New Subject

I would love to create a new subject as suggested by Bottleneck, but everything I do in design and production and ideas goes into nva, you cannot divorce them if I start discussing those subjects especially in DIY. I know what will happen, the usual culprits will come out the woodwork and accuse me of spamming the forum and promoting my products and company.

I am up to many interesting things at the moment apart from recovering from mild pnuemonia, which is why I had more computer time available. The main one is the collaboration with Figlet, well more him trying to talk to me in the foriegn langauge that computer geeks use.

There is one future not nva project I am looking forward to. I love my Pioneer PL-71 turntable and if there ever was a giant killer this is it, BUT speedysteve has one and has converted his arm to 12 inch, so he has done my spare ones as well. Now speedysteve is one of the good guys who knows his onions and builds things for the pleasure of it. Nice guy to as I met him at last years TT bake-off at my house. So I have a 12 incher which wont fit on the PL-71 unless I replinth it. So I have bought a Garrard 401 as I want to experiment with a good rim drive again. Because I have such experience with acrylic and have a good manufacturer / supplier it will have a black acrylic base. Either two 20mm slabes glued together or seperated by car valve springs.

Anyway when I get the time and start on the project I will be coming to all you 301 and 401 owners for advice and will try to do it all in public (warts an' all) with photos.

But if anyone can think of anything else I can discuss without being called a spammer then let me know.

 

Hi Richard

There you go!

yay! - look forward to it and lots of pictures too.



NB
Discussing what youre finding as you develop NVA goods in a DIY fashion - for example ''in my passive stepped attenuator I have tried Takman, kiwame etc and the differences were X Y and Z - I cant imagine anyone calling you a spammer.

Or perhaps a certain type of cap in a power supply application etc.


It would only help you and NVA, not everyone is going to build their own whatever it is, in fact hardly anyone likes burning fingers.


The PL71/garrard posts will certainly be enjoyable for many I feel. Nice one, I like it.

 

You could always start your own NVA forum, not that the internet needs another hi-fi forum...

 

Hi, Richard,

I don't think anyone is going to object to you discussing NVA and your design philosophy behind it. People may, and almost certainly will, challenge some aspects of your ethos, but hey, this is a hi fi forum, not a seminar.

As long as you keep it factual, don't try to spin it too much, it could be a bloody good thread. You have, after all, been around the block a few times!

Chris

 

I have never had a problem with DIYer copying or trying things I do, I would only cut a stink if they turned it into a business. For example here is an NVA user who has played with the circuit and made his own one and good for him. Hmmm he had the circuit diagram there but I cant seem to find it now, anyway this is the url http://www.klang-projekt.de/nva.htm This I find funny though, if you look at the pic it is supposed to be a copy of an nva AP30 pcb, well it is nothing like it in layout or design, well there are a few similarities, but it wouldn't sound like an AP30 http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=350266457841&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT

My problem is my ideas are so subjective and off the wall it leads me into a lot of serious dissing, but the basic philosophy came out in an interview I did in Taiwan in about 1992 and it explains exactly how I design and find things, and anyone can do it they just have to use their ears. url http://www.nene-valley-audio.com/ and link to interview. And they will probably find things I haven't yet. Sounds a bit Peter Belt but the screw thing still gives me a giggle, but real is and ears are real.

 

there are many clones out there, i have come across a few from the far east, outside cabinets are perfect, inside there is a lot of crap, but joe public will still buy them, no win sitruation,
nando.

 

Go for it - the whole reason we requested that trade posters declare themselves is to get all of this out in the open.

You afford yourself a degree of protection from 'the usual culprits' by doing so.

So get some discussion going.

 

Richard, why do you use plastic cases, what do you believe it does for the sound, and why should it be that way given the transformers and heatsinks some of your kit has inside? isn't the Faraday cage more use than the plastic box.

Honest question.

