Group Buy Interest?

[crazydoc]

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.

It was this evaluation of the pres that has always bothered me (and others), and was the tip-off that this buy was VERY speculative. It seems they listened to them for a few hours (no tracks?), didn't even pop the lids/take pics, and sent them back with an OK for production of what turned out to be many hundreds of units. This, along with the known Chinese poor QC issues in general, was practically a guarantee of problems to come.

It seems that Alan Hyatt, dissed as he was here for his comments, certainly knew of which he spoke.

That said, I am still glad I participated in the buy. They will be fun to rip into, which is pretty much why I bought them. And I still have hopes that the mics won't be so problematic.

 

[noisedude]

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.

Here is the post I think you are remembering, from last February ........ You can take it either way you like but even before it turned out the design was an off-the-peg one available to anyone buying from 797, the 'N' word was used to describe the design (though not necessarily the sound) of the unit:

Maybe I had better clairify something. They are not Neve clones. but are based on the 1073 design. My console is an Allen & Heath "Sigma" that was built for Cheap Trick with 24 of the 32 inputs having 1073 pre's built in. I have grown to love these pre's. As many of you know it has taken over a year to perfect these outboard pre's to the point that they are very close. I was so happy (and sad) when I took and returned them to the manufacturer (at NAMM) to let them know that we will go with this design.
On another note maybe someone could start an interest poll for mics. I already have a ton of future orders for the ACM-3, 310, 6802, and 583.

 

[mshilarious]

it's just that at that time we had no idea that it was practically ALL of the preamps.

There was the mystery 51% defect rate in the final 100 units that were pulled right before shipping. We never heard what the defect was, or why it was so prevalent, or whether or not the other batches were tested, or could have been impacted by the defect. That was a huge red flag, and I said so at the time.

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.

You could ask Big Kenny if he's gotten his replacement ribbon yet . . . I don't think Chance wants to leave you hanging either, I'm just not sure what his options are. When he pointed out the ribbon sag problem to the manufacturer, they initially responded by asking for the mics back. Of course, that was nearly impossible at that point, so they sent replacement ribbons instead, which haven't been distributed yet. So that 18 month lag is quite accurate for more than a few people at this point--that is, 18 months from original payment to receipt of a working unit--you are already at 7 months.

The preamps are a much larger problem than the ribbons. There are a range of defects reported, everything from DOA to the 81 transistor problem, the gain switch popping, and power supply hum induced into the audio path. There are some reports of other broadband noise problems too. Now there are reports of mic DOAs as well as nonterminal problems with audio quality.

That's very tough to sort out. It will be tough merely to tabulate all the errors with all the different models. Then the Chinese get to decide how they will respond. Again, returning all units to a single point for repair will be cost-prohibitive, and I doubt they are going back to China. It remains to be seen if the Chinese will send replacements for the defective preamps, and it's questionable whether they are even capable of correcting the various flaws and performing adequate QC. A repair kit might fix many or most units, but the Chinese first have to recognize the problem, figure out why their existing process didn't catch it, engineer a solution, manufacture the kits and ship them. Then Chance has to distribute all of those kits. That sounds like a fair amount of lag time to me.

 

[noisedude]

It was this evaluation of the pres that has always bothered me (and others), and was the tip-off that this buy was VERY speculative. It seems they listened to them for a few hours (no tracks?), didn't even pop the lids/take pics, and sent them back with an OK for production of what turned out to be many hundreds of units. This, along with the known Chinese poor QC issues in general, was practically a guarantee of problems to come.

It seems that Alan Hyatt, dissed as he was here for his comments, certainly knew of which he spoke.

That said, I am still glad I participated in the buy. They will be fun to rip into, which is pretty much why I bought them. And I still have hopes that the mics won't be so problematic.

And this is the basis of these group buys, is it not? Only risk what you can afford to lose, and maybe you'll get something good for cheap.

Having spent time in the industry myself, at the retail end of things, I know how the Chinese companies work. In a lot of cases they are throwing huge amounts of mud at the wall to see what sticks, I have seen more guitars with warped necks, broken truss rods, poorly fitted hardware and the like than I'd care to admit. The difference with a standard manufacturer/reseller --> retailer model is that you pay more to have some comeback, so QC is much higher.

