http://www.musiciansfriend.com/amplifiers-effects/diago-ls01-little-smasher-5w-guitar-amp-head
Anyone have any idea what it uses for a chip? Also, I doubt the 5w rating considering it asks for 9vDC @ 600ma which is only 5.4w...must be a VERY efficient design, no?
Probably a Class D chip with linear preamp. Horrendous price though about $/£190 :-(
Yeah, I'm curious what chip. Also from sound clips on youtube it's nothing special, sounds like an LM386 circuit - at least when using gain.
It *must* use a bridged output chip, and as was hinted, *very* probably a Class D type.
No way you can pull 5 *audio* watts out of a 9V 600mA PSU.
Price is madness, but they may sell a few based on their novelty value.
Mind you, being a recording you have no idea of actual loudness; anyway they *only* plug it into very loud boxes: a regular Marshall 4 x 12" or boutique 2x12" with Vintage 30 clone ... and the drummer stays 10 feet further than the amp.
Anyway, nice idea and the sound is good.
Probably some *good* distortion pedal into a chipamp.
Quote from: J M Fahey on June 23, 2012, 05:50:59 PM
It *must* use a bridged output chip, and as was hinted, *very* probably a Class D type.
No way you can pull 5 *audio* watts out of a 9V 600mA PSU.
Price is madness, but they may sell a few based on their novelty value.
Mind you, being a recording you have no idea of actual loudness; anyway they *only* plug it into very loud boxes: a regular Marshall 4 x 12" or boutique 2x12" with Vintage 30 clone ... and the drummer stays 10 feet further than the amp.
Anyway, nice idea and the sound is good.
Probably some *good* distortion pedal into a chipamp.
Totally agree except that bit about the sound quality using a good distortion pedal. It's not bad, but in my opinion it is ok at best for the distortion in that clip. Like I said, sounds like a LM386 at full tilt.
So who's going to buy one to pull to pieces :) :)
Quote from: tonyharker on June 25, 2012, 10:48:12 AM
So who's going to buy one to pull to pieces :) :)
I vote that you can do it :lmao:
I'm sure it's not easily clonable, it must be all SMD construction.
But as I said before, the actual sound must be not too difficult to clone.
A few comments on what I saw:
1) repeat that it was "helped" a lot by pligging it into good, loud cabinets, not the cheap light 6" (best case 8") speaker you find in typical beginner level amps.
That alone accounts for 90% of good tone.
Demoers also used good guitars.
I liked the PRS very much.
And most of them played quite well, at least the short licks shown.
2) amazingly, the controls worked *very little*, definitely not the +15/-30db they claim.
Not in your wildest dreams.
On a 0/10 scale, they move treble from 3 to 8 or 9 ... very little effect.
The range they claim would have gone from mud to screeching ... and we hear noting like that.
3) shockingly, the gain pot has very little effect, and what's worse, even on 2 it fails to clean the sound, which remains crunchy.
No clean setting (at least none shown) from that pot.
On the contrary, the sound cleans to sparkly bright when the *guitar* volume pot is lowered, which makes me think that besides the distorting stage proper, the input stage (before the gain pot) is already very easy to overdrive.
I wouldn't be surprised at all if the distortion/preampo were a DSP chip, instead of analog circuits.
A friend of mine bought a very good sounding "Matal" distortion, which has 3 knobs: Bass, Treble and Output Volume, NO gain pot (it's always on full tilt).
Being curious I opened it to take a peek: it has only a solitary square 16 pin per side DSP chip and little else.
But the sound is definitely clonable.
We are getting into Winter, now I know what to do on those long rainy cold nights.
Stay tuned, I'll show it here. 8)
Juan, not sure how much you've played with the LM386 circuits like the Little Gem, but they react exactly as you have explained - especially the bit about gain. It never gets truly clean until you roll back the guitar for instance.
We're just getting into the heat of summer here, but stacking wood for next winter :tu:
Gents,
James from Diago here. I've been a member of the forum since early 2009, and a lurker for a lot longer than that. Teemu's book is amazing. I've learned a lot.
In response to your questions:
1) For the power amp, we're using a TDA7240A in bridged mode. Into an 8 ohm load, we can get about 5W out of it; nearly 7W into 4 ohms (not clean).
2) For the best recording, see here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cablnl3Ag7Q (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cablnl3Ag7Q) Do you really think that it's no better sounding than an LM386 based circuit? That doesn't seem to be the opinion of most people who have heard it or played it. I've built a bunch of solid state pre-amps and amps over the years and making a great one takes a great deal of hard work. I'm really surprised you're comparing the LS with the LM386 based amps.
3) Pricing is a function of manufacturing cost, reasonable profit and the long distribution chain in this industry. In the UK they retail at £99, including a power supply, which is much less than a lot of much simpler and less costly distortion pedals, without a power supply. Do you think that it's wholly unreasonable compared with anything else? If so, what do you think would be a reasonable price?
4) It's entirely analogue using a bunch of carefully designed op-amp gain/filter stages - think Sansamp approach with some more work. Yes, it's almost all SMD.
