The evidence seems to point to Mr. E not being such a great engineer IMO of course, I would guess pretty much everything in that box is a direct take on application notes published by Burr Brown, National Semiconductor and others when I was a neophyte back in the early 1980s. The use of tantalum drops shows poor judgment IMO, their propensity for shorting under specific conditions has been known for at least 25 years. Myth and superstition is what drives the sales of a lot of this stuff, not having heard it I can't say for sure that it's not great. As a former rational custom designer/builder of bespoke audio gear, the customer is often the hardest to deal with. (In the end it wasn't worth it)
I love Mark's channel, and his sense of humor.
I love Mark's channel, and his sense of humor.
I cannot believe that video got a copyright strike and taken down. That manufacturer is a clown.
Streisand Effect in play:
Archive.org mirror of the original video for reference:
https://archive.org/details/the-gbp...tom-evans-mastergroove-sr-mk-iii-rjbp-fsfzi-i
Odysee mirror of the original video for reference:
https://odysee.com/The-£25,000-Pre-Amp-that-went-Wrong---Tom-Evans-Mastergroove-SR-mkIII:c
Archive.org mirror of the original video for reference:
https://archive.org/details/the-gbp...tom-evans-mastergroove-sr-mk-iii-rjbp-fsfzi-i
Odysee mirror of the original video for reference:
https://odysee.com/The-£25,000-Pre-Amp-that-went-Wrong---Tom-Evans-Mastergroove-SR-mkIII:c
I wonder if it is a good idea to post these links to youtube as well 8)
I am puzzled why it has not been taken down earlier. It is likely that the manifacturer did not monitor social media, a big mistake on this age. Good for Mark, it surely had a good number of views on the channel while it lasted.
It is my understanding that products like the one mentioned in this thread are not technical items, they are emotional items. You don't buy them only because you want to hear music, just like no one buys a Rolex because it wants to know the time. The manufacturer sells a experience. Yes they need to sound good, but this is only one of the sides of the product and not even the most important. This is why the inner workings are never pubblically shared, knowledge may spoil the experience as this thread clearly shows. The buyer themselves have a strong incentive to keep their purchases surrounded by mistery. Marketing a reputation-based item like this is not a plain "word of mouth" thing, it is anything but trivial and requires a lot of hard work and expenses; I believe that it is close to the way modern art market works.
Kindly asking the German crowd here to parse through a few of these reviews to see what is said about measurements and subjective performance. Not the first time in 20 years the hood has been popped on a TE product.
Dozen plus reviews of various Groove with measurements
Dozen plus reviews of various Groove with measurements
Tom Evans website doesn't look comparatively unreasonable to other high end manufacturers selling lesser products. His £25,000 flagship model now looks an embarrassment to his competency and morality, and he responded accordingly in the only way he could, by seemingly making false claims to YouTube to cover it up.
I may not be German, but I can read it reasonably well. These articles read like any article published in a high end audio magazine or website and they're all very positive. So, no surprises there.
Some of the articles show photos, like in Mark's video, they're pretty standard components being used. One of the articles even mentions this in a highlighted comment saying: "In der Schaltung kommen keine „sogenannten audiophilen Bauelemente" zum Einsatz." This translates to: "No “so-called audiophile components” are used in the circuit".
In this respect, I think the TE products have much more of a down to earth kind of design focusing on what really counts rather than providing "eye candy" components, which is what I think is what many other audiophile companies actually do. Just think of, e.g., those enormous film caps with gold lettering on a black background...
As to the copyright claim, I think it's rather far fetched, and if challenged, might end up being lifted. I liked Mark's response video to this very much.
I'm curious as to why you think the video should have been taken down earlier. Tom Evans himself sent the unit to Mark to repair, knowing that Mark posts videos of his repair activities. Any reasonable person would have expected Mark to document this repair too. As for the copyright claim, I'm not a lawyer but see absolutely nothing that Mark "copied" that would qualify as a violation. Maybe someone here can enlighten me.
On the original video, Mark showed a glimpse of the documentation and schematics he created, basically reverse engineering of a proprietary circuit. This could be considered a violation.
