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The John Westlake/Lakewest MDAC/FDAC, VFET and Detox

Is it really Pro-ject backing this. First time I have seen this mentioned. If true I’m sure they would want a unique product in their own case and I can’t see the use of MDAC boxes every happening. And I’d be suprised if anybody is going to get anything as cheap as they hoped many years ago. This is not going to end well, if at all!
 
Ian M said:
Is it really Pro-ject backing this. First time I have seen this mentioned. If true I’m sure they would want a unique product in their own case and I can’t see the use of MDAC boxes every happening. And I’d be suprised if anybody is going to get anything as cheap as they hoped many years ago. This is not going to end well, if at all!
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John hasn’t mentioned who he’s working for. I think Project has been an assumption by people here and could always be incorrect.
 
Ian M said:
Is it really Pro-ject backing this. First time I have seen this mentioned. If true I’m sure they would want a unique product in their own case and I can’t see the use of MDAC boxes every happening. And I’d be suprised if anybody is going to get anything as cheap as they hoped many years ago. This is not going to end well, if at all!
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I think you'll find it's the other way round Ian, by default we've been backing the development of Project, er...projects.
 
Timcat said:
In my opinion, no. I would invest in an up to date DAC, like an RME, Mytek or Benchmark, all of which are more reliable than the MDAC and, in my opinion, outclass it for sound quality.
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Thanks Timcat. Good news - I took davidjt's advice rather than yours, bought an Uptone Regen (£75) and it has made a small but unequivocal improvement to my MDAC.

Bad news - it has completely screwed up my playing of Qobuz from Win10 to my MDAC. Most tracks swap to a lower bit rate (according to the MDAC's display) immediately or after ~20 seconds. Weird.

I suspect the driver that Windows installed when I first connected the Regen. But I can now not find this driver in Device Manager, so cannot delete it, and generally am not sure how to proceed. Or, perhaps it's some other problem entirely.

Has anyone heard of problems with Regen and MDAC? Any suggestions please how I should go about configuring the Qobuz application, or Windows, with this new driver. Or other ideas?

(It's not an MDAC problem - it still works fine over coax from a RPi.)
 
davidjt said:
Sorry to hear that. Have you tried e-mailing UpTone Audio?
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No. It's quite possible that someone here has noticed/resolved difficulties with Regen and MDAC and its drivers. And these commercial support desks tend to be of negligible help, in my experience.
 
russel said:
Thanks, according to https://www.akm-ics.com/product/akm-semiconductor_AK4137EQ.html

Which is akms official website by the way.

Manufacturer Part Number AK4137EQ
Manufacturer / Brand AKM Semiconductor Inc.
Available Quantity 97260 Pieces
Unit Price Quote by Email ([email protected])

There are nearly 100,000 pieces in stock, so it’s looks like the usual JW BS.
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I've just done a look-up on that website; I'd say it's far from certain that they're a subsidiary of AKM: https://website.informer.com/akm-ics.com. Seems more likely they're a Chinese distributor with no direct relationship to AKM.
 
I emailed John about the akm website and got this response:


“Hi Russel,

We are in direct contact with our AKM sales people (Europe) and the feedback from them is very limited supply of AK parts... I'm not sure who this company is that claims they have nearly 100K pcs of AK4137 in stock (I kinda suspect something fishy as I would have expected AKM to tell us about this stock - especially as the company claims to be a part of AKM) - I've have just emailed both AKM directly and the link forward and wait to better understand the situation - I'd be happily amazed if the situation is true.

The "official" line from AKM to our purchasing department (November 19th) is that "AK chips will not be available for at least a year"

Also, is incorrect to say that its easy to fab AKM parts at different Fabs (AK4137 is a pure digital part so this could in theory be moved to a different line) - the AKM mixed signal parts are a very unique mixed signal process hence the real problems the factory fire has caused + the recertification of the new line once its installed...

This past week I've spent some time on a different solution which can be used - it will require an extra FPGA, I've ordered the FPGA development kit and will see if I can implement this solution on my own (over Christmas) - once the Clock PCB has been issued.

BR,

John”

So it’s good that he replied.
 
russel said:
I emailed John about the akm website and got this response:


“Hi Russel,

We are in direct contact with our AKM sales people (Europe) and the feedback from them is very limited supply of AK parts... I'm not sure who this company is that claims they have nearly 100K pcs of AK4137 in stock (I kinda suspect something fishy as I would have expected AKM to tell us about this stock - especially as the company claims to be a part of AKM) - I've have just emailed both AKM directly and the link forward and wait to better understand the situation - I'd be happily amazed if the situation is true.

The "official" line from AKM to our purchasing department (November 19th) is that "AK chips will not be available for at least a year"

Also, is incorrect to say that its easy to fab AKM parts at different Fabs (AK4137 is a pure digital part so this could in theory be moved to a different line) - the AKM mixed signal parts are a very unique mixed signal process hence the real problems the factory fire has caused + the recertification of the new line once its installed...

This past week I've spent some time on a different solution which can be used - it will require an extra FPGA, I've ordered the FPGA development kit and will see if I can implement this solution on my own (over Christmas) - once the Clock PCB has been issued.

BR,

John”

So it’s good that he replied.
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Indeed. I've also followed up with the manager I approached at AKM; hopefully he will help.
 
Hello, everyone. I paid for all three stages of the FDAC/MDAC2 around five years ago. Is there an ETA for the product yet?
 
Crikey. There is still some belief that John intends to deliver something?

I would love to see him not just keep the VFET investors money, but I’m not hopeful for much other than this thread following him around. It really should be linked in his Wikipedia entry.
 
Sibbers said:
Crikey. There is still some belief that John intends to deliver something?

I would love to see him not just keep the VFET investors money, but I’m not hopeful for much other than this thread following him around. It really should be linked in his Wikipedia entry.
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Pretty sure it used to be.

I have long given up.
 
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