The $5 preamp Urban Legend
"PStamler" wrote in message
On Jun 1, 7:06 am, "Arny Krueger"
wrote:
"PStamler" wrote in message
On May 31, 8:52 pm, "Arny Krueger"
wrote:
"Mike Rivers" wrote in message
drichard wrote:
I don't have a subscription to Recording. Would it be
possible for you to tell me the focus of the article?
The title "The $5 preamp Urban Legend" doesn't help
me much, other than to tell me it has something to
do with preamps.
In the article, Paul describes the other costs
involved in making a $5 IC into a serviceable box
that has a mic input on one side and a line output on
the other - connectors, box, power supply, pots,
switches, transformers, and other miscellaneous
components. It all comes out to be a bit over $500 as
he analyzed it, and he did his usual excellent job of
putting on the hat of a designer and manufacturer and
looking at all the little things that people who say
"it's a simple construction project" don't talk about.
It's pretty incredible that some people do manage to
build a servicable preamp with all those things;
connectors, box, power supply, switches and other
miscellaneous components for more like $50 than $500.
I'm specifically thinking of the Rolls MP13.
Just about *everybody* can build a fairly servicable
mixer with from 8 to 16 mic inputs for $500.
Well, a *usable* mixer. *Servicable* is the thing it's
not -- and it's not likely to last more than a couple of
years.
I know that some people are afraid of low cost audio
products, but those of us who have to live in that world
know that it is not nearly as bad as some make it out to
be.
$500 a channel is a very salty number to beat.
If you want to believe that you have to spend that kind
of money to avoid products that only last a couple of
years, well it's your money.
If you want to give that as your final answer on a
public forum, then you may have to contend with a ton of
people who know better from practical experience.
As he often does, Arny shifts the goal posts with every
sentence.
As Pual often does, he is ignorant of his own shifty games.
I said that for $500 a mixer would be usable but not
serviceable -- which is true of all the cheap mixers; the
labor costs for disassembly alone end up being more than
the mixer is worth.
I did a little checking around and failed to find even one pro audio shop
that wanted $500 to do an inspection of a $500 mixer.
I've taken a few of them apart myself, and it isn't rocket science. I could
see where someone who didn't want to deal with that class of customer or
product might intentionally price themselves out of the particular
marketplace, but that's an administrative choice, not a technical necessity.
So Arny shifts gears to talking about stuff that's $500
per channel. Which is a whole 'nother ballgame.
No matter what libelous false claims you want to make Paul, I didn't invent
the $500 number. It appears that you have forgotten how to read because the
name of the person who introduced the $500 number is near the top of this
post. Look for the following sentence:
" It all comes out to be a bit over $500 as he (Paul Stamler) analyzed
it..."
Paul, since your literacy module seems to have gone missing, I'll spell it
out for you - the author of the $500 number is not me but rather is one Mike
Rivers, the date was 5/30/2010 and the time was 11:29 PM EDT. In short
Paul, you owe me a public apology. I'm not holding my breath!
I think my MP13 is about 5 years old and keeps on
working, its knock-about life not withstanding. My SX202
@$125 per channel may have been almost a decade old when
I picked it up on EBay, and that had to be 6-7 years
ago. It still works and it is about as servicable as
they come.
Uh-huh. It's not $50 per channel, which is what we were
originally talking about.
No Paul, it was Mike Rivers talking about $5 chips and $500 total cost. The
$50 number was chosen by me, who in a fit of diabolical dishonesty noticed
that $50 was exactly one order of magnitude *more* than $5 and one order of
magnitude *less* than $500. Again, neither the $5 nor the $500 was
orginated by me. The $5 title came from your magzine article, and the $500
number was estmated from your article by one Mike Rivers.
And Arny knows that. There are
very few products made like the SX202 anymore, and none
for $50 or $100.
Regrettably, I loaned my SX 202 to a friend so that he could do some speaker
testing with some ECM 8000s. Otherwise I would take a look inside and see
whether I would find SMT parts and thus have the opportunity to have a
hearty laugh at your expense, Paul. ;-) I've looked inside in the past, but
I don't remember too many details as I've looked inside many a mic preamp
box since then.
The only way you can make a preamp to
sell for $50 is (a) 100% automated board assembly, which
practically speaking means all surface-mount technology,
which means repair by replacing components is
economically unfeasible;
So here we see a repeat of the urban myth that SMT parts are totally
non-replacable. Paul, can't you do better than that? Many of us know better!
(b) very, *very* cheap pots
Interesting that you mention cheap pots, as a friend's SX 202 ended up
needing a pot replacement. I don't know what got repaired in mine as I
bought it used. However, it appears to me that the tapers of the two channel
gain pots of both of our SX 202s may differ from the one for the other
channel. Some of us have learned that low prices don't guarantee disaster,
and higher prices don't guarantee more freedom from disaster.
...pots and switches, which will be noisy in a year or two, depending
on where you live and how often you use the box.
I've got a pair of ADA 8000s that are now over 4 years old and are used
several times a week. If memory serves, 8 pots per box. Not a noisy pot in
the lot. This would be 8 mic preamps per box with an average street price of
$240 or about $30 each...
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