Gyraf G9 [first time DIY]

[soundguy]

no need ot apologize paul, if Im entitled to an opinion certainly you are too.

I happen to think cloning is lame, a long time ago, before recording shit existed, a bunch of smart guys had to get together and invent it. Today, there are few designers making new exciting products and many folks are rehashing the same old designs over annd over and over again. Whats even more sad is there are amazing circuits out there to clone and manufacturers arent even doing that, they are just hung up on the same few designs because they will sell. I suppose ultimately its ridiculous to blame manufacturers entirely, they are only trying to make products so they can stay in business, perhaps someday to introduce a new design of their own after they make a name for themselves cloning stuff well, thats totally fair I suppose, consumers are as guilty of fanning this fire as the people building the stuff.

cloning gear is a great way to learn how to make stuff as assuming that the schematic you are working from doesnt contain errors, you know that variable is removed and at least you are building something that is *supposed* to work. My statement on this topic is more in regards to products being brought to market, for the effort it takes to build something on a commercial scale, it makes just as much sense to come up with your own idea as it does to not think of an idea and copy someone else's. I have a hard time getting all excited about that. It would be really exciting to see new kinds of amplifiers instead of the same type of amplfier in a box with a different company's name on it, it really doesnt make pro-audio the most exciting environment to be apart of.

Again, I dont need to be a moderator here in order to participate on this forum, if there is someone else with a more maleable attitude that would like to do the job, Im happy to pass the torch. After all, it aint *MY* board, its ours. I'll rock the boat to get people thinking but that becomes couterproductive quickly when people get turned off by it completely.

dave

[PaulWells]

I guess I misunderstood your statement.

I guess by "cloning is lame" you meant that there is value in learning the theory behind a circuit rather than just copying it...the value being that the builder gains an understanding of the superficial vs meaningful aspects.

As this has undoubtedly occurred to many folks, my guess would be their first thought would be: "well that's fine for engineers, but I'll never out do them...might as well just copy". maybe that's not true. What do you think Dave?

In any case, please share what information you have with the group including some of the aforementioned amazing circuits. I'd be thrilled to see them.

Kind Regards
Paul Wells

[soundguy]

hi paul-

the biggest problem that I had when starting out was getting things to work. The obvious advantage with cloning a circuit is that if the documentation you have in front of you (or another physical circuit you can copy) is correct, than you can build that and KNOW that at least the design is good and *should* work when you build a copy of it. Cloning is a fantastic way to learn as its sorta like color by numbers, you are painting someone elses painting but you get to practice your strokes and when you get really good at it you have a pretty picture to look at even if you didnt draw the outline for it...

If you look at old 70's circuits that use electrolytic capacitors, those caps in the 70's were much much much larger physically than they are today. There are lots of values on schematics that were picked solely because it was the largerst value they could find in the smallest package available to fit in a space. If you take some time to experiment its not very hard to "out do" the engineers on lots of classic designs while still retaining the classic sound of the circuit. Power decoupling can completely change the imaging and sound stage of a circuit and lots of people even on a commercial level are building things to a backwards standard just because they never took the time to think about what they were building, being content just building a clone as if to assume that the values on a 1272 must be the most awesome thing in the universe. "Cloners" have no issue completely changing the gain structure of a 1272 wrecking the frequency response of the amp but preserve other parts of the circuit that can stand to be improved. Shit like that makes little sense to me.

Copying stuff is a great way to learn but when you get to the point where you can offer commercial products, one can more than likely come up with a half original idea and when the choice is not to do that and just copy, I think its lame. Playing in a cover band was a lot of fun in high school, I learned alot about how to be in a band by playing other people's music, but after a while it just got sorta lame playing half assed versions of led zeppelin songs. There are guys that make a living doing just that and I have about the same level of respect for them as the cloners, compared to the guys who are writing songs and taking a chance trying to do their own thing in bands.

dave

[PaulWells]

Just read some info on power supply decoupling capacitors.
Thanks for for the tip!

Paul

[gevermil]

"Playing in a cover band was a lot of fun in high school, I learned alot about how to be in a band by playing other people's music, but after a while it just got sorta lame playing half assed versions of led zeppelin songs."
brilliant, dave .