I don't think it will die but it will change some.
I really enjoy the building process, it is therapeutic. When concentrating on the build you can't think about any of life's other issues. At that moment everything I know is right in front of me. So I will keep searching out things to build even when I don't need the finished product that much. People that already enjoy the building will keep doing it.
But at work when I was showing a co-worker some of the projects he kept asking "Is it cheaper than buying a finished one?" The answer is often "no" to that and when it isn't no then it is "well, you couldn't likely get one of this quality for the same price". That makes it harder to lure people into the DIY world with the saving money option.
Back when my Dad built his Heathkit A9C how much would buying an equivalent amp have run in comparison to the cost of the kit?
When I look at the DAC 'kits' on ebay and it is basically the same price assembled or in a kit it makes it hard to convince people to go for the kit. The real downside the the kits from China is they can make people dislike DIY. The instructions are generally non-existent, the components are often poor quality and even the PCBs aren't as easy to work with.
Kits like the Amp Camp Amp are a joy to solder and the end product is really good quality. That makes the assembly fun and using the finished product enjoyable too.
The build is quite relaxing and fun, and gives you a chance to make it uniquely yours.
The price doesn't factor in when it comes to building.
I have some expensive Amateur radio gear that came as kits,
I bought it because I wanted a Kit and not pre-assembled.
Even my Pre-Ams and Poweramp now were kits.
Reasons for DIY
That is an incredible deal. I wouldn't 'compete' with that. But when it comes to paying $1000 or more for an amp, preamp or D-to-A, or worse, $10,000 or more for speakers or a high-end electrostatic headphone amp, well....I prefer to design and build those myself, and spend the difference on more useful things, like single-malt scotch and good beer.
That is an incredible deal. I wouldn't 'compete' with that. But when it comes to paying $1000 or more for an amp, preamp or D-to-A, or worse, $10,000 or more for speakers or a high-end electrostatic headphone amp, well....I prefer to design and build those myself, and spend the difference on more useful things, like single-malt scotch and good beer.
DIY isn't dying!
I agree with Vishnu, and more so with the last comment.
Having developed a taste for fine whiskey and cognac, I think it is motivation enough to do as much diy, and spending the savings on more of the finer things in life!
Besides, as we all know, a big corporation will prefer to instal cheaper components where ever they can to keep the profit margin high. The diyer has the option of buying and using the best component that meets his/her need and budget. ie one or two Panasonic FCs in a power supply might meet the need of the individual, but a production line will probably opt for 20,000 cheaper alternatives that do the job. A typical example is the "BadCaps" plague!
That is an incredible deal. I wouldn't 'compete' with that. But when it comes to paying $1000 or more for an amp, preamp or D-to-A, or worse, $10,000 or more for speakers or a high-end electrostatic headphone amp, well....I prefer to design and build those myself, and spend the difference on more useful things, like single-malt scotch and good beer.
I agree with Vishnu, and more so with the last comment.
Having developed a taste for fine whiskey and cognac, I think it is motivation enough to do as much diy, and spending the savings on more of the finer things in life!
Besides, as we all know, a big corporation will prefer to instal cheaper components where ever they can to keep the profit margin high. The diyer has the option of buying and using the best component that meets his/her need and budget. ie one or two Panasonic FCs in a power supply might meet the need of the individual, but a production line will probably opt for 20,000 cheaper alternatives that do the job. A typical example is the "BadCaps" plague!
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I think the demise of DIY is down to too many other distractions.
Mobile phones, computers and game stations.
My local heritage railway complains they cant get young lads interested much these days.
Maplin electronics seems to cater less and less for the electronic hobbyist.
In my younger days they did some amazing kits. I built a lot of their mobile disco gear.
They still do a few kits but not on the same scale.
Mobile phones, computers and game stations.
My local heritage railway complains they cant get young lads interested much these days.
Maplin electronics seems to cater less and less for the electronic hobbyist.
In my younger days they did some amazing kits. I built a lot of their mobile disco gear.
They still do a few kits but not on the same scale.