I'm no expert on Copyright but it has been suggested what Mark did was fine in an earlier post.
Looking at the makers website does not leave me impressed. Calls himself a genius (not humble) and refers to alien technology (okay👍), and has a FAQ that doesn't say much other buy his product because everything else is rusbbish. Even the photo of the premises is misleading as the trees are used to obsqure the sign which shows it is a business centre from which many businesses operate.
Just two points:
1) The unit in question was superseded some time before this thread was opened. [I pointed this out in post *71]
In fact we do not know if the model was ever sold to a member of the public at the price mentioned.
2) Considering that the unit in question was already in the US it seems perfectly fair to me that the builder
arranged to have the unit repaired by a competent EE in America rather than risk it being sent to the UK,
and then returned to America thereby increasing the costs and risks involved.
Nowhere have we been told that the unit had in fact been sold to an end user. It is just as likely that the unit
was en route to a reviewer or as a sample to a high-end dealer for comment - as part of a prelaunch development
programme. Can anyone prove that this model was ever sold to an end-user?
Have any of you ever actually bought any of Tom Evans's products?
Lastly, a contract between a repairer and an owner is usually a confidential agreement. To publish a record of the findings
and actions of the repair man at least shows a degree of questionable behaviour - unless the client had given him
permission to proceed with the open to the public video on that basis.
1) The unit in question was superseded some time before this thread was opened. [I pointed this out in post *71]
In fact we do not know if the model was ever sold to a member of the public at the price mentioned.
2) Considering that the unit in question was already in the US it seems perfectly fair to me that the builder
arranged to have the unit repaired by a competent EE in America rather than risk it being sent to the UK,
and then returned to America thereby increasing the costs and risks involved.
Nowhere have we been told that the unit had in fact been sold to an end user. It is just as likely that the unit
was en route to a reviewer or as a sample to a high-end dealer for comment - as part of a prelaunch development
programme. Can anyone prove that this model was ever sold to an end-user?
Have any of you ever actually bought any of Tom Evans's products?
Lastly, a contract between a repairer and an owner is usually a confidential agreement. To publish a record of the findings
and actions of the repair man at least shows a degree of questionable behaviour - unless the client had given him
permission to proceed with the open to the public video on that basis.
If that was the case, you wouldnt send it to someone who is known for posting videos of their repairs. Especially if you told them it couldnt be fixed.
Based on my admittedly limited research, a circuit can't be copyrighted but a drawing of a circuit (a schematic) can be. The problem I see with your argument is that Tom Evans didn't provide the schematic (or any other documentation) so there was no circuit drawing to copy and therefore no copyright violation. Mark drew the circuit himself; he didn't copy anything.
But I'm neither rich enough nor foolish enough to spend that kind of money on a phono preamp so I realize that my opinion isn't worth anything. 🙂
Thanks for that! I was perhaps a bit sloppy to have forgotten that!!!
[But the overall intent of my last post still stands - was this unit a production unit that had been sold - or a pre-production unit in course of development?]
Also - who has bought or even heard Evans's products.
[But the overall intent of my last post still stands - was this unit a production unit that had been sold - or a pre-production unit in course of development?]
Also - who has bought or even heard Evans's products.
Sure, but so what? Pricing something at £25,000 as seemingly what Tom did, being suggested as knowingly it might not be sold, can also have the intention to elude to all manner of competency and value that the pricing alone suggests, having no relation to actual value, competency or of moral conscience. Many manufacturers create flagship devices for the purpose of selling to unique buyers, many people just looking for things that no one else can afford. To be frank for £25,000 it looks like junk in a box.. having no recognizable relation to other lesser products he is currently selling. Owning another of his products doesn't diminish the objection to this.
Notwithstanding the motives of Mark, the video makes clear what Toms £25,000 product is worthy of to the extent it receives criticism or accolades. What specifically was presented that you think worthy of your objection warranting its removal from Youtube? The fact that it is shown falling apart in the post, the use of plastic standoffs as the cause, or the brutally amateurish looking mechanical construction practices.
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