Yes I agree and I’m not critiquing peoples desires and I do celebrate the spirit. Regarding my use of the word utility, yes, a value judgement- how could it be anything but? If you’d like you could start a thread “why are you here?” and gather some poll data. We can argue semantics until the cows come home but then you miss the forest.
I think many are misjudging my angle- my spirit is of goodwill and a desire to help and share, not to troll and incite tribal warfare. My suggestion is maybe it’s not simply the mere will of the people but a social mechanism dictating more of the outcome than we care to examine. I think it’s shortsighted to leave it at the level of analysis you proposed. That level of social analysis is akin to sighted resistor brand comparison in audio analysis.
Perhaps a piece could be an atmosphere that is not conducive to as much collaboration- not just in a singular project but across projects, that encourages connection. Or something as simple as the organizational boxes which encourage deposits that fit them. Maybe the most able have grown sad and curmudgeonly from endless capacitor threads that didn’t see swifter moderation.
Are you aware of the structure of Romy The Cat’s site with the “knowledge tree”? I find that fascinating. Also, please don’t construe my examples as making concrete suggestions for diyaudio, but rather an effort to illuminate a point. As you are aware science tells us we are less perceptive and less insightful to our own motives and have less free will than we presume. This is especially so in groups. So my hope is that if you value the fruits of scientific inquiry you will take your thinking some steps further.
I think many are misjudging my angle- my spirit is of goodwill and a desire to help and share, not to troll and incite tribal warfare. My suggestion is maybe it’s not simply the mere will of the people but a social mechanism dictating more of the outcome than we care to examine. I think it’s shortsighted to leave it at the level of analysis you proposed. That level of social analysis is akin to sighted resistor brand comparison in audio analysis.
Perhaps a piece could be an atmosphere that is not conducive to as much collaboration- not just in a singular project but across projects, that encourages connection. Or something as simple as the organizational boxes which encourage deposits that fit them. Maybe the most able have grown sad and curmudgeonly from endless capacitor threads that didn’t see swifter moderation.
Are you aware of the structure of Romy The Cat’s site with the “knowledge tree”? I find that fascinating. Also, please don’t construe my examples as making concrete suggestions for diyaudio, but rather an effort to illuminate a point. As you are aware science tells us we are less perceptive and less insightful to our own motives and have less free will than we presume. This is especially so in groups. So my hope is that if you value the fruits of scientific inquiry you will take your thinking some steps further.
Funny you say that, as my other thread title option was “How to keep people like SY from jumping ship and save people like DF96 from triple bypass heart surgery” I figured that was less moderation friendly. So, I have no qualms with that. As I said, I built SY’s designs. I wrote the post after reading about 35 pages of those two going to bat. I noticed that they could not make tangible alternative suggestions that the snake oil prone novice could actually build. Then I realized this may actually aid the snake oil breeding cycle in some ways. If you look more closely at what I’ve said I think you will understand better what I’m driving at. Salas I think understands the concept and tries to design in this manner. Anyhow, it can apply equally to tube and solid state designs.
Novice builders need something simple.
Pass B1
Tubelab SSE
Salas RIAA
LM3886 amp
Open baffle speaker
All these exist. The more advanced builder has more advanced projects, but as soon as you get to SMD ICs the number who can do it drops significantly and rapidly becomes basically Engineers & Physicists (and the odd Chemist). Very advanced projects rapidly sink in the support mire.
As for the snake oil. Novices can change components and roll things. Therefore it is easy to pull them in.
Pass B1
Tubelab SSE
Salas RIAA
LM3886 amp
Open baffle speaker
All these exist. The more advanced builder has more advanced projects, but as soon as you get to SMD ICs the number who can do it drops significantly and rapidly becomes basically Engineers & Physicists (and the odd Chemist). Very advanced projects rapidly sink in the support mire.
As for the snake oil. Novices can change components and roll things. Therefore it is easy to pull them in.
