JohnW,
Glad to see the production preparation coming together. Great work.
Not sure about the front panel changes. It seems another thing that can delay the development/delivery of MDAC2 even more. It seems we have a new back plate, new front panel, new external power supply. How is this an MDAC upgrade? The only thing we have kept the same is form factor (except being a bit longer) which caused so much problem when you tried to fit every thing else on the Main board.
I am hesitant in committing more funds towards it as I thought new front panel and more drastic changes were going to happen for FDAC (I am signed up for two of those).
What I need to know is when you think we will have a finished MDAC2 board + PSU (in bare format, no fancy case or front panel) that can be listened to. That is why I signed up for this project. Otherwise all your hard work and money (very much yours and ours) would be, sorry to say, for nothing.
All I ask is that we keep our focus on the main thing we all signed up for originally. To me that was a DAC that is superior in SOUND to anything else in the market. The look and feel is secondary. I respectfully ask that please keep that in mind.
Regard,
Hossein
..... it's just fitting a display (my assumption) for the Streamer ...
That is exactly why I believe it will take a very long time (6 months +) to develop. And this is why I think that. Because of the size of the display we will probably have to develop something using qt framework. Not the easiest of framework. Before we can develop it we have to agree to the design. Let's say to speed things up we design as we go (which is a very bad idea to start with) we still have to test every menu/button and result. And guess what every man and his dog will have features that they want included and before we know it we will have a civil war here on what is essential and what is desired ( a big issue in SW dev). We still have to find people (this will take more than one guy) who would want to do the development/debugging and future maintenance. I can go on but I think you can see that this is not just a small job.
Based on my limited experience with software I would stay away from custom interface design unless the parameters are very clearly defined. Considering we are probably going to use Volumio on the streamer we should just stick with its mobile app/HTTP interface for MDAC2 streamer.
IMHO, FDAC is where we should do this as we will have time and we would have learnt from our experience with MDAC2 and streamer.
John,You wanted to know where I`m from(Germany),maybe I got a Chance to get that small Dac?
I might be a bit dim here but are you saying the only thing needed from the old MDAC is the sleeve?
I must say that I support a new front panel (if the cost is reasonable) - we're going to have a whole new DAC, so it would be a shame for it to still say it's an original MDAC.
How wili the sponsorship work?
John , ok, but when will that be ?
I'm having trouble getting units for myself - there is massive demand. What's happening is that dealers who get the units are keep them for themselves or for family and friends so that they are not reaching street level in qtys. until we can really ramp up production!
The Guys at Volumio are developing the software UI for us - so we leave this in there more then capable hands, in fact they offered and are very excited by the MDAC2
It would be far harder for us to write software to talk with the existing MDAC front panel - we might need to offer a new front panel PCB to ease / reduce the development times.
Jarek is the only person here capable to write software - and its not something he's happy doing or an expert in (although he gets better on each project).
John has confirmed, not even a month ago, that the streamer will be optional,Bad news, as far as I am concerned, is that I have to get MDAC2 with streamer board whether I want it or not.
I have to say that retaining only the sleeve for MDAC2 and effectively junking the perfectly good innards and front/rear panels feels a bit, well, wasteful.
I'm having trouble getting units for myself - there is massive demand. What's happening is that dealers who get the units are keep them for themselves or for family and friends so that they are not reaching street level in qtys. until we can really ramp up production!