Way to go! I take my hat off to you sir! I do not have the skill, knowledge or ability to design an amp. I have the components to build an LM3886 -but have too many projects on the go at the moment. (Having just completed a discrete output stage (DOS) for a cd playe and super regulators for the amplifier project in the future.
You just need to readjust the way you look at DIY. Carl Sagan once said, if you want to make an apple pie from scratch first you have to invent the universe. I love that quote. If you want to make someone in DIY audio just what will you make? If it requires a semiconductor will you make that or buy it? At some point you are doing assembly work of thing that others have made. When whole assemblies are available, THEY become the new starting blocks. It's not a "death of DIY" just a readjustment of what that means, and what is possible with DIY.
Here's another example: I like to build loudspeakers, typically active multiway. So I need a crossover, multiway, and amps, lots of them. Do you think I can take the time to carefully build all of these things? No way. Even the crossover itself, if I tried to build it with analog circuity (which I did once) would become horribly complex and difficult to adjust or modify. So I moved to DSP (e.g. miniDSP) hardware, but even that fell by the wayside and now I just use small single board computing hardware to do DSP in software using code that I wrote. Is this "cheating" because I do not build the computer first??? I am just using it as a tool to get to where I want to be. I still get to be creative (e.g. writing software instead of using a soldering iron and designing PCBs and circuits) but it's all DIY audio through and through.
Younger generation does not understand the concept of building from scratch. Most seem to think that DIY means building a kit that someone else thought of and that following the written instructions to assemble something is all anyone needs to do.
Masters in Mechanical Engineering millenial foreigner thinks that 3D printing is the solution to getting anything.
Masters in Mechanical Engineering millenial foreigner thinks that 3D printing is the solution to getting anything.
Parts failure Mini-Saga
As far as "a big corporation will prefer to instal cheaper components", there's a bit of bean-counting math that goes on there. Due to each step in the chain [manufacturer]->[regional rep/distibutor]->[retailer] adding markup, a rule of thumb often used is that the price to the customer is ~ 6 x BOM (Bill of Materials) cost. Marketing department people look at what the competing products are selling for, and puts pressure on manufacturing to drive the BOM cost down as far as possible. Manufacturing leans on the design staff to redesign, or just re-spec a different (cheaper) part. Many moons ago, a lot of 'hobbyist' magazines would publish articles on how to take a less-than-high-end product and simply replace the cheap components with better ones. This was possible with a lot of line-level (preamp, equalizer, etc.) devices because of the standardization of op-amp pinouts. No need to build your own case, PCB, etc., just swap parts out. If you picked the piece up on eBay or at a yardsale or swap-meet cheaply because it was"broke", great! You were going to take it apart anyway!
As far as the "bad cap" plague...electrolytics have a usable life measured in HOURS. Generally 10,000 to 50,000 for quality units, but they should be considered expendables, like car batteries. There was a very BAD widespread problem a few years back that was exacerbated by the fact that so much stuff is built in China, and one capacitor manufacturer i know of (and maybe more) did a little 'Industrial Espionage' to get a competitor's formula for the electrolyte. The guys with the good formula had the last laugh, though - they kept the formula for ALL the ingredients EXCEPT ONE stored in one safe, and the formula for the last ingredient - the 'stabilizer' - in another safe. The thieving company built caps based on the formula, and marketed them as being as good as, say, the Nichicon high-quality electrolytics, but at a lower price. Upshot was, everything worked fine, but the caps failed FAR sooner than they should - around 14-16 months; just after the 1-year manufacturer's warranty had expired. Anybody who hadn't purchased the 'extended' warranty was out of luck, except in the case of reputable firms like ASUS and HP, who repaired them for free out-of-warranty. Gateway didn't, and ended up near (or in) bankruptcy, ending up being bought out by ACER.
