Group Buy Interest?

[okgb]

Torrodial xfmrs can pass allot of Hi frequency garbage that the standard
e cores do not [ due to effieciancy / non effieciency ] so some power line
filtering may help , still waiting for my invoice so i can't tell you but
won't hurt anyway .

I don't mind making a box for the power xfmr but just realized as Michael
posted that it'll take more than a 4 pin connector to do it

 

[antichef]

FWIW (not much), here's a post about my 81 hum adventures:

https://homerecording.com/bbs/showthread.php?t=275506

also, shielding with mu metal foil didn't seem to help me at all.

 

[dgatwood]

FWIW (not much), here's a post about my 81 hum adventures:

https://homerecording.com/bbs/showthread.php?t=275506

also, shielding with mu metal foil didn't seem to help me at all.

Try using something non-magnetic but conductive around the transformer, e.g. that heavy copper foil tape that you can buy in garden supply places as snail repellant. Ground it. I suspect that will give you better results. Use mu metal foil around the inductors.

 

[MCI2424]

Well, after all this time I got the ACM 900. Well built and great case. This is tube ribbon and although it looks impressive, the ribbon is shot out of the box.

It is a great boatanchor though. Nice and heavy.

 

[P. Glaser]

Well, after all this time I got the ACM 900. Well built and great case. This is tube ribbon and although it looks impressive, the ribbon is shot out of the box.

It is a great boatanchor though. Nice and heavy.

That sucks! Mine sounded great when I first tried it out (just voice) after a 24 hour burn-in. The next day I sang into it and it sounded like the mids were scooped out. I was running it through the 73 (no EQ) but it didn't improve when I changed to the SA. Tonight I'll do a bit more experimentation and see what happens.

 

[P. Glaser]

re: Chuck Zwicky's discovery - That's awesome, did Chance do an email shout out? I must have missed it. Who has the time to wade through four different forums and thousands of posts to track this whole project from ordering through troubleshooting?

I think that Chance mentioned a week or so ago that he would collect all the info/problems/solutions being generated by those testing their gear and then post (or mass email). I've been collecting everything I can find just in case.

 

[BudgetMC]

ACM-1200 Key Test -- Take 2!

Ok... so I pulled out another one of my ACM 1200's tonight, and swapped out the China 12ax7 for a NOS Mullard 12at7/4024.

Warmed it up for about a half hour and gave it the key-jangle test. Holy freakin' cow... what a difference! This mic sounds MUCH better. Gone are all the sharp-transient-induced distortion farts. I did a quick vocal/guitar track, and I have to say it sounded pretty good.

And, (with the EQ off) the ACMP-73 delivered loads of gain that let me back off and get some real distance from the mic. Very nice.

I've read a bunch of stuff that says that these mics were designed for lower-gain tubes -- more like 12ay7/6072a's and the like. That certainly makes sense for what I heard in the key test. The 12at7 was simply delivering way too much gain for this circuit to handle.

So, my advice to anybody who bought one of these mics... get your hands on a decent lower-gain tube and slap it in there ASAP... just be gentle in the process.

 

[cnix]

Ok... so I pulled out another one of my ACM 1200's tonight, and swapped out the China 12ax7 for a NOS Mullard 12at7/4024.

Warmed it up for about a half hour and gave it the key-jangle test. Holy freakin' cow... what a difference! This mic sounds MUCH better. Gone are all the sharp-transient-induced distortion farts. I did a quick vocal/guitar track, and I have to say it sounded pretty good.

And, (with the EQ off) the ACMP-73 delivered loads of gain that let me back off and get some real distance from the mic. Very nice.

I've read a bunch of stuff that says that these mics were designed for lower-gain tubes -- more like 12ay7/6072a's and the like. That certainly makes sense for what I heard in the key test. The 12at7 was simply delivering way too much gain for this circuit to handle.

Nice job budgetMC! I am waiting to upgrade my 1200 with the group buy modifications. Sorry you had to disengage the EQ on your unit, and I hesitate to say this, but the EQ's on my units are working fine, and my 84 is way beyond expecations, absolute quiet so far, knock on wood.

