Is the conscious that unless electronics are designed and built following a standard method using standard parts, as in low to medium budget cost, it is plainly stupid and the constructor has lost his mind, paying for parts and materials that do not add anything to the end result of the sound generate from the sum of all the parts ?
If that is true, that a pure logical construction should be allowed in a DIY community and that the one who is designing and constructing should do so with a purists mind. Is that not limiting the creators possibility to express him or her self ?
Just because someone develop their own audio equipment does not equal simple and cheap. Far from it, and quite often, the cost is not connected to what which to be expressed. We are all different, remember that. However, if it is the collectives interest to not induct one self in and explore more than the simplest level, maybe I should take my business somewhere ells.
If people want to do things as simple as possible, then I will not stand in their way
If that is true, that a pure logical construction should be allowed in a DIY community and that the one who is designing and constructing should do so with a purists mind. Is that not limiting the creators possibility to express him or her self ?
Just because someone develop their own audio equipment does not equal simple and cheap. Far from it, and quite often, the cost is not connected to what which to be expressed. We are all different, remember that. However, if it is the collectives interest to not induct one self in and explore more than the simplest level, maybe I should take my business somewhere ells.
If people want to do things as simple as possible, then I will not stand in their way
My hunch is that using PCB material which has much better RF properties than needed for audio is not just a waste of money but also raises the possibility of more trouble with RF interference and RF parasitic oscillation. A bit of RF loss can be a good thing!
My intention where to locate the visuals that the Luxman PCB offered. It had nothing to do with EMI, EMC or RFI, nor cost. Even Rogers Corp state that the RO4000 series - non Teflon - is close to RF4 in cost. All the debates about the physical structure of the traces and gold plating arrived from other members, and yes I contributed. But my initial question were suppose to be a simple one. Not that the other parts are not of interest. But a good chassi will in most cases shield the components from RF, even simple cable shielding will take care of that, and it's not even expensive. Its in most cases about good earthing. And ofc, sometimes, equipment need extra shielding in case they are sensitive to RF (signal manipulation) and for that, there is RFI/EMI Board-Level Shielding which one can manufacture at home via simple photo etching like one does with PCB's
You are talking about bad construction, poorly soldered joints and so forth. Its not even an issue. How will the substrate affect the above mentioned issues ? hint, it will not. If you have RF noise, that simply indicates a bad component, bad shielding, poor ground or that you live close to or under a MW radio antenna. If your speaker and power cables pick up RF, shield them with aluminum foil or cable shielding jackets.
There can be a million reason why an amplifier or digital source generate noise, but I assure you, it will not be because of the PCB substrate.
This is actually rather fun to listen to 🙂
EEVblog #29 - Audiophile Audiophoolery
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7ERMu825m4
EEVblog #29 - Audiophile Audiophoolery
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7ERMu825m4
"Electrons tend to accumulate at the corners." Cute !
"Some people worry that conduction electrons are traveling so fast that they won't be able to make it around a square corner. Perhaps they might reflect back or fly off into space. Such arguments are ridiculous. Sure, individual electrons move at high speeds, but their aggregate drift velocity is less than 1 in./sec as they bounce from atom to atom. Your average electron smacks into something and changes directions billions of times in a length of 10 mils. Electrons don't have any trouble banging around a corner." Dr. Howard Johnson
"Some people worry that conduction electrons are traveling so fast that they won't be able to make it around a square corner. Perhaps they might reflect back or fly off into space. Such arguments are ridiculous. Sure, individual electrons move at high speeds, but their aggregate drift velocity is less than 1 in./sec as they bounce from atom to atom. Your average electron smacks into something and changes directions billions of times in a length of 10 mils. Electrons don't have any trouble banging around a corner." Dr. Howard Johnson
Ah if only it was that simple, PCB layout for EMC immunity is quite complex as is shielding, I face these problems every day...EMC immunity (as thus good signal integrity) starts with the PCB layout, get that wrong and your in trouble. That is why most professional's have such books as Henry Ott's Electro magnetic Compatibility Engineering on their bookshelves (I do).
You don't have to live under a radio transmitter to suffer noise, our environment is rich these days in both airborne and conducted noise.
If the PCB is going to be in a sealed box then I would opt for good engineering practice rather than how it looks, function over form.
Looking further at the luxman layout, from an EMC point of view it is rather bad with many dipole structures formed by the routing, it is an example where looks and audiophile beliefs have been used instead of good layout practice.
There are advantages and disadvantages to using esoteric PCB materials and only a few percent of the worlds PCB production actually uses these materials, and only when the physics dictates that these materials are required. For a basic Audio PCB they probably wont cause problems, but neither will they add any benefit...good layout practice will have a big affect though.
Attached is a basic list of links I give to people asking about learning PCB design as a taster of some of the things that affect design.
I am not going to argue with someone that know what they are talking about, but when it comes to the substrate, the FO4000 is a tad more advanced than the FR4. I agree that layout and function exceeds the "pleasing-the-eye" and I do not think I've had another opinion in that matter, and regarding Luxman's choice on routing, that is something I cannot talk about simply because I do not know enough about it, yet. Gold plating is not something I consider to be a function of the circuit even if there probably and likely exist such information and usage. I still have many things to learn and that is a good thing.
Does company's over design things so that they can charge more for their product (?), absolutely. Is the psychological aspects involved in doing so (?), absolutely. And are people generally stupid (?) absolutely so. It's not a new concept and it is not isolated to audio, its implemented everywhere and it is due to a few simple psychological aspects that we learn as we grow up and is connected to success among many things. And since I am aware of some of these things, looking at the prices company's can charge a customer and what you in reality get for the product, led me to the conclusion that it is BS and I can't stand it. So since I am educated in carpentry and cabinet making, I started looking at and consider to build my own speakers and that evolved into also design and build my own audio equipment. Knowing one or two "secrets" also help.
I would also like to thank you for the list, its indeed very welcome and I will also read the Henry Ott's Electro magnetic Compatibility Engineering in the near future.
No I am not. It could be an issue. If you knew anything about RF circuits you would know why low-loss materials are sometimes used, and you would understand why this might be a disadvantage for audio circuits.Oneminde said:
I can only assume that you don't know what I mean by "parasitics" - I mean unwanted spurious RF oscillations.
Problems are issues when you know about them, both theoretical and physical. So since I am not aware of any problems - specifically with what I will design - in my systems, I cannot solve them. However, I get your point that there are multiple problems in electronics and in due time, I will cover them in my development.
When it comes to the visual part of a PCB, this has now been solved which were the mission of this tread and I am very grateful for everything ells that surfaced.
PS: I will look into Parasitic oscillation
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