On a more audio-related note, i picked up a vintage Hitachi HA-1100 for next to nothing because it was 'unrepairable'. In the end, i had to take the extreme measure of removing almost all the small-signal transistors off of the output driver boards, and run them on a curve tracer. One matched pair in the gain stage was breaking down at ~35-40 volts. No biggie, it's what they were rated for - except they were in a part of the circuit where they were exposed to 80-100 V (the amp had +/- 55 volt rails). Who made THAT goof? Who knows? But they had to be high-gain, low-noise parts. So - i just selected units out of a batch, ran them on the curve tracer for > 120V breakdown. Then. to be on the safe side, i burned them in at 80% of their power rating, temperature-cycled them, and retested them again. That was 9 or 10 years ago, and the amp still kicks it.
Sorry - blame the caffeine.
As far as "a big corporation will prefer to instal cheaper components", there's a bit of bean-counting math that goes on there. Due to each step in the chain [manufacturer]->[regional rep/distibutor]->[retailer] adding markup, a rule of thumb often used is that the price to the customer is ~ 6 x BOM (Bill of Materials) cost. Marketing department people look at what the competing products are selling for, and puts pressure on manufacturing to drive the BOM cost down as far as possible. Manufacturing leans on the design staff to redesign, or just re-spec a different (cheaper) part. Many moons ago, a lot of 'hobbyist' magazines would publish articles on how to take a less-than-high-end product and simply replace the cheap components with better ones. This was possible with a lot of line-level (preamp, equalizer, etc.) devices because of the standardization of op-amp pinouts. No need to build your own case, PCB, etc., just swap parts out. If you picked the piece up on eBay or at a yardsale or swap-meet cheaply because it was"broke", great! You were going to take it apart anyway!
As far as the "bad cap" plague...electrolytics have a usable life measured in HOURS. Generally 10,000 to 50,000 for quality units, but they should be considered expendables, like car batteries. There was a very BAD widespread problem a few years back that was exacerbated by the fact that so much stuff is built in China, and one capacitor manufacturer i know of (and maybe more) did a little 'Industrial Espionage' to get a competitor's formula for the electrolyte. The guys with the good formula had the last laugh, though - they kept the formula for ALL the ingredients EXCEPT ONE stored in one safe, and the formula for the last ingredient - the 'stabilizer' - in another safe. The thieving company built caps based on the formula, and marketed them as being as good as, say, the Nichicon high-quality electrolytics, but at a lower price. Upshot was, everything worked fine, but the caps failed FAR sooner than they should - around 14-16 months; just after the 1-year manufacturer's warranty had expired. Anybody who hadn't purchased the 'extended' warranty was out of luck, except in the case of reputable firms like ASUS and HP, who repaired them for free out-of-warranty. Gateway didn't, and ended up near (or in) bankruptcy, ending up being bought out by ACER.
On a more audio-related note, i picked up a vintage Hitachi HA-1100 for next to nothing because it was 'unrepairable'. In the end, i had to take the extreme measure of removing almost all the small-signal transistors off of the output driver boards, and run them on a curve tracer. One matched pair in the gain stage was breaking down at ~35-40 volts. No biggie, it's what they were rated for - except they were in a part of the circuit where they were exposed to 80-100 V (the amp had +/- 55 volt rails). Who made THAT goof? Who knows? But they had to be high-gain, low-noise parts. So - i just selected units out of a batch, ran them on the curve tracer for > 120V breakdown. Then. to be on the safe side, i burned them in at 80% of their power rating, temperature-cycled them, and retested them again. That was 9 or 10 years ago, and the amp still kicks it.
Sorry - blame the caffeine.
As far as "a big corporation will prefer to instal cheaper components", there's a bit of bean-counting math that goes on there. Due to each step in the chain [manufacturer]->[regional rep/distibutor]->[retailer] adding markup, a rule of thumb often used is that the price to the customer is ~ 6 x BOM (Bill of Materials) cost. Marketing department people look at what the competing products are selling for, and puts pressure on manufacturing to drive the BOM cost down as far as possible. Manufacturing leans on the design staff to redesign, or just re-spec a different (cheaper) part. Many moons ago, a lot of 'hobbyist' magazines would publish articles on how to take a less-than-high-end product and simply replace the cheap components with better ones. This was possible with a lot of line-level (preamp, equalizer, etc.) devices because of the standardization of op-amp pinouts. No need to build your own case, PCB, etc., just swap parts out. If you picked the piece up on eBay or at a yardsale or swap-meet cheaply because it was"broke", great! You were going to take it apart anyway!