5) Absolutely, it sounds the best through some decent speakers, and a decent cab. Don't all amps? That's one of the premises - most smaller amps are coupled with cheap crappy speakers, and people wonder why they don't sound so great...
6) The EQ controls are +15/-30dB. On higher gain settings, they don't do as much, since a lot of the distortion is post EQ.
7) The gain pot is as I designed it. It's voiced to give a plexi vibe, and with single coils it cleans up reasonably well. Yes, with higher output pickups it's very easy to overdrive, just as intended. I appreciate your criticisms, but it isn't designed to be the world's most versatile amp. That's not what most people want.
If you absolutely must clone it, then I respect your freedom to do that. However, Diago is a tiny company (just 3 of us), and I'd like to think that you may consider our business and livelihoods in the process. I don't know what effect having that info in the public domain will do, but I ask that you consider the possible effects on us. I appreciate that doing it has negligible effect on the larger organisations.
I'm happy to answer as many questions as you like. Fire away../
If some of the more experienced of you have any advice, I'm happy to listen/read.
:tu:
James @ Diago.
Quote from: maloushe on July 02, 2012, 01:16:41 PM
Gents,
James from Diago here. I've been a member of the forum since early 2009, and a lurker for a lot longer than that. Teemu's book is amazing. I've learned a lot.
In response to your questions:
1) For the power amp, we're using a TDA7240A in bridged mode. Into an 8 ohm load, we can get about 5W out of it; nearly 7W into 4 ohms (not clean).
2) For the best recording, see here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cablnl3Ag7Q (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cablnl3Ag7Q) Do you really think that it's no better sounding than an LM386 based circuit? That doesn't seem to be the opinion of most people who have heard it or played it. I've built a bunch of solid state pre-amps and amps over the years and making a great one takes a great deal of hard work. I'm really surprised you're comparing the LS with the LM386 based amps.
3) Pricing is a function of manufacturing cost, reasonable profit and the long distribution chain in this industry. In the UK they retail at £99, including a power supply, which is much less than a lot of much simpler and less costly distortion pedals, without a power supply. Do you think that it's wholly unreasonable compared with anything else? If so, what do you think would be a reasonable price?
4) It's entirely analogue using a bunch of carefully designed op-amp gain/filter stages - think Sansamp approach with some more work. Yes, it's almost all SMD.
5) Absolutely, it sounds the best through some decent speakers, and a decent cab. Don't all amps? That's one of the premises - most smaller amps are coupled with cheap crappy speakers, and people wonder why they don't sound so great...
6) The EQ controls are +15/-30dB. On higher gain settings, they don't do as much, since a lot of the distortion is post EQ.
7) The gain pot is as I designed it. It's voiced to give a plexi vibe, and with single coils it cleans up reasonably well. Yes, with higher output pickups it's very easy to overdrive, just as intended. I appreciate your criticisms, but it isn't designed to be the world's most versatile amp. That's not what most people want.
If you absolutely must clone it, then I respect your freedom to do that. However, Diago is a tiny company (just 3 of us), and I'd like to think that you may consider our business and livelihoods in the process. I don't know what effect having that info in the public domain will do, but I ask that you consider the possible effects on us. I appreciate that doing it has negligible effect on the larger organisations.
I'm happy to answer as many questions as you like. Fire away../
If some of the more experienced of you have any advice, I'm happy to listen/read.
:tu:
James @ Diago.
Hi James, thanks for responding, this is all very insightful and helpful. As to your questions:
1) If you are getting 5-7w, how can you only call for a 9v 600ma PSU (5.4w)? By looking at the datasheet it looks to me like you should get about 3.5 - 4w at 8 ohm and 6.5w or so at 4 ohm on 9v. If you are going with a 9v PSU you would really want about 900ma for 8 ohm and 1.5amp for 4 ohm output, otherwise you will be sagging your PSU and not getting full output. With a 600ma output I'd be surprised if you end up with more than 2.5w or so. Maybe this sag is part of the sound which is fine, but if that is the case, it can't truthfully be marketed as a 5w amp.
2) Wow, that is a great sounding recording! I had found another clip on youtube and wasn't impressed at all. I may have mis-judged the sound of it prematurely. Is that a FET based preamp?
3) Price wise it's pretty expensive to me for a tiny head. $190 USD from Musician's Friend. For that same money I could get a Dean Markley DM30RC combo amp that sounds great, is 30w RMS, has two channels, spring reverb, chorus, well...you get the idea. Back when the Epiphone Valve Jr was for sale, it was a 5w tube head that went for $150-200 depending on where you looked. I think its hard for people to swallow the price when it is "just" a solidstate head, not a tube piece. You mentioned manufacturing costs, where is it manufactured? If its not in China, Korea, India etc, maybe mention it's place of manufacture as a selling point. I'd like to see it sell for $125 - $140 if made in China etc, or if made in USA, Canada, England (or other parts of Europe) I would pay as much as $175-200.
As for suggestions, primarily I would complain of it's lack of headphone jack. For such a tiny/compact little guy, a headphone jack should be a must. Make it 1/8" stereo because that's what people will use anyway and it will save space. You could also design the headphone jack so it could be used as a line out and people could even gig this little guy if they liked it enough.
