2022 Chapter 5:
A Tale of Two Schiities
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way—in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.”
Recognize it? Does it sound, ah, familiar?
For those of you who slept through college-level English classes—or fortuitously avoided them—the sentence/paragraph above is the opening to Charles Dickens’
A Tale of Two Cities.
Now, you may ask: Barring any astrological-like vaguely-prophetic sounds-like-what’s-happening-now vibe, what does this bit of ancient literature have to do with the current chapter?
Two things:
- It’s right.
- We wanted to introduce two things, and because of one of those “worst of times” deals, we’re gonna have to postpone them.
Let’s start with the “it’s right” part. How does this book start?
Oh yeah:
It was the best of times…
I know you think I’m crazy. “The best of times?” you yell. “Are you kidding? Can’t you see what’s happening in the world? How can this possibly be any good at all?”
Simple. It’s the best of times because there has never been as much opportunity, ever, in the history of the world. It’s easy to forget that you can (a) buy a 3D printer for a few hundred dollars on Amazon, (b) use commonly available and free or cheap software to design your own amazing product, (c) freely avail yourself of crowdfunding sites to get your company started, (d) communicate with, and sell, directly to your audience online with no rent-seeking middlemen involved. None of this stuff existed when I was in high school or college.
Stop. Go back. Read that last sentence, and add one word for emphasis:
literally none of this stuff existed three decades ago.
So yes. It
is the best of times. If you want to do something, design something, make something, sell something, there’s more opportunity than ever.
And yes, I understand, that’s a very mercantilist view of the world, but consider that is what we do: we design, make, and sell things. This is what we know. That said, if you are more about discovering things, changing things, etc, I bet you can still make a case for this is the best of times, due to the same advancements in tools and communications.
(Or if not, let me know. I am frequently wrong.)
But Dickens’ book continues:
…it was the worst of times…
And yeah, there are things that suck.
Like our ADSP situation.
Sneaking Up On Failure
Until recently, I thought we were managing parts shortages and supply chain disruptions pretty well. Yes, there were some crazy times, like when it looked like we might have problems with Microchip microcontrollers, or some wacky discretes I like to use, or, more famously, the AKM DACs.
But we were doing OK. We were paying attention, designing around problems, making the changes we needed to make to be more flexible, and going in entirely new directions (ESS) when necessary.
Now, yeah, I was getting wayyyyy toooooo familiar with Octopart—an industry website that lets you get a read on how many parts are in the distribution network—and I was spending wayyyyyyyy tooooooo much time in redesign…but, you know, things were
manageable.
Or so I thought.
Here’s the thing: while we were paying attention to microprocessors, DACs, regulators, and tubes, another critical shortage snuck up on us: Analog Devices digital signal processors, or DSPs.
Analog Devices DSPs are the core of our multibit architecture, running our proprietary digital filter in all of our True Multibit™ DACs:
- True Multibit Card (used in Jotunheim, Ragnarok 2, etc.)
- Modi Multibit
- Bifrost 2
- Gungnir
- Yggdrasil
Or, in other words, no Analog Devices DSPs = no True Multibit DACs.
Ouch.
How did this happen? It’s simple:
- We were working on other shortages.
- We thought this shortage was covered—we’ve had like 25k of these parts ordered since May 2021
- The delivery date slipped…and slipped again…and slipped again…
And suddenly we weren’t covered.
The delivery date for Analog Devices DSPs (ADSPs from now on, ‘cause I’m lazy) is now November 2022.
Argh.
All of the above means that we had to make some decisions on what we were going to make, using a limited number of parts on hand. Perhaps surprisingly, we made the typical corporate decision to allocate these scarce parts to the more expensive products.
Which meant, straight off, that the True Multibit Card and Modi Multibit were gonna be on hold.
But that doesn’t tell the whole story. Because both the True Multibit Card and Modi Multibit had already been redesigned—to the True Multibit Unison Card and Modi Multibit 2—and were on their way to production.
How close? This close:
Argh and argh again! Two really great products I was looking forward to introducing. Two really great products on hold, at least until November. And that’s two really schiity bits of news.
