Monetizing design. DIY ethos

Just a quick question. Certain that it's been discussed enough. Not sure how to search for it here.

ampslab-spk projects. The designer is prolific. The designs appear well conceived and executed. There is a broad range of price/performance. The site is lacking somewhat in organization. Subsequent versions of namesake projects, such as versions of the Warbler and the Cardinal, are seldom compared clearly to one another. I've also had zero luck getting any response to numerous emails to the site.

That said I have a difficult time finding much commentary on these designs. Is this simply because they are only 'semi-diy' according to diy ethos since the crossover design itself is pay-walled and cannot/should-not be shared freely? I am expressly not criticizing this enterprise. Just a question about diy ethos.
 
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Just a quick question. Certain that it's been discussed enough. Not sure how to search for it here.

ampslab-spk projects. The designer is prolific. The designs appear well conceived and executed. There is a broad range of price/performance. The site is lacking somewhat in organization. Subsequent versions of namesake projects, such as versions of the Warbler and the Cardinal, are seldom compared clearly to one another. That's frustrating. And too little consideration is given, it seems, to the actual availability of components. I've also had zero luck getting any response to numerous emails to the site.

That said I have a difficult time finding much commentary on these designs. Is this simply because they are only 'semi-diy' according to diy ethos since the crossover design itself is pay-walled and cannot/should-not be shared freely? I am expressly not criticizing this enterprise. Just a question about diy ethos.
Hi frascati

I apologize for not returning your mail. I never got them, yours and others.
My Contact Form was not working because ampslab-spk.com was down for almost a month.

It was only a few days days ago that DreamHost.com, my hosting company, got their Shared Servers up and running properly.
ampslab-spk.com is running as it should now.

Your can contact me through diyaudio.com like some members here did or use my blog "contact me" page.
I'll be happy to answer any of your questions.

Regards
Mike
ampslab.com
ampslab-spk.com
 
How is it monetized? I thought you just email him for the deets. Even if it were, what's the beef? Pay or don't pay. Read it or don't read it.

There are several posts about some of the designs; mostly positive.
Motokok, with respect, I'm not sure that you read my post entirely.

" I am expressly not criticizing this enterprise. Just a question about diy ethos."


I believe that a link provided below each design to "Buy Schematic" for 10USD means that the design is monetized. Do we differ on the definition of that? The cost, which is indeed a straight up bargain, I have zero beef about.

What I've asked here is how this aspect of the design affects the the way any of these projects might be discussed in a DIY forum. It is clearly not good form to link a proprietary crossover design if the designer evidently would not like it made public. And no, lest you mistake me again, I have no beef with that.

So once more. Is this why I can find so little discussion of these designs on various DIY forums?
 
Hi frascati

I apologize for not returning your mail. I never got them, yours and others.
My Contact Form was not working because ampslab-spk.com was down for almost a month.

It was only a few days days ago that DreamHost.com, my hosting company, got their Shared Servers up and running properly.
ampslab-spk.com is running as it should now.

Your can contact me through diyaudio.com like some members here did or use my blog "contact me" page.
I'll be happy to answer any of your questions.

Regards
Mike
ampslab.com
ampslab-spk.com
Thank you very much for that Mike. I will try to contact you again with a few questions. I'm sorry as well if my tone was misunderstood here.
 
Motokok, with respect, I'm not sure that you read my post entirely.

" I am expressly not criticizing this enterprise. Just a question about diy ethos."

I believe that a link provided below each design to "Buy Schematic" for 10USD means that the design is monetized. Do we differ on the definition of that? The cost, which is indeed a straight up bargain, I have zero beef about.

What I've asked here is how this aspect of the design affects the the way any of these projects might be discussed in a DIY forum. It is clearly not good form to link a proprietary crossover design if the designer evidently would not like it made public. And no, lest you mistake me again, I have no beef with that.

So once more. Is this why I can find so little discussion of these designs on various DIY forums?
Well, it's been some time since I visited the site. I did not remember there being a link before to pay for or buy any schematics (I might be wrong but I remembered that in the past, one just emails for the stuff). Then again, $10 doesn't seem unreasonable.

Can't comment on perceived lack of discussion. Couple threads:
https://www.diyaudio.com/community/...ed-with-ampslab-recently.386968/#post-7043208
https://www.diyaudio.com/community/threads/ampslab-osprey-br-opinions.375301/page-2#post-7001566
 
Thank you very much for that Mike. I will try to contact you again with a few questions. I'm sorry as well if my tone was misunderstood here.

No problem. I too will be annoyed if my mails are ignored.

I only recently migrated my blog to DreamHost.com. Within weeks, their shared servers crashed.
ampslab-spk.com was then running on their backup servers for a month. Downloads were intermittent and at times, there were no access.
To make matters worse, I didn't know my Contact Form was not working on their backup server.

If you like, you can ask me questions in this forum. I will try my best to answer them.

Regards
Mike
 
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Well, it's been some time since I visited the site. I did not remember there being a link before to pay for or buy any schematics (I might be wrong but I remembered that in the past, one just emails for the stuff). Then again, $10 doesn't seem unreasonable.

Can't comment on perceived lack of discussion. Couple threads:
https://www.diyaudio.com/community/...ed-with-ampslab-recently.386968/#post-7043208
https://www.diyaudio.com/community/threads/ampslab-osprey-br-opinions.375301/page-2#post-7001566

Hi motokok

For many years, I gave my schematics away freely because I wanted to encourage enthusiasts to build their own speakers.
It reached a stage where replying to all the daily requests left me little time for speaker designing.

Apart from taking up my valuable time, I was also quite disappointed with some mails that I received.
Some have no intention of building speakers. They were either just asking for fun or collecting crossover designs.
The worse are those that feel they are entitled. They demand this and that.

To rectify the situation, I decided to charge a nominal fee of $10 for my crossovers and box dimensions.
This is not to make money but to weed out all the free loaders.

And I must say it worked out quite well.
I reclaimed my time and those that buy my crossover schematics are genuine builders.

Regards
Mike
 
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Yeah, I long ago had to block all my forum emails and also set up a SPAM email account to both deal with it and some persistent folks that not only wanted me to design them, but build, ship them too on a 'promise' to pay the invoice once received, etc.. Yeah, right.........
 
To rectify the situation, I decided to charge a nominal fee of $10 for my crossovers and box dimensions.
This is not to make money but to weed out all the free loaders.

And I must say it worked out quite well.
I reclaimed my time and those that buy my crossover schematics are genuine builders.

Yes it can be hard to get free to work well. Human nature I guess. Years ago one of my old companies provided a pair of squash courts for employees to use for free. They were mostly empty due to people booking and then not turning up. After a few of the keener types got seriously annoyed about the situation a nominal charge of 20p was introduced and the court usage improved greatly.
 
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