Also, if it is built in a non-sweatshop environment, market that - it's a big selling point - seriously.
Good luck, and please come back, it's great to have industry insiders on here.
Hi James/Diago.
Congratulations on designing and building a *very* good sounding product.
In my book, that's the main point.
The fact that the physical design is cool , only adds to its desirability.
The Ferrari Red paint definitely does not hurt. ;)
So you got to sell it at major Music Shops, both in USA and the UK?
(Not forgetting other Countries)
Incredible !!
I fully agree that the Distribution chain is long, has way too many parasitic stages, and all of them multiply price by a lot. Unfair.
Speaking for myself, please take my comments with a grain of salt and consider them made in good faith.
Not knowing *anything* about your amp or background, all we can do is guess.
Thanks again for being so polite and using some of your valuable time for writing us.
Congratulations again on a great sounding (and looking) product.
PS: *if* you could enlighten us on anything you think useful or interesting, such as your approach to manufacturing, or some short explanation on distribution channels or whatever, we would be very grateful.
It's a kind of experience far removed from our daily one.
PS2: and please tell me that the 600mA rating from the PSU is *very* conservative.
I do not doubt your power rating, the datasheet also confirms it, but I'm calculating a higher current need.
Not a criticism, quite the contrary, maybe your PSU is *way* overbuilt .
:dbtu:
Good luck.
Quote from: J M Fahey on July 03, 2012, 12:41:10 AM
Hi James/Diago.
Congratulations on designing and building a *very* good sounding product.
In my book, that's the main point.
The fact that the physical design is cool , only adds to its desirability.
The Ferrari Red paint definitely does not hurt. ;)
So you got to sell it at major Music Shops, both in USA and the UK?
(Not forgetting other Countries)
Incredible !!
I fully agree that the Distribution chain is long, has way too many parasitic stages, and all of them multiply price by a lot. Unfair.
Speaking for myself, please take my comments with a grain of salt and consider them made in good faith.
Not knowing *anything* about your amp or background, all we can do is guess.
Thanks again for being so polite and using some of your valuable time for writing us.
Congratulations again on a great sounding (and looking) product.
PS: *if* you could enlighten us on anything you think useful or interesting, such as your approach to manufacturing, or some short explanation on distribution channels or whatever, we would be very grateful.
It's a kind of experience far removed from our daily one.
PS2: and please tell me that the 600mA rating from the PSU is *very* conservative.
I do not doubt your power rating, the datasheet also confirms it, but I'm calculating a higher current need.
Not a criticism, quite the contrary, maybe your PSU is *way* overbuilt .
:dbtu:
Good luck.
Juan, even though the unit says 9v 600ma, the PSU that comes with it is 9v 1,000ma according to what I read online - I had missed that before. That's pretty reasonable.
Joe, Juan, everyone else,
1) Yes, it comes with a 1,000mA PSU. The 600mA is a conservative nominal rating (under most usage conditions), although we should probably be a lot more clear about that.
2) The pre-amp is all op-amp based (TL2262/4s). No FETs at all. AMT Electronics use FETs and their products sound amazing. I'd like to know more about how they di do it...
3) Joe, I'm presuming you're in the US? I understand your sentiment. Pricing is an important subject, and there are a lot of decisions to make along the way. If we use your comparison, the the LS seems like poor value. However, if you compare the LS with a Fulltone OCD (just for example), the result is different. The Fulltone OCD could be made for about $10, but it retails at the equivalent of $300 USD in the UK. Comparing the BOM cost and complexity of the OCD vs the LS, and the LS offers much better value for money. As a tiny business, we're not able to compete sharply on price, and we're not aiming to do that alone. Of course all products are price sensitive to a greater or lesser degree, but our aim is to offer new concepts, and better things. That's where we're able to compete with the bigger boys.
As a new concept and product design that cost us a lot in R&D time and a reasonable amount of money, we thought it was a reasonable price.
Also, our focus is on quality; for example the casing is 2mm / 14 gauge steel. We could have made it from a much more lightweight material that would have done the same job, but I like to take things that bit further to give the best overall experience and reliability.
One other problem in this industry is that US brands often self distribute in the USA. US brand products are often way cheaper, since they add no distribution margin in the US, hence the Dean Markley problem. Outside the US the prices are typically 50-100% more than they are in the US. In the UK the Fulltone OCD (again, just an example) is the equivalent of $300 retail, with a street price of $200. It's $135 in the US. Our products have a relatively flat pricing structure throughout the world, since we use the same business model everywhere.
4) We manufacture in China. The dreaded C word! There's a blog post on our website about it, but I'll cover some of the main reasons here. Originally I had our pedal boards contract manufactured in the UK. I had a lot of trouble with the supplier (late delivery, not able to deliver the quantity we required, quality issues, changing of specification with no warning or agreement, etc., and i tried to find another better factory, but to no result. I simply couldn't find any one interested in that kind of work. The biggest issue was getting anything more than a wooden box made - most factories just wanted to do one element or type of work, but I wanted someone to manufacture and supply a complete, finished product according to our design & specifications. Eventually I contacted a rapid prototyping company in China that I'd had some dealings with making CNC parts for industrial pumps, and who had been amazing to deal with. I had found them a few years earlier via mfg.com as part of my previous job at the pump company and asked them if they knew anyone who could help. They told me to go and see them and that they would help me. I flew to China, they took me round 5 factories that they had arranged meetings with, and we selected one. Before I went, my friends asked each factory to make a sample. The factory that we selected made a great sample, understood the product requirements, and went out of their way to listen and help. I've never had service like it anywhere. They still make our pedal boards now, 4 years later, and I'd say that I'm very good friends with the factory owner. She's a great lady.
