MD x Airist x Sosolar: RDAC design mysteries

Discussion in 'Digital: DACs, USB converters, decrapifiers' started by bimmer100, Jun 5, 2018.

  1. Vtory

    Vtory Audiophile™

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    upload_2018-6-6_12-6-6.png
     
  2. Senorx12562

    Senorx12562 Case of the mondays

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    Well I'll be, learn something new every day. Thanks. Now I have to go back and find one. Shouldn't be too hard.

    Edit: Done.
     
  3. Cspirou

    Cspirou They call me Sparky

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    Shoot, i think I even have a spare amp chassis I can repurpose. As well as a few adjustable linear power supplies.
     
  4. bilboda

    bilboda Florida boomer

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    A humorous observation from sosoral's thread. After he posts his new design (the current one) there appears this post "
    来看看SOSO总的壕物" which google translated is:"Take a look at SOSO's total stolen goods" This is followed by some post's which were blocked. Did google totally screw up the translation? http://bbs.hifidiy.net/thread-1149252-1-1.html
     
  5. eyeshield21

    eyeshield21 New

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    That actually directly translate to "take a look at soso's luxury stuff".
     
  6. batriq

    batriq Probably has made you smarter

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    Who needs yet another DAC? I added $69 to $350 and bought a custom UTurn turntable with a wooden plinth and acrylic platter. I don't think the 69 number here is pure coincidence.
     
  7. Magnetostatic_Tubephile

    Magnetostatic_Tubephile Friend

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    Some interesting comments taken from Head-Fi:

     
  8. Baten

    Baten Friend

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    More from sosolar on Head-Fi:

     
  9. gixxerwimp

    gixxerwimp Professional tricycle rider

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    Still no official comment from Massdrop?
     
  10. TomHP

    TomHP Facebook Friend

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    Hope this all works out for this sosolar guy. Looks like the guy actually has some serious engineering chops.

    Screw those pretentious ivy league pimple faces, lame business practice for sure.
     
  11. willsw

    willsw Friend

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    The word "similar" is the problem. Tse is saying that the other layers of the PCB are different and incompatible with the Hibiki board, which might be true.

    This would have been easy enough:

    "While the circuit we designed is our own, the engineer we consulted with ended up using an essentially identical layout for the top layer of our R-2R board as the Hibiki DAC, something we are only now learning and regret not being aware of sooner. We will certainly be more thorough in checking things like this in the future when designing products. Airist and Massdrop are in contact with sosolar in order to assure him that the RDAC is our own design and apologize for the situation as it has occurred."

    But instead we get, "what a coincidence!" and "why would we do that if the financial stakes are low?"

    The official replies from Will (not me, obviously):

    https://www.massdrop.com/buy/massdrop-x-airist-audio-r-2r-dac/talk/2101124
    14H ago
    Hey Inorbit, Thanks for your post, I've seen a couple like yours today. The RDAC is not a copy of the Hibiki DAC, as explained in the post you're responding to, and William's post discussing the development of the RDAC. The theme of your post seems like "how can you be sure it's not a copy?", so I'll expand on that.

    As a company whose long term success depends on our ability to bring communities and companies together, no individual product matters more than our ability to create these partnerships/collaborations.

    This is different from most companies that produce enthusiast products, where the success of an individual product launch often makes the difference between paying rent or going bankrupt. I'm explaining this so you can understand the underlying incentives at play, and to help folks understand why there's a theme in many communities of companies doing shady things.
    So baseline, for us, there is no product that's worth being shady over, we're not worried about paying rent, we’re focused on getting more people into this community.