If I buy a Washburn guitar in this country it will have been QC'd at Sound Technology in London. If I buy a 'Rally' or 'Shine', or a container of them with my own brand name on direct from the factory, I get it a hell of a lot cheaper but I'm going to have to toss some away, or put them on one side until I have enough to be worth sending them back.

 

[mshilarious]

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 schemos are pretty much direct copies of the Neve, with a few variations among the models (or rather, the ACMP varies less between models than the Neves did). The gain stages, output stage, EQ stages (including each EQ frequency setting) were pretty much designed as a clone, or at least very heavily inspired. And that's pretty much why people bought them.

Remember when we got the first pictures of the innards (not from Chance, but a guy on Prodigy-Pro who saw the same model at a Euro trade show)? There were ICs, egad! Not to worry, we soon learned those were just driving the meter LEDs. But that shows the level of expectation that these were all-discrete Neve type circuits.

It's rather easy to make a very good IC preamp, by the way. But that isn't what you expected, is it?

And people shied away from saying Neve because they were worried about AMS-Neve? Who knows? I dunno. There are some people (not so much here) that on every thread and every post change manufacturer names like this:

N*ve
Sh*re
N**m*nn

Why? I dunno. Maybe they want to be sure that nobody ever finds their posts in a search . . .

 

[redddog]

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.

.

So the numbers 73, 84 and 81 are just a coincidence?

C'mon dude.

 

[crazydoc]

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.

Mine were done (as I mentioned in my post) with the mic gain maxed (80dB), to show the worst case noise scenario.

Here's the noisy 81 with mic gain at 0, with and without eq engaged, with the FFT sampling length at the max my free (Audacity) software will allow. Unfortunately it doesn't resolve below -90dB.

 

[BobbyBalow]

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.

Do you have any suggestions on tubes? Links would be helpful for people like me that have no idea where to start looking for these tubes...

 

[Ironklad Audio]

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.

what are they supposed to be then?

chance said himself...the 73 model is based on the schematic of the neve 1073 models in his console, and the 81/84's are based off of the original neve schematics for their models of the same number.

regardless, i'm happy as a pig in sh*t that i didn't spend hundreds of dollars on some broken-ass preamps...

 

[crazydoc]

Easiest fix ever!

It took me 30 seconds after I popped the lid to find the problem with my no-output 81.

 

[crazydoc]

5 seconds later. Works as well any any of them now (not to say a lot.)

Doesn't say much for QC either. (I doubt this happened in transit.)

 

[BudgetMC]

LOL! That, along with the dented Grills on the AVM-1200s, really sums up our quality control issues! Even visually obvious flaws went unattended... much less sonic ones, which would require, you know... advanced skills like listening!

Mind you, I'm still happy with the deal I got. When I heard about the buy, I researched it pretty carefully and knew the risks going in. I got some cool mics to practice modding on, and a Pre that might even sprout an EQ somewhere along the line.

It took me 30 seconds after I popped the lid to find the problem with my no-output 81.

 

[tarnationsauce2]

I noticed the only places these preamps have any glue is on the screws.
Connectors and big components like filter caps need to be glued down. Especially for how far they have to travel.

 

[drBill]

I mentioned this before, but I finally got to the bottom of the problem, found a solution and thought I'd mention it again just in case anyone out there in GB land ends up in the same place I did.

My 2 ACM2's were out of phase with each other. I noted which was the actual out of phase culprit and took it apart, expecting to have to re-solder pin 2/3, turn the motor around, etc.. After a couple taking it apart, putting it back together, scratching my head, etc. sessions I finally realized the answer.......those talented assembly people on the other side of the world just didn't bother to notice which side of the mic body they decided to silkscreen with the TnC logo onto. Every mic I've owned has the logo on the positive (front) side of the mic. Oh, that is except for the one AMC2. So, I don't want to resolder the wires, as then I'll be making the REAR side of the motor as the "front" (positive) side of the mic in relation to the silkscreened logo. I guess I'll just remove the silkscreening and use a sharpie..... Doh!!!