I joined this forum about a year and a half ago and have since completed a few phono stages, a set of speakers, etc. Great fun, great learning experience - although a very inefficient one. I really value the knowledge and patience of the members on this forum although I have to admit that one has to invest a lot of time and read hundreds of threads to even figure out where to get started. I think / thought that everything in audio was based on science and that there would be clear answers to all my questions. Yet, if one asks "can I use part x instead of part y?" i would get a few "yes" a few "no" an few "it depends". I don't mean to criticise; just saying it isn't always as straightforward as I thought.
I think tons of beginner questions could be answererd in a few guides. I'd be happy to write them if I had enough knowledge. There's an article on here about gain structure. Even a bloody beginner can read and understand it. If there were more articles like that, I think beginners would have to ask fewer "stupid" questions and thus consume less time of the smarter people on here.
Also something like a shortlist of beginner friendly projects would make things very efficient. Maybe a list of projects sorted by difficulty for various skill levels?
Billshurv is right, Pass B1, LM3886 are novice friendly projects and I've build both. The problem is that a novice will have to ask 100 novice questions until he finds out what a buffer is, why he needs it, why one should build it, if he can quadruple performance by using costly caps, who is Salas, who is Pass, what's an open baffle .... you get my point.
I agree with spaceistheplace in most points. It would be fantastic to have modular projects that one can work on for a while and than have a finished product that doesn't have to be replaced with the next project. Say an integrated amp that starts as a simple power amp, a phono stage (maybe a few different ones to be able to experiment with), input selector, remote control, DAC, etc. can be added at a later stage. In an ideal world the modules would be developed together as to make sure one doesn't run into compability problems when upgrading.... just an idea. I like the idea of the Pass M2 which is being put together at the moment where builders can build a few input buffers depending on available parts and experiment with the design approaches.
But above all I think this forum is superb. I just think it could even be better and easier for novices to navigate and that would free up some time for the more experienced people.
just my 2 cents...
I think tons of beginner questions could be answererd in a few guides. I'd be happy to write them if I had enough knowledge. There's an article on here about gain structure. Even a bloody beginner can read and understand it. If there were more articles like that, I think beginners would have to ask fewer "stupid" questions and thus consume less time of the smarter people on here.
Also something like a shortlist of beginner friendly projects would make things very efficient. Maybe a list of projects sorted by difficulty for various skill levels?
Billshurv is right, Pass B1, LM3886 are novice friendly projects and I've build both. The problem is that a novice will have to ask 100 novice questions until he finds out what a buffer is, why he needs it, why one should build it, if he can quadruple performance by using costly caps, who is Salas, who is Pass, what's an open baffle .... you get my point.
I agree with spaceistheplace in most points. It would be fantastic to have modular projects that one can work on for a while and than have a finished product that doesn't have to be replaced with the next project. Say an integrated amp that starts as a simple power amp, a phono stage (maybe a few different ones to be able to experiment with), input selector, remote control, DAC, etc. can be added at a later stage. In an ideal world the modules would be developed together as to make sure one doesn't run into compability problems when upgrading.... just an idea. I like the idea of the Pass M2 which is being put together at the moment where builders can build a few input buffers depending on available parts and experiment with the design approaches.
But above all I think this forum is superb. I just think it could even be better and easier for novices to navigate and that would free up some time for the more experienced people.
just my 2 cents...
There's no harm - and a lot of fun to some - in pursuing exotic and or expensive designs that in the end will not sound any different, if that's what floats your boat. The irksome part is when it's then stated that it's clearly better sounding than some other design, when that is purely subjective.
For me, what I build these days has almost no controls or leds... No screens... All the control is done from an app on a pc / phone ... The hardware for a really sophisticated control unit is so cheap! It's the app coding that's the fun in that part of the project.
No preamps for me either - source is all digital. Currently working on class D triamped design... All I need now is a 10 day week to find the time
For me, what I build these days has almost no controls or leds... No screens... All the control is done from an app on a pc / phone ... The hardware for a really sophisticated control unit is so cheap! It's the app coding that's the fun in that part of the project.
No preamps for me either - source is all digital. Currently working on class D triamped design... All I need now is a 10 day week to find the time
And done a la Pass, is.