Anyway; the summary is that China was never specifically on the cards. It was just the result of me asking a good supplier that I knew, if they could help, and they did. Now, I can get a finished product (packaged, including everything) made to a design and specification, without too much fuss. Sometimes there are things to clarify and sort out, but on the whole, it's straight forward to manage.
Prices are generally in the region of 20% cheaper than a UK BOM + assembly cost, but when you factor in shipping there's not actually that much difference to justify the remoteness and lack of control. The simple fact is that, in my experience, it's much easier to get things done the way we are doing it. In general, manufacturing is done on time to our QC specs. Development is mostly straightforward too, done by email and Skype. It's surprising what can be done that way, and it's all documented.
So, going back to your original point Joe, I'm surprised that you'd be prepared to pay more if it was made in the West, than in China. Can I ask why, in your opinion is it reasonable to pay more for something based on location of manufacture? As we're both engineers, I can't understand why you would be willing to pay more for a Western made product. Maybe it's better phrased as, what does a Western made product offer you that a Chinese made product does not, when the design, specification and quality is the same, that justifies a higher price?
Korea has similar overheads to the West, so Korean made product is only ever going to be cheaper if it's made more efficiently.
5) The Epi Valve Jr sounded like a bag of spanners. It sold simply on the merit of it being a "real" valve/tube amp at a knockdown price, what we'd call lip service in the UK. I appreciate what you're saying, and I find it interesting that people have this hierarchy of price / location of manufacture / tubes vs solid state / etc. going on in their heads that has this rigid structure that they can't get away from. I have come across quite a few people who simply cannot bring themselves to buy a better sounding SS or DSP amp over a crappy sounding tube amp at the same price. They do not believe their own ears, or do not want to. The good news is that the web and a new breed of younger players is helping to change this, at least in certain sectors of the market. They're learning to buy with their ears, not their eyes or by specification.
6) Good suggestions. A headphone jack and line out is something we've be asked for a thousand times...and another thousand have asked "can it be plugged into a desk / DI box?!" The LS was a first product of it's type (I mean for us, our first electronic audio product), so we kept it relatively simple and manageable (financially and project wise). We have plans to take the concept further, using some of the functionality of larger regular amps.
7) Sweatshops.... I've been to our factories a few times, and they're definitely not sweatshops. Folks in China have different expectations of work than we do here - sick pay, holiday pay, health insurance, are not expected. Chinese people expect to sort that out themselves from their own pay, and it comes from their views and culture of self sufficiency. That is, however, changing very quickly as the economy develops and the workforce evolves. The Chinese do tend to work harder and longer hours than us in the West. This, again, is a cultural difference as much as anything else; their days and weekends are not set-out like ours.
I like the idea of marketing the fact that our factories are not sweatshops, if that's of great concern to buyers. However, I'm not sure how we could/would go about it - photos of the factories on the website perhaps?
8) Yes, our products are now available in about 30 countries. Have a look at the "Where to Buy" section of our website. We design the products here, everything from concept, electronics, PCBs, mechanical design, artwork, packaging (including the box nets), and website. Designs and samples are sent to our project manager in China and she goes about sourcing all the parts, assembly and packaging, and supplies to us as a finished product. We sell to distributors direct from the factories in China; that way we're not unnecessarily sending stuff around the world for no reason. Orders to Australia for example go direct from the factory to the Australian distributor. The distributor then sells the goods to the stores, and the stores sell the goods to the end users. I'm sure you can imagine how much we need to be able to have products manufactured for vs the end user price and how little of that actually ends up our pocket. I'm not playing my miniature violin, and accept that this is how it's done (at least for now), just pointing the issue out. Even if we made a 50% margin (which we don't get anywhere near), both a distributor and a retailer would still make double what we make on any given product; each.
From a environmental point of view, since we're selling all over the world, it makes no more sense to make the stuff in the UK than it does in China. Wherever we make the products, some customers will be close by, and some will be at the other side of the world. I calculated that the shipping cost (just the freight element, no taxes etc) for sending a Little Smasher from China to the UK is about 0.04GBP, so about 0.06USD. By definition, the fuel cost must be less than that, and it's the use of fuel that causes the environmental issues. If you compare that with me driving to a local music store (10 mile round trip, vs 6,000 miles), to buy something, you'll agree that shipping stuff around the world by sea is insignificant and that there are far better and significant ways to reduce the impact of transport on the environment. Shipping by air is another matter...
I hope that's interesting.
Keep firing questions at me if you have them.
:tu:
James @ Diago.
Quote from: maloushe on July 03, 2012, 02:45:40 PM
Joe, Juan, everyone else,
....
