[legoman]

Disclaimers:

1) I am not a DIYer (yet) and thus may be accused of purely creating work for others or not understanding the DIY ethic, etc..
2) There may have been similar thoughts expressed on Headwize long before that I am unaware of (being a head-fi man myself and not being sure what keywords would be applicable in a search)

---------------------
So here it goes:

When I saw the pictures of erix's CMOY I was wondering whether it wouldn't be cool if there would be some kind of informal tradition that anyone that builds one of these great DIY amps has to send a picture to the circuit designer. That way they would end up with tens or hundreds of pictures of actual incarnations of their design and get at least some tangible evidence of all their great work. In some sense these amps are their grandchildren. I think that would be kind of cool and a way to say thanks.

Idealistically,

Legoman

 

[aos]

That's not a bad idea in theory. It's nice when you get picture every now and then but if the project becomes enormously popular you'd probably get sick of 10 pictures a day. Actually, Chu Moy already solicits the pictures from everybody

.

 

[Daniel Pumphrey]

Many DIYers started with one design and then went on to many others including their own designs in the search for ultimate audio.
I am working on my own solutions now. Many design suggestions are offered by the actual chip makers in data sheets.
The real heros of this new audio era are the designers of the chips themselves. It is them who allow one to build an amp with a chip or two and actually end up with an advanced high tech amp which would need hundreds of discrete components to build from ground up. These chips contain the equivalent of an amp with many many parts that are even in most instances very highly tuned, very advanced designs that DIYers are incapable of building on their own.
Many of the circuits seen here are in the opamp manuals and data sheets. Tube audio has had the same manuals for years and years. An instance of a truely new design not made before is rare.

Many thanks to the engineers, the real unknown heros who developed these amazing devices we have today.
Dan

 

[Budgie]

Well said, Dan.

I would also want to mention that every chip designer today, builds on the designs of the previous generation of designers. Most chip technology is an improvement of what came before.( It has been awhile since there has been any fundemental breakthroughs in chip technology.)

 

[Apheared]

[rant]

Budgie: Exactly!!

They're just implementors. Most chip builders aren't pioneering, they're using the tools they have to a commercial endevour. They already have the circuit they're just learning how to make it smaller and automated and hopefully cast it on a die to imbed it in your cell phone while the sales and marketing team get partnered up with so-and-so. Nothing cutting edge there, look at the CPU that's powering your web browser to write that post!!

While you and I go to pcb-etcher.com for our little prototype boards, these guys spend tons more but go to wafer-etcher.com for thier ic manufacturing. It's just layout, only different. They also have to deal with MONEY - the evil thing that it is. obsolescence redesigns and that whole end-of-life-cycle crap. I know it's part of the whole thing; but it must suck on that scale much more than you and I not being able to get the chip we liked anymore.

Because it's disposable, it wasn't cutting edge anyway... just the same thing but smaller and faster and more individual things integrated into one package.

It used to be the colleges and the 3 top integrated circuit manufacturers that turned out the brilliant engineers, but along that vein...

I'll post pics of my stupidity as a tribute to the community that inspired why I'm addicted to this crap. There's alot of us playing here...
But a few of our friends are real, bonafide professional, working, career engineers, with degrees and IEEE memberships and the whole 9... But even most of these heros are just implementors; none of them are developing or deviating from the "known path" of 75 years of solid electronics design. I have my heros here, alright. A boatload of them!

But I have the generation before them to worship more, the Jung's and Pease's that taught them... and as we go farther back, 60s... 50s... 40s... the guys that CAME UP WITH this stuff... I can't comprehend what I can't comprehend. How far back? Nicky Tesla?

That's not to say it's different in any other field. How many house-framing carpenters today are doing it differently than 100 years ago? Construction materials may have changed and such, but I'm pretty sure it's done the same as always.

I think it's level of exposure. In the day, I would have agreed it was a good idea because I didn't know better. NOW I know enough to know I'll never know enough. I could go back to school, dedicate my career, dedicate my LIFE to the study of electronics... and still never know enough. You can only fill a tiny tiny niche. Even that takes decades of dedication.

They are not unknown. I know them. I worship them.

[/rant]

What does this have to do with pictures of DIY layouts? Nothing. Nothing at all. I'm on drugs.

 

[Daniel Pumphrey]

You Go Apheared.
I am of an age when Television was still new, Black and white and very heavy and hot. The repairman came to the house to fix them by replacing one or many vacuum tubes that resided inside. A Television looked like the space ship from Close encounters on the inside. All these tubes and the glow of all these elements. A television was also one of the most expensive Things people bought.
Then Color TV came along as well as the radios by the thousands from Japan. A radio was judged by how many transistors it had, and this was on the cover. 3 Transistor, 9 transistor, the ultimate 10 transistor.
We have come so far since then, yet not many people appreciate electromic design anymore. They want the newest gadget and throw away the old.
When I think that we put men on the moon when we did is the most amazing thing to me. Just how did they accomplish that feat without the chip revolution we now have.
At least we can appreciate all these things when we build them ourselves. That's the good part.
Dan

 

[ppl]

Ya Apaheared and it was done without Or-Cad or other Tools. But Innovation is abundent it is just subtile and generrly gose un-noticed by Most people, But your correct on the Most part Designers today are just reconfiguring the Wheel.

