Biggest engineering mistakes in audiophile gear

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Disabled Account
Joined 2002
Hello,
The salesman would tell you to get the latest 7 speed and forget about the 5 speed you have Pano. In my part of the country there are no hills so a SA is good enough. At a younger age i ALWAYS cycled in third gear even had the gearwheel in the rear wheel changed to create more speed. Of course my father ( being a mechanic) told me to change to lower gear at traffic lights because my chain would only last a year or so.
The stuff on the market is part of a bigger plan. Persuading you to buy the latest product.
When i was in an Indonesian restaurant i saw a nice and sturdy milk dispenser. I told the owner i wanna have the same one. He told me now they mainly use one which they buy in a box containing one hundred pieces. With the slightest issue they throw it and get a new one from the box in the attic.
Even if you wanna pay it is hard to go for quality.
Greetings, Eduard
 
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Joined 2002
FWIW the Nexus 8 Premium, with the red line across it, has bearings and it is quite OK. Rohloff is too expensive for me but they're marvelous pieces of engineering.

Regarding quality: it is almost impossible to find products that are reliable and engineered for a long lifespan so that is why I make them myself. As a sign of respect to the old engineers that designed quality stuff I use indicators and meters from their era. My latest ultra low noise PSU has a Voltmeter that is about 100 years old. Diving deeper in stuff from that time I find that they nearly always work OK after so many years! I am recycling a rectifier built in 1922 for use as a Iphone charger :)

It strikes me that eco activists don't see that the whole throw away product cycle has large impact on the environment. Also the simplistic thought that everything electrical (cars, bicycles, wind energy) is green is not right.
 
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Disabled Account
Joined 2002
Hello,
Nearly 30 years ago i build a 20 watt Hiraga amp for a friend of mine. We changed the choke to a bigger one in the CLC power supply which gave a clear improvement. The old one was a very basic one the new one was a Lundahl so improvement could be expected.
The caps were Novea co38/39 style so long life with good specs. I thought 30 years old, why not try Kemet long life ( and better specs) Same uF , price was lower because with new technology they can make them smaller. I told my friend to act patiently when comparing the caps. He wanted the new ones to be better but the were NOT.
Maybe try similar caps with a higher price tag??
Greetings, Eduard
P.s Rohloff is indeed nice.
My present bike has this one. Looks like something that could last
NuVinci Technology Demonstration - YouTube
It broke down after 15000 kilometers needed complete replacement
 
Disabled Account
Joined 2002
One of often made mistakes is judging by ear only. Many an audiophile can be fooled as worse specs and distortion are often liked (at first judgement). Measuring can show the opposite. After replacing worn out filter caps I have often found the same amplifier to sound "colder" but the cause was the higher ESR of the worn out caps that had influence and one gets accustomed to that... It is very well possible that that amplifier sounder "colder" when it was new. After a short while it just sounds very good when one gets accustomed to the new sound. Leaving worn out leaky stuff would not have been a solution either.

I have even heard of old tube crowd approved DACs to be "more musical" ... while having 5 ns of jitter :) Improving such a DAC to a multiple less jitter makes it "less musical" (analog has 0 ps jitter AFAIK). An amplifier with a damping factor of 5 connected to a difficult load sounds "warm" :D Regulating voltage like elsewhere proven to be necessary is sounding like "sand". Another words, the more correct it performs the more it possibly will be disliked when ears (and eyes!!!) are the only used instruments. Many an electrical law/rule can be disobeyed when one works like this. In fact when one works like this electrical laws and rules are a nuisance.
 
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Disabled Account
Joined 2002
Hello,
I use my gear to listen to music. If some part in the chain is improved by better parts and that results in better specs but it will create a sound that makes me nervous what to do??
I am the only person investing money in my set so i only care about creating the experience that i like. If someone else likes it too it will flatter me.
Greetings, Eduard
 
It strikes me that eco activists don't see that the whole throw away product cycle has large impact on the environment. Also the simplistic thought that everything electrical (cars, bicycles, wind energy) is green is not right.