Keep firing questions at me if you have them.
:tu:
James @ Diago.
First, again I have to say thank you for taking the time to talk to us here, it is really cool to have someone doing what you are speaking to us in plain terms about how it all works.
I am in the US as you presumed and pricing is very important. The reason I would (and do) pay more for items made in North America, Europe, then elsewhere is somewhat complex. I like to keep money local, this is especially important to me when I can buy something made in the US as that means it is helping support workers in my country as well as that company paying taxes to my government. Past that the reason I like to buy within North America etc is primarily due to quality and shipping.
Quality, in my experience, tends to also be better from those countries of origin and lesser from China, Korea, Indonesia etc. Shipping is also important as I have a hard time justifying purchasing something made in China when I know it could be made right here and not be shipped from the wrong side of the planet. That said, I do appreciate (and honestly hadn't really thought about) the fact that as a business if you are manufacturing products in one location but selling them world wide it is a moot point as far as shipping.
As for the pricing in comparison to amps or pedals, that needs to be in your marketing. If you want to sell it "as an amp" then it will need to be price competitive or feature competitive. I would say the LS01 does this poorly...moderately at best. If you want to sell it "by sound" similar to a pedal, then you have a great chance at success. I would push the tonal quality, build quality and innovation of it more than anything else. Market it like people market pedals and you will be much more likely to get the returns you are looking for. IE - "Great sound, killer overdrive" rather than "5w amp with 2 band EQ".
As for the product evolving, like I mentioned before I would love to see a headphone/lineout jack. Honestly though, I wouldn't take it much further than that. The LS01 has a beautiful simplicity about it and I think that in itself is a huge selling point. Plug in and crank out the tunes, that's not always an easy thing with a full featured amp.
If you do decide to make a more feature filled mini-head, I would make it as it's own model...maybe the LS02.
Quote from: maloushe on July 03, 2012, 02:45:40 PM
As we're both engineers...
While I appreciate the compliment, I'm not actually an engineer. I have been labeled as a "fun-gineer" by my Civil Engineer brother though. Electronics are just a hobby for me. I am an IT Manager by trade and I do web development and electronics repair on the side.
Dear James/Diago.
Thanks a lot for answering in such detail.
We are learning things we only barely imagined.
Just one curiosity though (although maybe you mistyped or just made a *very* quick mental calculation): are you saying you are paying 0.06U$ freight for a 600 gram product?
Which would mean 0.1u$ per Kilogram or 100U$ per Ton, (conventionally equivalent to around 4 cubic meters) or around 1500U$ per full 40' container.
Seems too low to me.
Do you ship full containers?
Or is it consolidated cargo? (in which case it would be more expensive).
I don't get it.
Thanks a lot.
Hi Diago,
Thanks for the input.
You have done your home work well.;) The right bass rolloff and the right top end rolloff.
A good basic R/R amplifier that could easy be the building block for other great sounds. :tu:
If you want other options try my PhAbbTone circuit in front for those other in between tones. winky. (Search my postings for the schemo)
As to comments good or bad there are many minds here and they all have different ideas about how it should sound.
Our wonderful member (J M Fahey) put it well a while back basically commenting that "Technicians all have there own favorite circuit ideas and concepts and tend to stay with those." I tend to agree ;)
I would simply add;
As to which is better (or technically correct) becomes irrelevant as long as it does the job then buyers do not care if it's technically right,, as long as it sounds good to them. (maybe add reliable to that)
As to cloning, Don't worry about it as you have the Name and the rights and yours is original so anything else is never able to make that claim. :trouble
(Unless they are daffed enough to try and use Your Name on the front :o,, in which case they are dead sure to loose out) :duh
As to the circuit Lets face it, it is very hard to make something that is totally original in Audio Electronics as most stuff comes under prior knowledge anyway and if you search there is a good chance someone has built something very similar at one time. So if someone back engineers your invention (and tries to market it) I doubt it will impact as much as some some claim.
If anything it may well promote the Genuine product. 8|
Let's face it; The reason Strat's are so pricy is partly due to the fact that 9 out of ten of them on the showroom floor are copy's And of course most buyers want a real one don't they? Even though the copy maybe identical,, or in some cases better. lol.
Re the claimed +15/-30db tone control;
My guess, it's a classic HiZ tone circuit in front of distortion.
(and BTW, I'm not asking for you to divulge the circuit.)
My Passive PhAbbTone shows a minus ~30dB @400Hz notch, (very obvious while driving low gain clean) yet when distortion is cranked full the tone controls function with less obvious effect.
Which of course is EXACTLY what happens with old Valve circuits from a distant past. Add that to an already limited band response and it sounds rich and fat and sweet, (choice of speaker helps). Note that 6 inch drivers in small combos will ALWAYS have much higher frequency response and almost no amount of circuit tweaking will fix the excess high frequency output.
Active tone setups don't soften with loading like those old circuits and as a lot of modern gear has too much frequency bandwidth to start with and then add the active tone (which DOES NOT soften at high gain) then the result is often very harsh and No amount of tweaking will tame the beast.