 

[MichaelJoly]

Beijing 797 Audio, Alan Hyatt / Studio Projects and TnC preamps

As an infrequent viewer of this thread I missed the Beijing 797 Audio, Alan Hyatt / Studio Projects and TnC preamp discussion.

But after using the search function I need to ask - were the ACMP preamps actually designed by Beijing 797 Audio (not TnC) then rejected by Alan Hyatt of Studio Projects and others? Has this been substantiated by reputable sources? I thought Chance had a team reverse-engineer his Neve-equipped console then provide schematics to his vendor.

 

[ausrock]

Michael,

Please check your PMs.

 

[redddog]

I think Alan knew a lot about these and seemed to speak knowledgeably about the design.

It was openly stated that these were designed by Chance and his Neve guy and I totally believe that. The fact is that these are VERY close to the Neve design.

What would make sense here is that both are right. Which is my take. I bet that the 797 most likely already had a work in progress that they showed to Alan Hyatt(who promptly passed). Then Chance's design showed up and 797 figured they could pump these out with little to no variation and everyone's happy. The Neve design isn't the best kept secret in the world and given their "top of the heap" status, it'd be no surprise that someone had been working on the budget iteration of that circuit.

I think that Alan saw an issue with the circuit(probably with the power supply) and decided that the risks were too much. As has been stated before, terrible QC is a KILLER when your margins are paper thin. He came in with some not-so-subtle bluster and was run out of town on a mule, but I bet he was right.

And I bet that Chance was right. They put in for a design that was most likely 90% of the way there.

I think 797 were the ones at fault here. It seems like they played dumb and made it sound like this was being designed for Chance and most likely "forgot" about the issues that were identified by others. This points to more fault than just shoddy QC, but actual fraud. They knowingly manufactured a design that worked but with huge flaws knowing how hard it would be to follow through on warrantee requests. Throw in really crappy QC on top of it and you have the current version of the ACMP.

Again, they are fixable and some have found situations where they are totally useable if not great. Others haven't been so lucky. Mine seem to be relatively quiet and there are no variations from one unit to the other. I count myself lucky.

Anyway, that's my theory.

 

[eyeteeth]

PM me too... I never understood the bottom of that and am still curious.

 

[nuemes]

As regards the ACMP-73...it is certainly no louder than my Meek VC3Q, ART MPA Gold, or DMP-3.

Are you sure regarding the ART MPA? I've gathered from other posts that the ART MPA is considerably more quiet than the ACMP's. Did you have a heater running, monitor buzz or otherwise going on unchecked in the backround during testing?

 

[nuemes]

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.

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.

You are absolutely wrong on this. Chance was the first person on this board to bring up Neve. Yes, Chance said they are not Neve clones yet when asked he said the ACMP's sounded exaclty like his 1073 modules. Read his own quotes. You can find them by date in the same thread:

2/1/08:
Q: Chance, can you describe the sound of the new rack gear or do some comparisons to existing preamps/comps that you've used?
A: “Neve on the preamp.”
“Maybe I had better clairify something. They are not Neve clones. but are based on the 1073 design. My console is an Allen & Heath "Sigma" that was built for Cheap Trick with 24 of the 32 inputs having 1073 pre's built in. I have grown to love these pre's. As many of you know it has taken over a year to perfect these outboard pre's to the point that they are very close. I was so happy (and sad) when I took and returned them to the manufacturer (at NAMM) to let them know that we will go with this design.”

2/8/08
Q: just curious, but did you get an opportunity to do a side-by-side comparison with 1 of your 1073 modules?
A: “LOL that was the first test we did. A/B sounded like A/A”

Disclaimer: I'm not knocking the group buy here folks, but I am pointing out that Chance hinted all along that these were Neve-ish. Like most of you who ordered pre's, I did not expect to get a Neve for the price we paid. However, I think it's to be noted that Chance lent the Neve hype to the ACMP's to begin with.