Hence the title.
The Two Schiities (and Beyond)
I must like pain, because I’m now gonna talk about these two schiities a bit. Why that’s masochistic is simple: although these products may get the chips they need to run in November,
they may not. As in, the ADSP shipment date may be pushed again. So I may be talking about two products that are far, far from shipping…or, in the worst case, may need to be redesigned for a different DSP platform, like TI.
And yeah, I hear you again:
just redesign for TI and be done with it, I want the Schiit to flow!
Yeah. Except TI isn’t a panacea. Their lead-times are just like Analog Devices: 74 weeks for new orders. And to put that in context, 74 weeks is absolutely bonkers. That’s what you call a “go away,” lead time. As in “go away, don’t bother us with orders, we have no idea when this will really be ready.” It’s like when you go to a popular restaurant at peak and they tell you it’s a 2 hour wait.
So, all that said, let’s talk about what we were going to introduce, and what you (eventually) (hopefully) will be able to order.
True Multibit Unison Card. As in, kinda like the old card, but with Unison USB™ instead of the older C-Media USB receiver and a USB-C port. Plus a few other Dave tweaks that make it sound better and use less power than the old version. This was actually on the line, slated for production, when we had to pull it due to lack of ADSPs. I was really looking forward to this one, not least of which for selfish reasons—I wanted it for my Lyr 3 in Corpus. Yeah, we have a couple of hand-assembled green-board prototypes, so I’ll probably pinch one of those for the short term.
Modi Multibit 2. This was more of a pave-it-over and start again project, mainly due to the complexity of making the original Modi Multibit. Anyone who has ever opened up a Modi Multibit knows there are parts all over both the top and bottom of the board, which makes it a royal pain to assemble. So, while we were adding Unison USB and tweaking the overall design, we (meaning Dave) treated it to a complete relayout, so it’s now much easier to produce. And yes, that one gets USB-C as well, and the lower power tricks, so it runs cooler.
Of note, both these products use the Analog Devices AD5547 DAC, which we have good stock of. Of course. LOL. The upshot is that if all goes well and we get ADSPs in November, you should be able to see these products by the end of the year.
Sharp-eyed readers will be asking,
what about the other products? Does that mean you’ll just be doing Yggdrasil and Gungnir?
Close.
We’re committing to production on Bifrost 2 and Yggdrasil, so you’ll have a couple of good options on the True Multibit DAC side. In fact, we’re increasing production on both. I know that both have been in and out of stock for a while, but we’re hoping to have them more available this year. As with everything, we’ll see what happens.
So what about Gungnir? While there’s another run coming shortly, it has never been as strong as Yggdrasil and Bifrost 2 in terms of popularity. Beyond that, we’ll make more if we find some more ADSPs, or if something else happens.
And I should comment on “finding more ADSPs, or if something else happens.” Right now, we have three choices:
- Wait for our standing ADSP orders and hope they arrive in November. Fingers crossed. Who knows? Analog Devices actually moved up some ship dates recently. Maybe there will be a minor miracle and we’ll get them early. Yes, I am an incurable optimist. No, I’m not on prescription happy pills. It’s just how I am.
- Find some ADSPs from scalpers and use them in the more expensive products. In much the same way there are ticket scalpers, there are, (ahem), some resellers who hold stock of rare chips for days like this. And in much the same way as ticket scalping, you pay extra. Maybe a lot extra. But maybe this makes sense for Yggy.
- Redesign for a different platform, like TI. But I’ve already explained why this isn’t a panacea—lead times are still full boat crazy. I didn’t go into what a huge pain this would be, though. It’s not like dropping in a different chip. This is a complete change of the codebase. Everything needs to be redesigned—hardware, software, the whole banana. This is not easy or fast. Same comment applies to FPGAs, with the added caveat that Mike and Dave are finding it hard to get the horsepower they need at an acceptable cost, or at least that’s what I hear from them.
In any case, you now know as much as I do. I’m sorry we had to put a kibosh on the two “schitties” for now, but I am looking forward to getting them back!