    Next, a big goal for us in these collaborations is to encourage more community members to create. As such, we go to great lengths to protect and reward those creators. We are approached by dozens of groups every week selling knocked off designs which have no potential for legal backlash and we turn them down. Instead, we work with, and compensate, the designer. We’ve paid out nearly $250,000 in royalties to Massdrop community designers over the last few months.
    I'm sure sosolar is a great person, and he/she is probably enjoying a spike in board sales given the thousands of American community members who learned about Hibiki through this discussion, but if the RDAC is a copy of this project, where’s the second board? Why is the part spacing different? Where is the chassis? Why is the power supply different? Etc, these points have all already been covered by Airist. If you want to say “I don't like that Airist's team was inspired to use a similar layout for the top half of the RDAC pcb", that's fine, but if you're going to call it a copy or stolen, that's unfair to Airist, Christian, and the rest of our team who spent hundreds of hours making this drop possible. If the RDAC was related to another project, it would have come out in the development process.

    To summarize, it's not worth it for us from a financial or branding point of view to support a copy, and it's fundamentally counter to our goals of supporting the development of more community designers.
    It’s been entertaining to watch this unfold, maybe we should add a popcorn button next to our endorsement button, but William provided the technical information, and I’ve provided the Massdrop priorities explanation, draw your conclusions. Thanks for being part of our community!

    Also from will:
    19H ago
    sosolar The RDAC is unrelated to your project, but if you want to discuss it further, you can email me: [email protected]
     
  12. msommers

    msommers High on Epipens

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    Ie: we're legally covered and dgaf, so f**k off.

    Regardless, I'm out on the first drop off these potentially one-off types of orders, even if that means missing the product entirely. The hype train is f'ing ridiculous and seems to be a reoccurring theme. Then a loaner comes out and people are pretty 'meh'
     
    Last edited: Jun 7, 2018
  13. sosolar

    sosolar Hibiki DAC Designer

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    A message from Massdrop support center said they thought William was telling the truth and closed my help issue. Should I send another letter to MD as well? It is just so obviously a copy.
     
  14. willsw

    willsw Friend

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    Your own completed DAC is expected to be released in August, right? If the AiristxMassdrop DAC is shipping in December, that gives you a couple months to find a US distributor and beat it to market. More US dealers are seeing the potential in smaller Chinese companies and the popularity of R-2R DACs: Kitsune with Holo, and Denafrips just picked up a supportive distributor. Even without a distributor, if there's a finished Hibiki DAC people can buy on ebay.com or through your website (Tao Bao is not English-friendly), you could at least use this situation as a marketing push.

    It looks like Massdrop has decided to fully back their product, which makes sense, and fighting them is probably not going to end with you satisfied.
     
  15. pavi

    pavi Almost "Made"

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    Count me in
     
  16. Arun Kumar

    Arun Kumar Friend

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    I think this is a copy and my sympathies are with you.
    Having said that no matter what the outcome, the spotlight is on you. How you use it to promote your next product is probably going to be both interesting & challenging.
     
  17. sosolar

    sosolar Hibiki DAC Designer

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    I have already authorized few companies to use my compact module. Some of them would sell it on ebay.com in some form(I dont know for now). Also, I will release my completed DAC with our threee exceptional recloking modules, triggering circuits and balanced analog output. We have not decided whether sell it using one of our customer's brand or not that means it could be difficult for you guys to buy it.
    Also we have developed incredible discrete DAC with DSD2048 upsampling alogorithm, in a smaller form, with lower price, offering much better spec(-110dB THD, -130dB SNR). An external upsampler like dCS does, can convert 44.1 to DSD2048 via HDMI input/output. There are some more fancy circuits developing. Again, we are not sure whether rebrand it or sell by ourselves.
    It wont take so long for you guy to hear about all we developed. Thank you for your help.
     
  18. sosolar

    sosolar Hibiki DAC Designer

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    Indeed, thank you for your interest.
     
  19. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Welcome @sosolar. I imagine all this must be incredibly frustrating for you. Use the attention to your advantage. Keep us up to date on what you are working on. There are a lot of DIYers here.
     
  20. sosolar

    sosolar Hibiki DAC Designer

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    Thank you very much, will share further information later:punk:.
     

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