John Curl's Blowtorch preamplifier

[Joshua_G]

John, by mechanically cleaning the resistors, you mean cleaning the resistors' wires which are to be soldered, or what?

 

[john curl]

Yes.

 

[anatech]

Hi John,
Certainly in low volume production and service work, cleaning all component leads is normal. I'm sure most of us do that, I know I do, every single time.

Simply put, you can not know how long a part has been sitting around, so you may as well clean them to ensure a good solder joint.

-Chris

 

[1audio]

Consumer electronics markups range all across the spectrum. Some devices like LCD TVs are sold at or even below cost of manufacture. The big box retailers make little profit on them and don't have a lot of control over the margins for obvious competitive reasons. Other things like accessories have enormous markups for the retailer. those can range from 65% for a specialty retailer for a high end audio accessory to over 90% for a computer accessory (like a cable). The cost on the high volume competitive stuff gets close to raw material cost quickly if there are several china vendors competing (like for routers). The retailer takes advantage of his control of the market (called monomply rests in econ jingo) to charge the highest he can and still sell the stuff. The big retailers all now measure the dollars yielded per square foot of sales space. As one might imagine less profit worthy stuff gets pushed out UNLESS its necessary to drive other sales. Best Buy would rather not sell LCD TV's except they are necessary for the business. And they do OK with them. But the accessories and warranty business is what pays the bills.

Right now with the economic crunch the pressure on the retailers is enormous. Circuit City pulled the plug because there was no obvious way to grow when WallMart and Costco are major competitiors and operating capital is impossible to get. its hard to say what will happen with them.

Meanwhile it appears the high end specialty channel is surviving on high priced stuff. Boulder implied that they are selling 100"s of the big preamp in a recent article, and the plethora of $50K plus turntables is amazing. There must be customers for at least one each of those tables. and phono cartridges are selling for prices similar or higher than the Blowtorch preamp. The margins for retailes in that channel are in the 40% to 60% range (larger for imported/distributor/dealer combos).

So, even in Consumer Electronics the raw materials (BOM) to retail multiplier is very segment and product specific.

 

[john curl]

It gets tedious to clean part leads, but necessary, anyway. Of course, Parasound don't clean each part before insertion.

 

[john curl]

I started cleaning parts leads, mechanically, when we used to use almost all surplus resistors, caps, etc. Some parts, even if they retained a very high quality in actual use, had heavily oxidized leads, and a lot of sticky stuff that came from the tapes they were mounted on.
We tried ultrasonic cleaning, steel-wool pads, 3M scratch pads, fine sandpaper, sandpaper based vibrating smoothing machines, specific mechanical cleaning tools, emery paper, and we settled down to using a needle-nosed plier that had the right characteristics. Along with newer solders using LESS aggressive fluxes with time, forced us to clean each part, and I think that it can make a real difference in sound quality.

 

[Allen Wright]

John,
I hope/trust you are getting a better royality from Parasound than you used to get from ML the person.

Regards, Allen (Vacuum State)

 

[zinsula]

Goodness gracious! Who says John is required to agree with me, or I with him?[biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiig snip]

Did i say this? I hope no one says such a thing! Beware! 😀

 

[john curl]

Not much more, if anything, BUT I don't have to do as much to make a real product.

 

[jan.didden]

[snip] BTW I think Grey and Bear are some of the good guys, so what if we disagree on some things. At the Burning Amp everyone buried all these stupid axes and had some fun.

Since Grey has demonstrated trampling basic trust and decency by publicizing other members' personal email, I can't see how he is a 'good guy' by any stretch of the imagination.

Jan Didden

 

[scott wurcer]

Since Grey has demonstrated trampling basic trust and decency by publicizing other members' personal email, I can't see how he is a 'good guy' by any stretch of the imagination.

Jan Didden

I allow for an occasional slip, just hoping for a little peace.

 

[john curl]

Please, Jan, don't feed the fire. Let's all try to get along.

 

[Edmond Stuart]

cold fusion

Jaques Benveniste

"Subsequent investigations have not supported Benveniste's findings. His reputation was damaged, but he refused to retract his controversial article. He began to fund his research himself as his external sources of funding were withdrawn. In 1997, he founded the company DigiBio to "develop and commercialise applications of Digital Biology."

People believe what they want to believe, even in the face of objective evidence to the contrary. Not good for their reputations.

And here another example of erroneous (fraudulous?) scientific research: http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/print/1258
From what I have seen in those days, the setup of their calorimetric measurements (at least in the way as it was published), was amateurish and totally flawed.

 

[john curl]

Personally, I have run the limit on trying to show people some things that I work with every day, and they remain incredulous. It makes little difference to me, if most of you never see or use a Bybee device in your audio systems, and I don't think that Jack Bybee cares either.
Bybee was only an example, to bring out a certain response so that we can all learn from the response, more than the actual Bybee devices themselves. Some here, if you actually did a google search of some topics mentioned here, might have exposed yourselves to a whole new area of new physics/ engineering. Not a bad 'waste of time' after all.

 

[ostripper]

BTW , thanks , Mr Curl. Inspite of being one of the "villagers" (with torch and pitchfork) , I do google a lot of the
information "weeded" from amid the interpersonal ego stuff
on this thread.
To comment and say "that is BS" or "you lie" is indeed ignorant
and has no place here.
Keep on dropping "crumbs" as some are wise to keep
picking them up. 🙂
OS

 

[scott wurcer]

I think the case for open mindedness is sometimes overstated. We were dancing in our cubes when they announced cold fusion, the description of the conditions were unfamiliar enough that we trusted that the results were offered in good faith. When someone claims that the success of their garage product requires rewriteing several of the basic laws of physics I feel I can risk ignoring it and waiting for more evidence.

 

[SY]

Edmond, the story is even deeper than that (I knew Stan Pons very well). But just as fraudulent and mistaken. When the story broke, I bought palladium futures. Fortunately, I got out near break-even...

This really is science at its best. The peer-review process worked.

 

[Edmond Stuart]

open mind

Hi Stuart,

In the early days of that hype, I also believed in the possibility of cold fusion. But, after reading their papers, my hope in a revolutionary energy source faded away.
Below my stock of palladium chloride (purchased for a different kind of experiment). 😀

Regards,
Edmond.

 

[Joshua_G]

Scott, what kind of evidence will satisfy you?

 

[albin]

conjecture

Joshua, you're asking too much of Scott,methinks.
for my 2 cents Electricity without magnetism.
I think limitless energy Is asking too much. edit] or expecting,
regards
Max