'm living in china which means paying half of my project budget on shipping from overseas.
so please let me know, does your chinese amp smell during operation? did it ever from the initial unwrapping? thanks. cheers.
Check out the stuff from Twins Audio here on diyaudio. A lot of electronic components are made there in China so it is not the case that you would necessarily have to import anything if you wanted to build your own.. I've used Twins Audio transformers in one of my projects and they are excellent, further based on correspondence and looking at their designs & pix of finished amps I think you would find one of their amplifiers an excellent performer.
I used to have a line of products that I oem'd in Shenzen, they smelled for a couple of weeks to a month when new, and then no longer did. It was as you say just paint and varnish, more correctly the volatile components in the paint or varnish. This unit may have had a particularly odoriferous paint formulation. Placing a new unit in a confined space may not have helped.
I used to have a line of products that I oem'd in Shenzen, they smelled for a couple of weeks to a month when new, and then no longer did. It was as you say just paint and varnish, more correctly the volatile components in the paint or varnish. This unit may have had a particularly odoriferous paint formulation. Placing a new unit in a confined space may not have helped.
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thanks, the diy route is looking sunnier with that info.
i had the window open in that room at all times except on rainy days. the transformers were varnished, actually, not potted. i even had it out in the sun with the transformer cover off for two days- 90 degrees baking hot. that changed the characteristic of the smell, somewhat, but it did not lessen the intensity and i feared that was enough experimenting, so back to the room they went until i was granted the refund.
right now i'm looking at opera consonance m100 series and shengya v60 (a.k.a. vincent v60) Opera seems decent quality but overpriced as compared to other chinese brands. vincent v60 looks appealing but the internals look like it was made by radioshack.
i had the window open in that room at all times except on rainy days. the transformers were varnished, actually, not potted. i even had it out in the sun with the transformer cover off for two days- 90 degrees baking hot. that changed the characteristic of the smell, somewhat, but it did not lessen the intensity and i feared that was enough experimenting, so back to the room they went until i was granted the refund.
right now i'm looking at opera consonance m100 series and shengya v60 (a.k.a. vincent v60) Opera seems decent quality but overpriced as compared to other chinese brands. vincent v60 looks appealing but the internals look like it was made by radioshack.
Difficult to tell which this amp was. I wonder if it was a Audioromy?
What make does it say on the badge?
That would be a useful clue as to the make..
It's the smell of victory!
FWIW, I've bought ten transformers from James with zero problems (whether smell or otherwise), so I wouldn't generalize either. They aren't expensive, but they're not cheap, either. Cheap Chinese amps, on the other hand...
Hmmm... that's a tricky political question.
Depends which side of the strait you're on when you ask.
Seriously, Taiwan is worlds apart from mainland China. Taiwan was where China is now, about 40-50 years ago (culturally, politically and economically). They grew up, but China is just a monstrous prepubescent youngster at this stage.
but I digress...
..Todd
Going slightly off topic - I have several plastic drawer organizers (I presume they all came on a slow boat from China), some bought from Office Depot/Staples that were fine. Others I bought at "discount" from Big Lots and/or Aldi Foods, and they smelled and outgassed for months, and they still do a little bit. I can imagine this caused by such a mix problem or bad ingredient in manufacturing, not bad enough to cause mechanically bad product, but bad enough to outgas.
Your description of the likely problem also reminds me of the bad capacitor problem, traced to a stolen but incomplete electrolyte formula used in Chinese electrolytics:
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/everything-else/169516-tale-bad-capacitors-taking-company-down.html
It makes me wonder about China's rather fast rampup to a huge manufacturing economy, and the perhaps inevitable shortcuts and semidefective products due to a lack of engineers and managers experienced with what manufacturing problems could come up and how to correct and prevent them.
On the other hand, I can see such problems being reduced substantially over time - I'm old enough to remember when "Made in Japan" on consumer products meant junk.
i'm trying to do just the opposite of generalizing. i wanna specify which brands have non-odorous models so that i can buy them. the only reason i keep saying 'chinese amp' instead of naming the maker is because, as i said, they offered me a partial refund after many months so i want to keep them anonymous out of gratitude.
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I was making my interconnects and opted not to get the -450 centigrade cryo-treated bullcrap. When I got the parts half of the terminations had the "cryo-treated" sticker on them. I guess they ran out of non-frozen ones?
Anyway the ones that had be frozen smelled like an old train museum. Any Brits on this forum that have a single drop of Britannic blood in their veins will have visited the National Railway Museum at least once and know exactly the odour to which I am referring. That ancient axle grease smell.
I still can't figure out what part of the freezing process would smell that way. Nitrogen is odorless... so liquid nitrogen is odorless. Likewise for liquid helium...
Anyway the ones that had be frozen smelled like an old train museum. Any Brits on this forum that have a single drop of Britannic blood in their veins will have visited the National Railway Museum at least once and know exactly the odour to which I am referring. That ancient axle grease smell.
I still can't figure out what part of the freezing process would smell that way. Nitrogen is odorless... so liquid nitrogen is odorless. Likewise for liquid helium...
That MUST be the reason these particular Chinese amps smell. Maybe they will never rust.
I have a Grant Fidelity amplifier (mfg'd in China) that smells like coffee and BBQ from Planet 10's estate. I'm not ready to blame that on any nation except Canada.
..Todd
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