 

[Daniel Pumphrey]

Jung might be important, but what about Forrest Mims the I II III IV? Just Kidding!
My hero is Einstein who ushered in the new age.
Dan

 

[Apheared]

lego, I apologize... I've hihacked your thread.
------

I'm just venting...

I don't want the cliffnote version, I actually want to strive for understanding. Do you remember when you finally got your head around the concept that frequency wasn't so much a value as a measure of time? It's still new to me, see.

So then wham! All the phase angle and amplitude response samples doing transfer functions actually is understandable... yea it takes a calculator and scratch paper but damnit, it's doable. (so THAT's why filter equations are normalized!) Just repeating it is a far cry from understanding it. I'm still not sure why about 90% of the stuff I do know. Why is the bitch. "Because" is not an answer, ever.

So alot of these kids with the: "so this cmoy, is it better and cheaper than XXX?"... or my newest favorite: "Hey can you build me that RA-1 for $20?"

They really piss me off sometimes. I'm thinking I'll never know 1/1,000,000th of what there is to learn, and they just want the cheapo version. I've spent more on just books than it would cost to just buy a Max. Sigh.

I know the average or above-average engineer that's way past me in knowledge on the subject doesn't care, they just wanna make car payments and mortage payments and take the wife to dinner... it's called life. I understand. Commercial and military applications are it once you leave college. And even then, you're trained to be a productive member of society. Creativitiy driven by marketability. So wrong.

But oh well, at least they won't ask me to build them a reverse-engineered amp for less than the shipping costs to get the parts.

 

[Apheared]

Forrest Mims the I II III IV? Just Kidding!

Why kidding? You know more than him? You have nothing to learn from those books? Hey he's a hero too... he's not a pioneer that I know of, but definately worthy...

(just like that generation has a crapload more than just Walt and Bob, I just listed them because I personally love those two... can't understand them but love em.)

Just like I know there's more than the Kilby's and Noyce's from the IC creation days... but there's only so much room to list a creation to in a history book, so... I'm sure there were teams and ideas and who knows maybe the janitor gave Jack the idea in the first place... but this isn't ancient history, it's in our lifetime! You'd think there'd still be room for pioneering work.

 

[aos]

Also one of the reasons I've personally seen very little modern "art" that can compare with what came before. And who can blame the potential artist for taking the commercial way and producing copies of the copies? He can make a good living and be happy instead of living below the powerty line. He has that choice now. It's bad for the art but good for the artist.

 

[ppl]

Telsa is my Hero if one were to have sutch things ya telsa the real inventor of radio. the Gov. gave Telsa's patent To marconi Talk about a Fixed society. Anyone that is kind of maverick Telsa is has got to Be cool.

 

[skippy]

telsa's my personal hero too. ain't it messed up that edison gets the recognition as a great inventor and people associate edison with electricity, when we really owe so much more to tesla?

granted the man did go off the deep end later in life, but he definitely deserves more recognition.

then again, because of him we have to filter out AC from our powersupplies.

 

[ppl]

Hi Skippy: The Deep End........Hummm........ Time Traval Ya i am sick of this timeline. AC.... Humm It's more efficeient to transmitt AC over wires than DC due to a non Continoius duty Cycle. Edison lived off the work of Others and as you sed get's all the Credit, Sort of like Nowdays. Nice to know things haven't changed that mutch.

 

[Tomo]

Hey,

Ah sent mah pictures to HeadWize to post on the addundum. Darn I dunno how long ago. I ... am very long time member ... Shoot gittin' old.

Wow, Apheared. I feel the same way sometimes. I used to sometimes leave someone somewhat cold message like "You should read about circuits." or "read specs please" I get frustrated when people are asking me questions like "Is there polarity to somesuch parts?", "How does potentiometers or voltage divider work?" or "What is the pin layout of somesuch chips?"

I find more than half of these questions like above can be answered from reading for couple hours. Give few more hours and you should be able to understand the circuit at least the faintest possible way. ... such as what not to do. (I would not plug output to AC outlet for instance.) Look, I read English docs but English is my foreign language ... Brah Brah Lets leave it at that.

I like Mr. Fourier more. I think he deserve higher honour than Newton, Einstein or Bohr ... Without Fourier, we would still be in middle ages. But hey! I am just a ex-physic major.

Tomo