Here I want to tell you about modern "planned obsolescence" policy of todays manufacturers
of audio gear that breaks down after say 2 years of service on your calendars and the reviewers that promote these products.
The complete nonsense they tell you about todays modern audio gear, and their use,
telling nonsense and things that are simply not true, and that this is becoming general practise.As we all know Tannoy Monitor Gold speakers are not a subject to obsolecence, but the HPD speakers had a
major problem in this: the notorious surround rot, an issue caused by Tannoy taking wrong decisions
about parts properties, aging research and pricing policies. A typical design and component choice error made by Tannoy.
But not only by Tannoy as you will see below.
Tannoy HPD 315 with rotted surround.
Very often however it is not a design error as Tannoy made, but planned obsolecance that causes the break down of a product.
Manufacturers want to sell more products as they want to generate more profit. So by design their products
break down after a planned period of use by the customer. Many audio gear suffer from typical planned
obsolecance defects. There are temperature errors, high voltage errors, noise errors, high current errors
and many more. It is usually quite easy to determine what a manufacturer has in its design planned for obsolecance.
Today there are also product binding practises that speed up the obsolecence of a product,
as we all know the problem with the power supplies and batteries of cell phones and the cartridges problem of printers.
So while the conveinience of modern devices, such as the auto transport of files and the like, seem to make our
lives easier, it's still a device that will have a greatly limited life.
Below a few typical examples of this planned obsolecence phenomene.
First of all lets have a look at some gear as examples of the meaning of the subject I am talking about.
Cheap building practises by an English amplifier manufacturer.
Here you see an example of a well known mainstream modern audio amplifier of 2 x 50 Watts, compact pcb
and slick build, good transformer, no comments at first glance.
When however you have a better look, zooming into the picture, you see this:
An example of cheap heatsinking by an amplifier manufacturer, this way of heatsinking is not without consequenses.
This is a photo of the driver transistors and how this manufacturer thinks about heatsinking.
The drivers have some fin that breaks off easely and the power transistors are screwed to the bottom of the box.
One thing is clear here: this goes wrong under some conditions, even considering modern SMD components
have better temp. properties than pure discrete parts, it is also a way to cut costs and be sure life of this product is limited.
The same problem is found in many switching power supplies of audio and multimedia gear.
As an example here the Strong SRT7335CI satelite reciever. The power supply gets so hot, specially in summer,
that it breaks down, it makes the reciever obsolete due to too high repairing cost.
I have measured the temperature of the parts in the involved power supply and got values above 80/85 deg C.
Heatsinking these parts helps but does not solve the problem.
I had to add diodes, capacitors and heatsinks to get temperatures under control in this reciever.
Strong satelite reciever
The modified power supply of this reciever shown below.
There are also diodes added on the copper side of the pcb, that diodes I obtained from an obsolete computer power supply
and are fast switching shottky diodes, now the temp. of the power supply is around 60 deg C, even after a long operating time.
Updated power supply unit, initially suffering high temperatures exceeding 85 deg C.
Electronic parts temperatures of up to 60 deg. Celcius is an average value that not should be exceeded in electronics.
Many manufactureres are not worried when their product power supply measures above 80 deg. C. at normal daily use of the equipment.
The obvious result is short life of the gear and that is exactly what manufacturers want, once the warranty time is exceeded and
the minimum life expectance is over, the customer should be willing to buy new. Here developes a sharp contrast in interests,
as the customer wants his gear to last long and not polute the enviroment, he also wants to be involved in the decision when
the equipment is obsolete, high repairing cost after a short life does not make the customer happy.
For this Medion power supply section all help came too late, the unit is dead.
Another problem that is by now quite common: blown capacitors. Not only in pc's but also since ~1980 in audio gear.
The manufacturer of this board, Medion Germany, did not replace the board and rejected the warranty claim by the owner.
This obsolecence policy by Medion is completely unacceptable. As this is a serious design and component choice error made by Medion.
This again underlines the planned obsolecence policy of several manufacturers, the result is: the customer never again buys Medion.