Complicated designs tend to have compromises on phase and harmonic issues. A "right" attribute is very subjective, heavily biased by preference of target user.
I guess I disagree with the premise that all projects should be with a mind of "for the people". Certainly some designers have done just that, and they should be commended.
It'd be a diminished site, however, if our more savvy members didn't choose to do projects for their intellection, if arbitrary, stimulus. Very few of the more complex ideas get realized. The number of Chinese tpa3118 boards probably outpaces everything else done in the whole site.
It'd be a diminished site, however, if our more savvy members didn't choose to do projects for their intellection, if arbitrary, stimulus. Very few of the more complex ideas get realized. The number of Chinese tpa3118 boards probably outpaces everything else done in the whole site.
A lot of the replies seem to narrow in on just part of what the OP raised. One thing that was raised that is thought provoking for me is indeed the fact that if you step up and look down on the DIY audio community, the projects are adhering to a fairly narrow architecture. Nostalgia? Tradition? Path for novices? Practicality? Groupthink? Commercial intetest? I think all of these play at least a small role. There's nothing wrong with pointing that out and I don't any of the publishing designers on the forum should feel slighted in any way.
It would be fun for some people to add features, but either hard work or extremely boring for others. If the function of an amplifier is simply to amplify (as SY says) then what other features does it need, apart perhaps from a convenient means to adjust the amount of amplification?spaceistheplace said:
This is a hobby. People do what they want to do. If some people wish to get together to produce a design then they can; the fact that in general they have not done this suggests that they don't want to.
I guess this part was rather lost on me in terms of features. I don't see the need for many, or they're already in a mature enough form for my use. Then again, I'm 100% digital, so most of the modules I need are available in lightweight linux installations and pumped out to a DAC then straight to the amps with no further interruptions. The SNR is so good on modern DACs that I don't see the need for additional volume control, and a RPi can be controlled by my phone.
Because it isn't about features. The projects all look the same. 2 channel power amp. 2 channel preamp that isn't actually needed. Phono stage. DAC. Yes, occasionally someone puts a few together and calls it multi-channel. Hardly any true grass roots multi-channel designs. Hardly any grass roots integrated designs. And a small portion of designs that fall outside this narrow list.
The recent Open Source LM3886 design here is an excellent example of a collaborative building block design.
It would perhaps be helpful if designs started from this place, rather than from a place of ambiguity.
This is not what I suggested.
Sure, I am an advocate of DIT (Do it together), but I never once said people shouldn't be able to intellectually stimulate themselves in the ways they find most absorbing.
My questions were more related to why they tend to not overlap, or balance, social structure, etc.
In addition I'm stating that complexity can be accomplished modularly and cooperatively, removing the burden of a wide project scope on a single individual.
I think if you take the time to read more closely what I've said it will come into better focus.
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Yes perhaps they are taking the word features and running with it.
Most importantly I mean modular, increasing reusability and reducing duplication.
Open Source and collaboratively driven would be a nice bonus as well.
Again, here is an example: The α10 Stereo Pre-amplifier
I use the word features to describe the modular components contained there: source switching, a display, attenuator, buffer, PSU - all which can be used as separate pieces of other projects or combined to create a fully realized concept.
Side question: How many of you recycle?
Cognitive behavioral science tells us this is at minimum an incomplete picture, if not completely false.
I'm glad you have made the connection here with me. I hope others will connect the dots as well.
I mean zero offense to anyone who publishes designs here- if you feel this way, that's perhaps a personal issue. I'm very much grateful and have likely benefitted from some designs or information that have been posted by contributors to this thread.
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I would argue that is less modular than say the Doug self precision preamp. And all that functionality can be built from stuff posted on this forum/Group buys. And more.
re-use or re-cycle? I do both.
Well most of us have 2 channel systems. Multichannel is hard because you either have to have an oppo or a PC setup. You can't get audio from HDMI. If you could I am sure there would be lots of projects around that.
Jan has done a couple of multichannel remote controlled preamps. but the chipsets for that are a pain to solder and program.
For me I'm interested in exploring what the likes of RPi can give me for audio processing, but time for that wont be for ages.
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