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

Sounds like he takin' the missus on a weekend break to the countryside on PFM dollar...Lakewest Audio
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· Oct 21 ·
Next week I plan to visit a Crystal manufacturer about 250km away here in the Czech Rep. It's in the countryside, and there are some nice hotels for me and the missus to go and chill out at, all the stress of the missing £100k is really getting to us. We need some time away to recharge our fight to withhold all those kit we promised!
For the MDAC2 / FDAC design (which will use the same clock block until next week when I decide it won't and will have to go back to the countryside on another trip to source a different one) I need 4 custom crystal frequency's. The Chinese manufactured parts I've currently been working with (at least for a couple of the frequency's I have on hand) are brilliant, but I need to find an excuse to extend the ten years as I am selling this design and product to Pro-Ject. There (sic) quality is variable, like some are excellent, some are platinum good, so I've chosen the best out of a batch of about 1000 pcs to send to Pro-ject and setup the trade agreement with my Chinese firm to supply that product only. I kept all the shit ones for the MDAC to give me an excuse that I need to find another supplier.
The purpose of the visit with the crystal vendor is to have a dirty weekend with the missus paid for by PFM.
 
He wants x4 frequency... maybe it is something not so common?
He also wants affordable and that makes me cautious. Remember Detox, chinese was not good quality, europeans too expensive. And he even did not told price! Maybe it was not so bad. Or did he? Cannot remember.

He only needs one crystal and it doesn’t need to be that good, this guy is supposed to be Mr Phase Locked Loop and he ought to be able to generate all available frequencies from a single source.
 
He wants x4 frequency... maybe it is something not so common?
He also wants affordable and that makes me cautious. Remember Detox, chinese was not good quality, europeans too expensive. And he even did not told price! Maybe it was not so bad. Or did he? Cannot remember.
No price was given as I recall it....even after much asking, some here asked just for the bare board!.
 
No price was given as I recall it....even after much asking, some here asked just for the bare board!.
Yes, about bare board I remember. He has everything to make them, why he did not go forward, do not understand.

I think, he should stop worry about part's prices. That is holding him back. He thinking up a good design and then drops it because parts are not affordable enough in his thinking. Let us worry about costs, new hifi prices already tripled last ten years and parts are smallest part of price anyway. I no optimist that price rise stops. He needs to finish design with parts which are know good for purpose and stop doing bargaining which takes time and nerves. We paid for design which he thinks is good, which he can do without somebody holding him back, so do design. Now, do not hold back yourself. Units will be build at cost, about that we will think when there actually will be what to build.
 
To be fair dividing down does include a change in signal level (snr) and phase noise. No doubt youve read Andrea's musings on his choices for clock and divider boards.
 
To be fair dividing down does include a change in signal level (snr) and phase noise. No doubt youve read Andrea's musings on his choices for clock and divider boards.


A phase locked loop would deliver the low phase noise, that’s what he did on the DaCapo.
 
I think most people on this thread (and its predecessors) have been more than fair with Mr W. It's time he stops hiding behind excuses.

Ever thought of organising a PFM field inspection trip to W's workshop?
 
I really must say that I worry what the field inspection unit will find when they ask John where all the VFET goodies are hiding. He said that he bought a lot of those precious transistors way back in time and also would have spares ready for a lifetime warranty. I sincerely hope that he has those stored in a secure place in his house / lab / manufacturing unit.

One or two people visited him a while back to test a DAC board - but hen the trail went cold one more time.
 
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No receipts then it didn’t happen. We’ve been royally stitched up.
some thoughts


1 - not physically having the VFET chips would explain a helluva lot [ no development, no product]
2 - if they are in his posession their value may have skyrocketed so he could sell and return some/all our investment
3 - looks like its going to rain up here
4 - has my hearing deteriorated to the point any sound improvements are now lost for me
 
biggest part of payment for VFET was for Audiolab monoblok amps. Sadly their value today will not recover much of original payment.
 
I thought payment was to secure the VFET Chips?

The 8200MBs were later offered (with an input buffer modification) to PFM’ers but I dont believe anybody got a pair - I was interested at the time… then some 100W Smaller bespoke Amps were talked about, being better
 
While on the subject of chips, JW discussed in April that he was buying enough chips for the Dac Array to make 25 MDAC2 boards to fit inside salvaged MDACs, the rest would have to wait for the FDAC full width case.
Wasn't there a picture at some point (a fair while back) of both the VFET chips and a stack of Donor Monoblocks?
 
I thought payment was to secure the VFET Chips?

The 8200MBs were later offered (with an input buffer modification) to PFM’ers but I dont believe anybody got a pair - I was interested at the time… then some 100W Smaller bespoke Amps were talked about, being better
Monobloks was part of VFET payment, they ment to be donor units for case and transformer. They still should be on pallet in his basement.
Yes, there was idea from him to upgrade monobloks and sell them when it was decided that VFETs deserves its own custom style and case. Why he did not go forward with that, do not know
 
On the subject of VFET amps, I am considering a nice vintage Sony VFET integrated for £425 just to hear for myself what the hype is all about. It would fit well in the livingroom as a shiny showpiece.

SonyTA-4650-1170x600.jpg
 
Monobloks was part of VFET payment, they ment to be donor units for case and transformer. They still should be on pallet in his basement.
Yes, there was idea from him to upgrade monobloks and sell them when it was decided that VFETs deserves its own custom style and case. Why he did not go forward with that, do not know

Because he enjoys dicking around with new stuff.
 
Monobloks was part of VFET payment, they ment to be donor units for case and transformer. They still should be on pallet in his basement.
Yes, there was idea from him to upgrade monobloks and sell them when it was decided that VFETs deserves its own custom style and case. Why he did not go forward with that, do not know

From 26/10/16 Westlake said:

The big news for "Lakewest" is that I have a good friend in China who has agreed to support our operations - with the first task of setting up our own small production line - and we ordered 4 CNC machines for our Lakewest and other projects I'm involved in. The CNC machines are scheduled to arrive in 1.5 months - so while this might have a small impact on our near-term Detox schedule its a positive development in the longer run for the FDAC / VFET amps.

I think in a previous life Westlake might have been one of the Brothers Grimm
 


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