The Great Give-Away!
Printed From: Graham Slee Hifi System Components
Category: DIY AUDIO
Forum Name: Free Audio Designs and Info
Forum Description: Graham shows his competitors how to design and gives you some great projects to build
URL: https://www.hifisystemcomponents.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=741
Printed Date: 27 Mar 2026 at 5:07am
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 12.01 - http://www.webwizforums.com
Topic: The Great Give-Away!
Posted By: Graham Slee
Subject: The Great Give-Away!
Date Posted: 23 Dec 2009 at 6:07am
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How about a great design for free? I think it's called "open resource". What if anybody could build a Genera phono preamp without buying a thing from me? What if that phono preamp was a serious commercial proposition? A real performer? What if I then made it ultimately tweakable?... OK, there'd be a kit as was always planned, but the circuit published freely online, so there's the option of going it alone, or buying the kit. But rather than the kit being the be-all and end-all, it would just be the beginning. Why not make it adaptable to suit the user's preferences - moving magnet, moving coil, anything you want it to do? Rather than confining it to the one box issued with the kit (nice box mind you...), it could be made to fit a nice "utility" box from the likes of "Rapid", such that there's room for expansion - room for mods and tweaks... I could even demonstrate how to make a "bog-standard" op-amp jump through hoops! Stuff you don't normally get to see because it's a commercial secret... This is a great give away, but like the end of a concert, the crowd has to cheer loud for an encore... let's have plenty of feedback to this topic? ------------- That none should be able to park up and enjoy the view without a smartphone and the knowledge in how to use apps |
Replies:
Posted By: mrarroyo
Date Posted: 23 Dec 2009 at 11:44pm
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Any chance of making it battery powered? ------------- Miguel |
Posted By: Graham Slee
Date Posted: 24 Dec 2009 at 5:19am
Yes! ------------- That none should be able to park up and enjoy the view without a smartphone and the knowledge in how to use apps |
mrarroyo wrote:Posted By: discrete badger
Date Posted: 24 Dec 2009 at 10:08am
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This sounds a bit like the open-source model for software. Take for example Sun which owns and backs OpenOffice.org, a serious free competitor to expensive commercial office software. A company pays for ongoing development and gives away the results and the source code/commercial secrets for free. Does it result in bankruptcy? No. It just means that, if it's good enough, the product becomes the standard for anybody wanting to do anything vaguely like it, the company giving it away becomes the authority on not only the product but the problem it's trying to solve, and there's no point in anybody trying to develop a competing product because it's already been done to a very high standard and is available freely. Also, it means that other people can openly discuss and try out their ideas for variations and improvements, and enable the burn-in and testing process to be scaled up, and these ideas can then be incorporated into "off the shelf" commercial products for those who are not so handy with a soldering iron. So I think it would be a very bold and forward-looking step and one which can only boost GSP's very high reputation, and one which would generate more interest and customers for the higher-priced products, because the research and attention to detail that goes into them will be obvious. It would further seperate GSP from the "mainstream" hi-fi industry, some of which relies on snake oil and user ignorance; i.e. the exact opposite of open discussion of the designs. The downside I guess could be that the work of the cloners would be made easier; who are capable of copying cheaply what they wouldn't be capable of designing in the first place. |
Posted By: iamalexis
Date Posted: 24 Dec 2009 at 2:58pm
| i like the idea. you could always start up some sort of subscription/club for the diy audio enthusiast! |
Posted By: less
Date Posted: 08 Jan 2010 at 10:59am
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I like the sound of this idea too Graham.
Agree with the comments in the previous posts. The suggested online magazine would seem to be the appropriate place for this though. Hope you are able to do this. Regards Les ------------- I don't do mediocrity! Les Sutherland |
Posted By: Sylvain
Date Posted: 26 Jan 2010 at 12:20pm
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I like the idea of a customising to taste ie for a particular Cartridge , type of music and upgradability in stages. That would be '' Nirvana'' phono. However, the most difficult phase is the circuit board layout and that much has to be well illustrated or most enthusiast would not pass this major hurdle.
Trust Graham Slee for true'' Phono to the people''.
Sylvain
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Posted By: Bry
Date Posted: 08 Feb 2011 at 3:06am
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Graham, I was wondering what would be the best approach for a 2 stage design. Is it better to have the first stage be a follower, provide half the gain, or provide half of the RIAA eq? Basically, I'd like to build a preamp (or mod the Genera) that could be set to any loading configuration for testing cartridges. Am I right in assuming that if all the gain is not being provided by the input device, the slew requirements will be much lower? Also, what would be your opamp choice for low-distortion buffering? -Bryan |
Posted By: Graham Slee
Date Posted: 08 Feb 2011 at 9:31am
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My initial thoughts would be for a first stage to be a follower - what we want here is a stage that has more slew rate than the following stage so that the input capacitance can be taken lower. The problem I can see could be its noise contribution. I would not consider an op-amp because that could/would probably have the same limitations as that we are trying to avoid. As such, the input stage would be "stand alone" - not included in the overall negative feedback loop. Thinking cap time again  ------------- That none should be able to park up and enjoy the view without a smartphone and the knowledge in how to use apps |