Charlie

 

[BudgetMC]

Hey, Charlie, glad to hear it. There is clearly a "luck of the draw" thing going on here with the pre's. I'm still happy with mine just as a pre, and have an eq-fix in the pipeline that I hope will get that aspect of it up and running, too.

Nice job budgetMC! I am waiting to upgrade my 1200 with the group buy modifications. Sorry you had to disengage the EQ on your unit, and I hesitate to say this, but the EQ's on my units are working fine, and my 84 is way beyond expecations, absolute quiet so far, knock on wood.

Charlie

 

[P. Glaser]

Ok... so I pulled out another one of my ACM 1200's tonight, and swapped out the China 12ax7 for a NOS Mullard 12at7/4024.

Warmed it up for about a half hour and gave it the key-jangle test. Holy freakin' cow... what a difference! This mic sounds MUCH better. Gone are all the sharp-transient-induced distortion farts. I did a quick vocal/guitar track, and I have to say it sounded pretty good.

And, (with the EQ off) the ACMP-73 delivered loads of gain that let me back off and get some real distance from the mic. Very nice.

I've read a bunch of stuff that says that these mics were designed for lower-gain tubes -- more like 12ay7/6072a's and the like. That certainly makes sense for what I heard in the key test. The 12at7 was simply delivering way too much gain for this circuit to handle.

So, my advice to anybody who bought one of these mics... get your hands on a decent lower-gain tube and slap it in there ASAP... just be gentle in the process.

Could you post a clip of the vox through the 73? I've been trying to cut vocal tracks through the 73 and something's not right. With the EQ disengaged, the tracks sound very thin and nasal and there's a harshness in the top end that is very annoying. I'll put two clips on my soundClick page. I sure hope someone can tell me what's wrong. I certainly can't use it like this. Here's the clips:

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/default.cfm?bandID=409549

"Vox Clip 73" is an NTK into the 73 raw. No EQ.
"Vox Clip SA" is the same phrase using an NTK into a SA 2BA-221 raw. No EQ.

Please tell my your 73's don't sound like this. Thanks.

Paul

 

[BudgetMC]

Ouch! No... my 73 most certainly does not sound like that. I'll post you a clip in the next day or so, if you would like. With the EQ out, mine sounds fine. Heck, even with the EQ engaged, it sounds better than that. Sorry, man.

Could you post a clip of the vox through the 73? I've been trying to cut vocal tracks through the 73 and something's not right. With the EQ disengaged, the tracks sound very thin and nasal and there's a harshness in the top end that is very annoying. I'll put two clips on my soundClick page. I sure hope someone can tell me what's wrong. I certainly can't use it like this. Here's the clips:

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/default.cfm?bandID=409549

"Vox Clip 73" is an NTK into the 73 raw. No EQ.
"Vox Clip SA" is the same phrase using an NTK into a SA 2BA-221 raw. No EQ.

Please tell my your 73's don't sound like this. Thanks.

Paul

 

[NeveSSL]

How often are these group orders done and where can I see what I could possibly order?

Thanks!

Brandon

 

[crazydoc]

I got my 4 pres out of their boxes this afternoon (3 81's and a 73). A brief report:

ACMP81 #1 After spending an hour wondering why I was such a dumb shit that I couldn't get a signal into my interface, swapping mics, cables, punching and repunching all the buttons, I swapped it for ACMP81 #2, which worked fine. So #1, though all the lights and clipping indicators work, is not producing a signal at output.

ACMP81 #2 The best of the 81's - has the eq buzz, but that was expected. Noise floor is like the 73, not great but acceptable at this point.

ACMP81 #3 Very high noise floor, and has the buzzies. The worst of the two that work.

ACMP73 No real issues. Noise at high gain, to be expected. No buzz perceptible.