I don't think stomp box builders realize that a lot of the magic of those famous distorted sounds has as much to do with the quirks of passive tone shaping as the distortion itself. :-X
Anyway,,No matter which way you did it, Your Amp is proof that limited bandwidth makes for a better sound (or shall I say useable) ;)
I find your comments on Far east factories interesting.
I have no doubt they produce quality products BUT my gripe in not so much where something is made but the components themselves is at the core of the issue.
Example;
I have Plastic 6.5 sockets here in my draw made back in the 1950's
You can hit these with a hammer then reshape them back to original and they still work.
In the last Few years I've had several small Amps with 6.5 Sockets that have cracked clean off from stress or impact. (Brittle plastic)
The plastic is **OBviously** nowhere near the standard of older production components.
Plastic is not my field but blind Freddy can see that the quality of components has gone down the drain pipe and this is one of the reasons I erk at far east gear.
FWIW, I actually use a $150 Copy Strat Which I prefer to the real one in the back room.
Yes I play Live venues.
My 2 cents worth.
Cheers from a mad hobby geek from Australia, Phil.
Joe, Juan, everyone,
Again, you're welcome. I don't feel like an outsider here, so I'm happy to share my experiences.
Joe, regarding location of manufacture, I used to think the same - supporting local jobs in manufacturing is a great thing right? The thing is that we *do* provide local jobs and pay local taxes (albeit in the UK and not the USA). It's just that our jobs are in engineering and marketing, not in manufacturing. I'd pose the notion that we're providing a similar number, but better jobs than we could if we were manufacturing in the UK (we'd probably have to set-up our own manufacturing, and would not be able to fund as much product development), and we're definitely paying more employment and corporation tax doing it this way too. Having no manufacturing jobs allows us to have more engineering jobs.
Dyson (the vacuum company) here in the UK used to have an injection moulding and assembly line here in the UK. They laid off about 800 people, and moved the production to Malaysia and the media annihilated them for it. What the media never reported was that over the next 2 years they were able to hire 1,200 more people, mostly in engineering. So the move actually improved competitiveness, increased the number of (better) jobs, and allowed the company to develop more products more rapidly. How can that be a bad thing? Sure, the lower paid assembly workers lost their jobs, but difficult decisions have to be made sometimes, and I support the concept in the name of progress.
Does that seem reasonable? It seems common to presume that the manufacturing stage of any product is one that should be preserved, but not many folks speak of the other jobs. Consider that the *manufacturing* of pedal boards, power supplies and guitar amps is not exactly super high tech, then the manufacturing jobs are also quite basic. Why should it be so important that we create these specific kinds of jobs in the UK? If that's the case, should we be also setting up our own local IC fabbing plant? These ideas make no sense to me at all.
If we were making highly specialised aerospace or military goods, then I would agree that such manufacturing activities are ones that *do* add value, and they should be developed and supported locally.
Do you follow my thoughts on that?
I agree that quality is absolutely the reason to buy, and that in the past, the quality has tended to be better from the West. However, it's a totally bogus notion these days. Consider that iPhone or any Apple product? Could it be manufactured in the West any better? Absolutely not. My experience with China is that if you want crap, you can have it, and if you want great quality you can have that too. You just have to specify it and be prepared to pay for it.
I agree with your points on marketing; it's not meant to compete with cheap solid state combos. It's a great sounding backup / practice tool that's portable. If you have a cab at your destination, then you just need to take a guitar and pedal board with you. Maybe that's not clear from our marketing... Yes, a second product would be in addition to the LS01.
Joe, from reading your posts over the past few years, you're definitely an engineer. Even if you're not doing it professionally, or don't have professional qualifications, you're still an engineer...it's in your blood!
Juan, regarding the shipping, I'll expand. Firstly, I was talking about the "freight" element of the overall shipping cost only, which is literally the charge for getting the ship from Guangzhou, China to Felixstowe, UK; this does not include loading fees, taxes, unloading fees, dock fees or anything else. The way to calculate it is to take the cost of a CIF shipment and subtract the cost of an identical FOB shipment http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incoterms (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incoterms).
Typically that cost would be in the region of $300USD for a 20' container which will hold 38 cubic metres (CBM). For sea shipping the driving factor is usually volume, not weight. Air shipments are usually the other way round, but it depends on the goods. A 20' container would fit about 17,000 pieces of LS, including packaging. So shipping FCL gives a freight cost of 1.8 US cents each.... We don't often send full containers (FCL) (yet!), so our costs are much higher by consolidation or less than container loads (LCL).
The freight element of shipping is one of the smallest components. As Juan says, once you add all the other elements to get the goods from the factory, to the port, pay customs charges, port charges, the reverse at the other end, and additional import and value added taxes, the cost can be in the region of an order of magnitude higher.
Does that clarify?
:tu:
James @ Diago.
Phil, interesting post. I'll come back to you later. Work to do now... :)
James.
James, I still think pushing it as a high quality rockin' 5w head is more important than pushing its portability. I would be surprised if most people would shell out good money for that kind of portability, but I KNOW they will pay MUCH more for "tone". If this could be used as a recording/studio amp, even just for the overdriven tracks, that would be a HUGE seller I think. Most studios have plenty of speakers/cabs hanging around, so to go record all you would need is your guitar and pedal board. No bringing big heavy 2 x 12 tube combos along.