Hard to say what’s “greener” unless you look at the net carbon and/or toxic emissions. When I ride my bike, it is with the intention of wasting as much energy as physically possible. I suppose it would be better for the planet if I stopped doing it. But then I’d have to go on The Diet, which would necessitate driving to the grocery store damn near ever day instead of once every two weeks. Worst part of The Diet is being freezing cold all the time, so that would mean turning the heat up in the house. So I guess it is a win for the bike.

With cars and wind power, the greatest environmental impacts are in manufacturing and disposal. They’ll really only get the “green” they promise when processes are improved. But there needs to be a reason to improve them or it will never happen. I’d hate to wait till the last drop of oil is gone before starting to look at the problem. That’s the REAL reason to transition to renewable energy.

Throw-away amplifiers are just plain stupid. I refuse to spend 20 grand to tool up with modern sub amps, no matter how light they are. One fault in the SMPS and the circuit board catches fire. And it’s not a question of if they die but when. I know in the real ‘pro’ world replacement cost every year or two is less than the fuel cost to transport iron amps. True if they’re being used daily. But ive never gigged enough to justify replacing them even *once*, and probably never will over the next 20 years. And I can rebuild old iron horse amps if they do blow a set of output transistors.
 
One of often made mistakes is judging by ear only. Many an audiophile can be fooled as worse specs and distortion are often liked (at first judgement). Measuring can show the opposite.

I don’t know if I’d call it a “mistake”, more like a choice to potentially ignore how something measures. When I built my tube monoblock amps, I judged their worthiness to continue as a serious project solely on how the prototype sounded. There’s no way on God’s green earth that they could measure as well as my CS800 clone. But I was surprised how good it actually sounded - good enough to justify building a second and planning an entire ‘vintage’ system around them. 200 watt tube amps, efficient PA ish speakers, resurrecting a *turntable* - and my old classic rock on vinyl. The only measurements were peak music and sine wave power - to make sure it was working according to theory and would be safe to operate. I’ll eventually hook it up to a computer and measure it in detail.
 
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Hello,
The salesman would tell you to get the latest 7 speed and forget about the 5 speed you have Pano
The 5 speed hub was wonderful. It did not have quite enough spread for my bike riding at the time, which was very hilly. I had considered putting a dual chain ring in the front for more range.

But now I live in a place that may be flatter than the Netherlands. :eek: That 5 speed hub would be overkill here. That said, I do have an old bike with a sturmey archer 3 speed and the spread just isn't much. OK, but not great. It's probably >40 years old and still works.
 
Forget about geared hubs, what about the damn chains, it's almost impossible to get a proper bushed roller chain now, they're all horrid things with burred side plates instead of a bush. I managed to get some decent bushed 1/8 chain and a proper chain guard from amazon - now my chain dips in an oil bath each time around.
 
diyAudio Editor
Joined 2001
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Well, no surprise but apparently the whole idea of “recyclable plastics”was BS by the plastics industry according to a recent article. Makes sense to me....

Turns out sorting and cleaning the plastic is now too expensive for the Chinese to do any more so they don’t accept it. Also recycled plastic, even if not mixed with a different plastic type, is inferior in many characteristics, like transparency, strength, etc compared to virgin plastic. The molecular structure can be altered by sunlight, age, being reheated, etc.

aluminum and steel are heated so hot to melt it, that most impurities are burned off, so it can be recycled, although I doubt it can be used for high quality alloys. The companies that CNC products from blocks of high quality aluminum alloys must have to keep the shavings carefully categorized in order to maintain their value....

I don’t think it’s fair to blame individuals who tried to recycle plastic. The misinformation was everywhere promoted by the industry.

So quality products made to last (some made from quality plastic! ) is the way to go!
 
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Disabled Account
Joined 2002
Anymetal = grayish Chinese mix of recycled metals of any kind. Often contains zinc, aluminium and tin. No solid structure and brittle. Difficult to machine, often used as molding material for bodies of connectors etc.

"Aluminium bronze" = yellowish/redish Chinese mix of aluminum and copper. There exists real alubronze but that is different. It can be recognized quickly as it can't be soldered and when twisted the wires turn back to original position.

I suppose "with" should have been "of" but English is not my language.
 
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