Here are spectrograms of the bad 81, and the 73, with mic inputs shorted pins 2 and 3, input and output gains at max. First without eq, second with eq engaged but all set to off. (My interface noise, with the units turned off but same setup, is below the -90dB threshold of the spectrograms, except where it rises to about -85dB below 200 Hz.)

I'm not too happy, but I knew what I was getting in to. C'est la vie.
Anyway, thanks to chance for the opportunity. I still have hopes for the mics.

 

[tarnationsauce2]

Crazydoc, you should change the FFT size (where it says "512") to the highest number it'll allow. The way you have it is pretty useless to find the true noise floor. There's too much averaging going on at 512.
Also your noise floor is WAY higher than I measured. What gain / output did you have the pre's set to? The following measurements are with gain all the way down, and output all the way up.

This is what I got: (using a SCA N72 as a control preamp to compare to)

Note: scale does not go all the way up to 0dB.

Green line = no EQ
Pink line = EQ engaged

 

[MichaelJoly]

New Year, New Reflections on Group Buys

Over the past five years I've watched with interest and participated in several group buys. A basic question remains in my mind. I'll get to that in a moment, but first a summary of my current TnC group buy experience and some thoughts...

After a seven month wait time (with upfront cash paid) I recently received two defective ACMP-73 "Neve clone" preamps from Chance Pataki's TnC group buy. The principals of TnC are leveraging their group buy experience, upfront customer cash-flow, contact lists and over 500,000 combined forum page views to launch new commercial businesses. As a potential customer of almost any new audio business, I am interested in watching TnC's response to questions regarding customer service issues.

When I asked about my rights under TnC's published guarantee I was told I could send my units back to China for service. I don't think I'm alone in saying I was not amused by this response.

My issue is not only with two sub-professional ACMP-73 preamplifiers - which I could fix if I was looking for a DIY hobby My issues are perhaps are a bit more abstract - I'm interested in the interplay of US companies and Chinese vendors, observing group buy processes and watching how business, technical and ethical challenges get addressed and solved.

A large number of reputable pro audio companies source parts from China as a way to stay competitive and offer excellent value to their customers. But a basic question lingers - considering tied-up cash, long wait times, defective gear and dismissive or unresponsive customer service, do group buys really offer true value to end users?.

 

[mshilarious]

I don't think the Chinese, at least this particular vendor, seem set up for a group buy. A group buy relies upon a very low initial defect rate, whereas this vendor seems (at least for the mics) to have more like a 10%-20% initial defect rate. They seem willing to make up for their production errors, but by replacing the units in the next order. That's not a surprise, since a typical importer would be buying stock for resale. Effectively, that pushes the QC to the importer, but still at the parts cost of the vendor. The Chinese apparently feel that is cheaper than doing QC and repair at their end, and they might be right.

The problem for the group buy is the need to quantify that defect rate for each model, increase the initial order accordingly, and allocate the cost of extra units to all group buy participants. Otherwise, a group buy member with a defective unit must either repair themselves or wait up to 18 months from their original payment to receive a replacement (and hopefully working) unit.

Most of this was known before this round, due to the ribbon problems of the earlier buys. And it was often stated this round that the preamps were speculative, and that no one should buy if they couldn't accept the risk of a nonfunctional unit. I can still understand disappointment among those who did understand the risk, but I've also seen a few people who were not truly aware of the risk and were not in a position to bear the consequences, and that is unfortunate.

 

[BudgetMC]

Très intelligent, Mssr!

I don't think the Chinese, at least this particular vendor, seem set up for a group buy. A group buy relies upon a very low initial defect rate, whereas this vendor seems (at least for the mics) to have more like a 10%-20% initial defect rate. They seem willing to make up for their production errors, but by replacing the units in the next order. That's not a surprise, since a typical importer would be buying stock for resale. Effectively, that pushes the QC to the importer, but still at the parts cost of the vendor. The Chinese apparently feel that is cheaper than doing QC and repair at their end, and they might be right.

