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The Great Give-Away!

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Graham Slee View Drop Down
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    Posted: 23 Dec 2009 at 6:07am
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 buy or sell without a smartphone and the knowledge in how to use apps
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote mrarroyo Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 23 Dec 2009 at 11:44pm
Any chance of making it battery powered?
Miguel
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Graham Slee Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 24 Dec 2009 at 5:19am
Originally posted by mrarroyo mrarroyo wrote:

Any chance of making it battery powered?


Yes!
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote discrete badger Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 24 Dec 2009 at 10:08am
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.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote iamalexis Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post 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!
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote less Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 08 Jan 2010 at 10:59am
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
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Les Sutherland
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Sylvain Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26 Jan 2010 at 12:20pm
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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