Regardless, it's a very interesting product and I apologize for being so quick to erroneously judge it earlier on.
Also, while I don't necessarily agree with production in the Middle East, I do appreciate your views and they make for great discussion. I should note that for a year after I graduated I worked at a local shoe manufacturing plant. I wasn't using my degree, but it was a good honest decent paying job, I think this might also be part of my bias.
Phil,
I'll check out your PhAbbTone circuit.
I agree with your sentiments of working the way we best know how - experience with one kind of technology / topology certainly drew me our way. The circuit is by no means particularly original; it's not at all. The key was careful design, listening and tweaking to make it sound as good as possible. The innovation was the basic concept - a great sounding guitar amp head in a pedal sized enclosure.
The EHX Caliber 22 and Magnum 44 appeared after we had started development of the LS, and they're not terribly good guitar amps. They do overdrive, but not particularly in a guitar amp kind of way. The TI Class-D IC's that they use are a nice concept, but I wanted the LS to specifically work from a standard 9V DC adaptor. We could take the higher power approach and supply a proprietary higher voltage adaptor?
To your EQ and speaker comments....yes, absolutely! The LS has a ton of EQ in the first few op-amp stages. Shape -> Gain -> Shape -> Gain etc. The final stage is the 2 band Baxendall before it goes into the output TDA7240A, which is overdriven somewhat too at many signal levels/settings.
Yes; I agree 100% on your component thoughts, it's much more important than the assembly. The key is to specify the best components, and have samples sent to the UK for testing before approval. In the case of jacks - I had about 20-30 different types from different factories sent over to test them. A lot of the cheaper ones have fillers in the plastic which lowers the cost, but makes them brittle. Specification and testing needs a close eye. Our project manager in China is an experienced component buyer so that helps too.
Joe; very interesting point on the marketing. Maybe we didn't approach it right, what you say makes perfect sense. I was hoping that people would work out their own use for it, but I realise that's not terribly sharp marketing. It's funny because by far the most emails we've had about it is about using it with a DI box / mixing desk. Obviously, it's not appropriate to do that, but it shows that there are a ton of people who want to DI, but that don't want to use a POD or similar DSP unit, and still want to use their pedal boards - they want something to replace the amp, cab and microphone, not just the amp. Does that sound interesting to you?
Indeed, it can be used as a recording amp, but I thought a lot of recording purists are not driven by portability - in a studio you can have the biggest most unreliable thing (that seems to be something that's seen as a good thing to some!), so long as it has tubes, mojo and some kind of history and character. I felt that a solid state amp in a tiny box could never compete with that from a marketing point of view, however good it sounds.
Don't worry about the early judgements, or any later ones. We all have our own ideas and opinions and I like to discuss with people like you guys who have brains and can discuss their opinions, not just simply state them.
I appreciate your views on manufacturing too; it's an emotive subject. I studied manufacturing engineering, it's something I've long been passionate about. I'm a big advocate of smart manufacturing; Leo Fender reduced the cost of an electric guitar by a factor of about 10, by simplifying the design for easy manufacturing. Nitro cellulose was used because it did the job, was easy to get hold of and cheap, due to the local automotive manufacturing usage. That's my kind of engineering - bringing step change to a field, and making activities that were previously the preserve of the rich, to everyone.
I too used to work in a small manufacturing business (industrial bakery machinery), but I felt that they placed too much emphasis on the manufacturing and not enough on the design. They ended up way behind the competition, because they were bound by the machinery that they had invested in. I guess there's no right an wrong answer, but I know which works best for us.
Anyway, enough of that. I have an idea. Who would be interested in helping us develop a / some products? Not just the detail design work, but the concept and development too. I'm sure we could work out a method of reward. I know a lot of you guys *really* know your stuff, much more so than I do. I'm looking for folks to help us with new product development, and maybe here's one of the best places to look?!
How about it?
:tu:
James.
@ James/Diago.
Thanks a lot for answering and sharing.
Best wishes and ..... sell a lot !!!!!!!
James, I'm always up for helping develop different projects/ideas. I was a New Media major at the University of Maine and collaboration is the name of the game there. Go ahead and PM me and we can exchange pertinent contact info and start bouncing ideas.
Juan, did the shipping figures make sense?
Joe, I'll PM you...
Yes, thanks.
Now I see that you split those costs that way specifically to have an idea of the *fuel* cost , to compare that to "driving to your local Music Shop".
The total cost is way higher, considering all other factors.
I'm paying U$300 per cubic meter, consolidated cargo, exporting my guitar speakers for the *way* shorter distance from Argentina to Brazil.
It computes to around U$1.40/Kg so I was shocked by the cost you initially posted.
Of course my cost includes *everything*, except Brazilian Import duties.
And drops to U$500 total per 3 cubic meters .... still way higher than yours.
Thanks again.
Juan,
What do you get exactly for your USD300? Is it from your door to the customer's door, DDU? As you can probably work out from the freight/fuel costs, the sea distance is insignificant to the costs. What kind of volumes do you send per shipment?
Speakers?....tell me more!