The problem for the group buy is the need to quantify that defect rate for each model, increase the initial order accordingly, and allocate the cost of extra units to all group buy participants. Otherwise, a group buy member with a defective unit must either repair themselves or wait up to 18 months from their original payment to receive a replacement (and hopefully working) unit.

Most of this was known before this round, due to the ribbon problems of the earlier buys. And it was often stated this round that the preamps were speculative, and that no one should buy if they couldn't accept the risk of a nonfunctional unit. I can still understand disappointment among those who did understand the risk, but I've also seen a few people who were not truly aware of the risk and were not in a position to bear the consequences, and that is unfortunate.

 

[chris carter]

Actually, things weren't THAT speculative. Chance did state that he and some other engineers did get a working unit to evaluate and put through it's paces for a day well before the GB took place. I don't really want to dig for that post, but it's somewhere near the beginning of the thread of all the forums. Chance also stated that defective pres would be repaired/replaced early on. I was the first person to notice the defects and Chance did try and follow through on that within days... it's just that at that time we had no idea that it was practically ALL of the preamps.

I think the only speculation was if these would sound more like Neves or more like Behringers. But there wasn't any speculation as to whether these would work or not.

I seriously doubt anyone with a defective preamp will have to wait 18 months for a replacement/repair from TNC. I just don't think Terry and Chance would leave us all hanging like that. That said, I do think it will take a few weeks for them to sort out the best way to handle the warranty from a logistical standpoint. So we all need to sit tight while they figure out the best way to go about things.

 

[noisedude]

Over the past five years I've watched with interest and participated in several group buys. A basic question remains in my mind. I'll get to that in a moment, but first a summary of my current TnC group buy experience and some thoughts...

After a seven month wait time (with upfront cash paid) I recently received two defective ACMP-73 "Neve clone" preamps from Chance Pataki's TnC group buy. The principals of TnC are leveraging their group buy experience, upfront customer cash-flow, contact lists and over 500,000 combined forum page views to launch new commercial businesses. As a potential customer of almost any new audio business, I am interested in watching TnC's response to questions regarding customer service issues.

When I asked about my rights under TnC's published guarantee I was told I could send my units back to China for service. I don't think I'm alone in saying I was not amused by this response.

My issue is not only with two sub-professional ACMP-73 preamplifiers - which I could fix if I was looking for a DIY hobby My issues are perhaps are a bit more abstract - I'm interested in the interplay of US companies and Chinese vendors, observing group buy processes and watching how business, technical and ethical challenges get addressed and solved.

A large number of reputable pro audio companies source parts from China as a way to stay competitive and offer excellent value to their customers. But a basic question lingers - considering tied-up cash, long wait times, defective gear and dismissive or unresponsive customer service, do group buys really offer true value to end users?.

Excellent post. I've watched it unfold with interest and my only consolation to those of you who have suffered through it is that if you had not paid upfront, the changing money markets would mean that you would likely have risked significantly more money on this if you had not agreed your prices all those months ago.

For myself, I am happy to pay a few quid for a twelve-month warranty and a retailer I can shout at if a purchase goes belly up.

Good luck to all of you guys getting things sorted out.

 

[eyeteeth]

One thing I need to correct as it's bugging me.

To my knowledge, the pre-amps were NEVER sold as Neve Clones. And the "N" word was really shied away from for fear of raising people's expectations.

They way I understand the story, chance and his engineer worked on a preamp that was to resemple Chance's board, which happened to have Neve Preamps in it. NEVER did Chance say these were Neve clones. I don't think he ever even said they were Neve "like".

The Neve link is all from participants in the group by slowly expanding the description, or placing their hopes and desires into the discussion.

I guess I'm fortunate. Whether my impression is correct or not, I bought these looking for a different "flavor" that would hopefully be better than the entry level Pre's I currently have. I expect there to be some mods for them in the future that I can perform, and that will further improve the units. As there are for the mics... transformer/tube/ribbon swaps. I'm happy with the units I received. Except one... but that will be taken care of relatively shortly I think.

Personally I think people expecting a Vintech for a few hundred dollars were grasping at straws.