As far as the "bad cap" plague...electrolytics have a usable life measured in HOURS. Generally 10,000 to 50,000 for quality units, but they should be considered expendables, like car batteries. There was a very BAD widespread problem a few years back that was exacerbated by the fact that so much stuff is built in China, and one capacitor manufacturer i know of (and maybe more) did a little 'Industrial Espionage' to get a competitor's formula for the electrolyte. The guys with the good formula had the last laugh, though - they kept the formula for ALL the ingredients EXCEPT ONE stored in one safe, and the formula for the last ingredient - the 'stabilizer' - in another safe. The thieving company built caps based on the formula, and marketed them as being as good as, say, the Nichicon high-quality electrolytics, but at a lower price. Upshot was, everything worked fine, but the caps failed FAR sooner than they should - around 14-16 months; just after the 1-year manufacturer's warranty had expired. Anybody who hadn't purchased the 'extended' warranty was out of luck, except in the case of reputable firms like ASUS and HP, who repaired them for free out-of-warranty. Gateway didn't, and ended up near (or in) bankruptcy, ending up being bought out by ACER.
On a more audio-related note, i picked up a vintage Hitachi HA-1100 for next to nothing because it was 'unrepairable'. In the end, i had to take the extreme measure of removing almost all the small-signal transistors off of the output driver boards, and run them on a curve tracer. One matched pair in the gain stage was breaking down at ~35-40 volts. No biggie, it's what they were rated for - except they were in a part of the circuit where they were exposed to 80-100 V (the amp had +/- 55 volt rails). Who made THAT goof? Who knows? But they had to be high-gain, low-noise parts. So - i just selected units out of a batch, ran them on the curve tracer for > 120V breakdown. Then. to be on the safe side, i burned them in at 80% of their power rating, temperature-cycled them, and retested them again. That was 9 or 10 years ago, and the amp still kicks it.
Sorry - blame the caffeine.
No need for apologies - I couldn't have written it better. Like I said in an earlier post, I dont have the skills, knowledge or expertise to do some of the great things that diyers get up to on diyAudio.
You post, evidences all the the skills that sadly, I am lacking.
Your mention of the 'unrepairable' Hitachi has triggered a memory I have of trying to repair an unrepairable Marantz cd63 KI player which is still not 'gremlin free'. Would you be interested in hearing about it, and hopefully challenging your analytical ability to suggest some troubleshooting?
The only aspect I see pushing diy audio down is obsolete parts and the moving of the industry towards more switching or digital stuff, allowing for audio/linear performance as an afterthought or happy coincidence.
Lower prices might be a big reason to get you started on diy, but anyone doing it long enough knows that the deeper you go down the rabbit hole, the more the cost accumulates.
BTW speaking for myself, today I am happier than ever to be a DIYer
I have a huge todo list of projects (20 years ago I had 1-2 and could not find the parts I needed)
I have a huge stash of parts and easy access to anything I need (20 years ago I would go to the local store and I would have to describe for 10 minutes what I wanted to do so that we could find an alternative part)
I can design and produce my own production grade pcbs for peanuts
I have access to huge communities with like-minded and often more talented people all around the world
Dying? Not really
Lower prices might be a big reason to get you started on diy, but anyone doing it long enough knows that the deeper you go down the rabbit hole, the more the cost accumulates.
BTW speaking for myself, today I am happier than ever to be a DIYer
I have a huge todo list of projects (20 years ago I had 1-2 and could not find the parts I needed)
I have a huge stash of parts and easy access to anything I need (20 years ago I would go to the local store and I would have to describe for 10 minutes what I wanted to do so that we could find an alternative part)
I can design and produce my own production grade pcbs for peanuts
I have access to huge communities with like-minded and often more talented people all around the world
Dying? Not really
Yes yer both quite right! The new components are infact assemblies gathered from various sources either used as is or slightly modified to do projects at a much higher system level.
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