 

Its all in the interview, starting with the move to alluminium. I also know that someone has dissing intentions when they call them plastic cases instead of acrylic cases, because you know perfectly well that people have different perceptions of the two words.

Anyway a faraday cage is the last thing I need. The problem is far more to do with letting the problem out and not bouncing around in the cage than letting the *far* smaller problem in.

 

Serious suggestion, Richard. You are right, "plastic" has a perceived aura of cheap & cheerful. I'm not sure what the sonic advantages are, and I'm not going to even go there.

For your top end kit, have you ever considered carbon fibre composite? That has connotations of high performance, luxury hypercars, and can be finished in a variety of very nice finishes.

One possible problem could be the fact that carbon fibres in the raw state are conductive, but when they are encapsulated in a suitable polymer, the resultant composite is not.

Chris

Chris

Regards,

 

I am happy with what I use until I find something better.

I think I am pulling out of this thread as the dissers are arriving and carefully voicing their questions to subtly lead it to conflict, and the stupidity is they think I can't see it. And any thread about my ideas or products this happens to I will pull out of.

Let us see you discuss the products you design and build and I will find many ways to diss you as well.

 

Richard, no dissing intended, honestly. I will cease posting on this thread if you want.

Chris

And by the way, I have never, ever dissed NVA products. The were are and no doubt will be, fine sounding kit.

 

You continue deliberately refering to the cases as plastic then I know your motives.

DNM use acrylic for amplifiers, SRM use it for turntables and many others use it as as well, do you want to contact them and call their products plastic?

Plastics are polymers, acrylic is not a polymer, the properties are very different. You can get acrylic polymers but they are created to be flexible, which is the last thing I need.

So yes either get your facts right or take your dissing somewhere else.

EDIT :- another difference is polymers are extruded and acrylic is cast like glass. So it has far more in common with glass than plastic.

 

Richard, I was agreeing with you that the "P" word has unfortunate connotations. I was not the one who stated you made your cases out of that material. Read my post. I was not dissing you!

You can add the Lecson AC1 to your list of products which had acrylic cases. I ran an AC1/AP3 driving a pair of Ditton 66's in the late 70s. The AC1 is still the most stylish bit of kit I have ever seen. I wish to hell I still had it.

Chris

 

By the way Acrylic is manufactured in cast and extruded versions.

Best wishes Granville

 

The fact that two items are cast, or extruded, does not mean that they share broader properties. Acyclic is NOT like glass because it is cast - as Granville points out, acrylic is readily available in both cast and extruded forms (it is also a polymer (Polymethyl Methacrylate) and a thermoplastic).

Acrylic is a good quality plastic - if people have an unfair perception of plastic then that is their problem, there is no need to attribute properties to it that it does not have. The only negative aspect I can see with acrylic is that it marks easily (not much of a negative for an amplifier which mostly just sits on a shelf - I've always rather liked the DNM cases).

 

I have reported this post as an example of exactly what I said would happen.

<post in question edited - Rob>

But to answer the minor point that this man has partially correctly made, both glass and acrylic can now, in thin up to 5mm thicknesses be cast extruded, meaning that the casting is a continuous process as opposed to a fixed process. But the process is still completely different to extruding polymers.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acrylic show me where arylic is described as a plastic. The is one specific Acrylate Polymer that is as I have already mentioned, but that is not acrylic. Where there is Acrylic Glass, which is what I use.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymer show me where acrylic is listed as a polymer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastic show me where acrylic is listed as a plastic.

 

With respect Richard, I think you are taking this a bit to seriously. To many people (laymen) they will put acrylic under the umberlla of plastic.

 

It's not my job to educate you Richard.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acrylate_polymer (this was linked to one of the pages you thoughtfully provided)

My advice is that you do a bit more research and 'get your facts right', as you stated in an earlier post to another member of ZG .

"Acrylic is like glass because they are both cast" you are funny , it's probably like cast concrete too, don't you think. By the same logic, spaghetti is like aluminium because they can both be extruded.