Burnt pcb in a Luxman amplifier L230.
Here a Luxman L230 amplifier board. The big resistor gets very hot and the zenerdiode gets over 100 deg. C. it heats up the capacitor
on the left side of it and this gets up to 90 deg. C. Resulting in a breakdown of the capacitor and the complete lamp-circuit.
Now the amp is out of order and does not work anymore. An upgrade of the circuit is neccesary as the power design has to be changed.
Changing lamps to leds is best done here, all problems are solved when this is done.
Minolta Dimage 2300 digital camera
The digital camera Minolta Dimage 2300 produced around 2000 has similar problems that make the camera after
approx. 5 years of use worthless. On the picture you can see that the CCD is still 100 % but the color filter that
resides in front of it is blurred and making it impossible to make pictures with the camera. The bad quality glue
used between the 2 filter glass parts got visable and blurred the filter. Clearly a production error known also
on other camera models, how long should a camera work properly?
Minolta was bought by Sony, have they solved the problem?
The blurred colour filter making the camera useless.
HDMI autoswitch sold under several brand names
This HDMI autoswitch does not work in many situations as this device does not meet the HDMI standards, that makes it worthless.
Led lamps and the life of 10.000+ hours claimed.
This is a led-lamp cracked and you see the power converter-pcb and the led-pcb with the power leds.
The claim of 10000+ hours working time appeared to be complete nonsense here,
as 5 leds were broken after 20 hours, making the lamp obsolete.
As an example of how reviewers think, here the article of the reviewers site 6moons, where they review a usb dac:
http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/antelope2/1.html
In the above article 6moons audio magazine reviews a Antelope audio dac, that I do not give any comment about.
The review itself I discuss here. If you have €2.995 to spend for a dac that is fine with me.
The dac itself is probably a fine machine that works fine for users that need a dac with usb.
Knowing the electronic technology behind such a dac I will never pay such amount, a few 100 bucks will do for me.But that is personal opinion and not important here.
Read the 6moons review and say what is the first thing that comes to your attention?
Yes the "break-in" period as they call it in the reviews conclusion:
"Final comments & suggestions: The fundamental weakness here is the 500-hour break-in requirement".
In the text the reviewer remarks: "after the machine has settled in. The 500 hours are no myth".Ok, lets calculate, 500 hours are over 20 days of continues use,
when using the dac 8 hours per day the break-in should be over 62 days, thats 2 months.
But thats not all:
"My guess is that 2.000 hours are needed for full burn-in" thats 8 months 8 hours per day!
And: "If you make the main burn-in via S/PDIF, the USB input still needs its own burn-in
—I guess 300 hours will do—and again the differences are huge."
Now here is where I lost it completely, USB ports that need burn-in? Not one word WHY?For 3000 bucks this is a reason to take legal action against the company that sells the dac.
By the time planned obsolecance takes action the product is finally burnt in: yes in fact burnt OUT.
So knowing the kind of electronic technology used in this dac, can this burn in story be true? NO of course not!It is nonsense, crap, the reviewer may hear difference after 2 months time but certainly not the "settling of the dac",
Why? because this does not exist in digital audio gear the way this reviewer discribes.
Maybe he thinks IC's behave the same way as tubes, I don't know.Then look at the speakers he uses: 86 dB SPL. To get a nice sound level in your room, be prepared to invest
in many many Watts in your power amplifier. Not really a reference speaker like a Tannoy.Then the power supply issue, a power supply should never be an issue in audio as I mention above,
and I said this before above and in earlier comments, so conclusion: noisy PS? bad product design!Noise, not one sane word about noise, as one of the main issues with dacs, specially at low levels dacs are notorious noise generators.
These kind of reviews are so useless and they contribute to all kinds of nonsense and ledgends about audio, these reviews are obsolete.
This kind of review is not todays standard and should be deleted, on all websites and in all magazines.It is a pity that I have to explain over and over again to audio enthousiasts that burning-in audio & speaker cable is bullocks!