James.
Hi James/Diago.
Given the particular case that we are in neighbouring Countries, I'm using ground (truck) transport, for the very good reason that shipping would deliver goods to Santos (São Paulo's seaport) 30 miles away from the City, while I can drop the pallet with the speakers 2 blocks away from my Shop and my Brazilian partner receives them in a warehouse within the City.
Door to door takes 4/5 days while by sea it can take up to 15.
Still I was interested in the costs you mentioned because Sea Transport is the ruler by which all others get measured.
I make my own Guitar Speakers for over 30 years now, they sound good (think Eminence/Jensen/Celestion) and thanks God Brazilian ones are *terrible*.
They have huge modern Factories but they are centered in Car type ones, the exact opposite to Guitar ones.
And imports pay heavy tariff.
Plus Chinese ones have been "punished" because dumping was proved in Court and carry a stiff fixed surcharge.
While I, being Argentine, pay no Import duties there.
As you see, situation is complex and depends more on Politics than on actual Sound or Economics .
Oh well !!!
Hi Juan,
It's a very interesting story. I'm aware that many South American countries have high import taxes, although I don't know the details. I guess it makes international trade very difficult. We don't sell into any South American countries yet because our volumes are not yet big enough to make it commercially viable.
OK; since you're shipping by land/truck, then the rules and charges are all very different. For sea shipping, much of the cost is in customs and port charges. For land transport, much of the cost will be in the transport itself, since a truck is nowhere near as efficient as a large container ship. 2,000km by road will cost a lot in fuel, driver costs, depreciation of the truck and possibly road tolls if they apply. Also in your case, customs and tax charges may well be high.
Do you sell your speakers internationally?
James.
You are right, the cost structure is different but in practical terms , in this particular case prices were roughly the same (all things considered) and paperwork is much simpler by land.
I'm starting small, 50 or 100 speaker shipments.
If things go better yes, probably sea shipping will be the best option.
Brazil is the only interesting market for me: 200 million people (vs. our 40 million Argentines), *tariff protected market*, free admission for my stuff, plus I have Brazilian Residence and papers and I'm very used to the muddy way business is run here.
Let me tell you that if your amp becomes a success in Brazil, it WILL be copied in no time.
Just as a curiosity, have a look at their most sold amps:
a JCM900/JCM2000 clone :
(http://amplificadoresmeteoro.com.br/banco_imagens/produtos/topo_38.jpg)
a Gallien Krueger 800RB bass amp clone:
(http://amplificadoresmeteoro.com.br/banco_imagens/produtos/topo_70.jpg)
a Mesa Boogie V-Twin pedal clone:
(http://amplificadoresmeteoro.com.br/banco_imagens/produtos/topo_92.jpg)
they do not only copy the schematic, but the looks and even the model name.
Oh well.
Hi Juan,
OK, that makes sense for shipping and Brazil being your only interesting market. Quite a lot of smaller, specialist guitar speaker builders have had some good success, people like Ted Weber in the USA and even Fane in the UK.
I think with the right product and exposure there would be a good market in the USA and Europe.
I have come across Meteoro before, but never paid them much attention. I didn't realise that they copied everything on the product and also so many different products. I guess there's not much to protect copying sometimes.
:tu:
James.
Juan also makes Fahey Amplifiers, not just the speakers. I keep telling him he needs to get them to the USA. Lots of people here would appreciate a 50-100w solid state all analog no baloney rock amp.
Ah! Absolutely. I agree.
I think that there would be a good market for a take on the concept of the Crate Powerblock, but done properly. All anlogue signal path, switch mode power supply, light and great sounding.
If Juan can design the electronics, we'll do the rest....And publish the schematics.
:tu:
James.
Quote from: maloushe on July 06, 2012, 01:05:23 PM
Ah! Absolutely. I agree.
I think that there would be a good market for a take on the concept of the Crate Powerblock, but done properly. All anlogue signal path, switch mode power supply, light and great sounding.
If Juan can design the electronics, we'll do the rest....And publish the schematics.
:tu:
James.
Sounds like a neat concept, although his current amps are more traditional combos and head units. I will say that they sound great, he's shared clips of different bands using his gear before.
Quote from: maloushe on July 06, 2012, 01:05:23 PM
If Juan can design the electronics, we'll do the rest....And publish the schematics.
Do you guys share the schematics for your current products? I'd love to see the one for the LS01.
Joe,
Sorry for the delay. The combination of a cold last week and a ton of emails has put me back a few days.
We don't publish the schematics of our current products; but I'd be quite prepared to share it with you privately, if you agree not to share it publicly.
Send me an email and I'll send it across.
James.
Quote from: maloushe on July 17, 2012, 11:34:50 AM
Joe,
Sorry for the delay. The combination of a cold last week and a ton of emails has put me back a few days.
We don't publish the schematics of our current products; but I'd be quite prepared to share it with you privately, if you agree not to share it publicly.
Send me an email and I'll send it across.
James.
No problem, I don't share schematics that aren't open to the public. Same thing I've done with Dean Markley schematics (the new ones, not the old 80's ones that are available to everyone).
**edit**
Oh yeah, email sent.