MDAC First Listen (part 00111010)

[sq225917]

Some of us were with the mdac from day one. In fact it was I who migrated the original thread over from diyaudio.com. that was a four year run, I expected no less this time round.

Given he can make pcbs on site and much of the design work is done I'm confident people will start to see dacs soon. Ish

 

[HarryB]

No thanks, I need an MDAC2 with AVBypass ...imperative to my system (it’s why I signed up).

I’m sure John will deliver eventually, so long as he doesn’t suffer a nervous breakdown from all these messages first (I hope John can just take away the positives from these rants - the core message is that people are tired of waiting, so rather deliver the MDAC2 board as close as it is to being perfect, as it will never be perfect, very soon)

Sincerely not intended to come across as insulting

I have no dog in this fight but what an insulting post. I've seen no rants; quite the opposite in fact. The patience and mild-mannered comments from those who have shelled out considerable sums of money and gave seen nothing in return have been incredible.

To suggest these people are being unfair to John W and accusing them of ranting is shameful IMHO.

 

[clivem2]

I have no dog in this fight but what an insulting post. I've seen no rants; quite the opposite in fact. The patience and mild-mannered comments from those who have shelled out considerable sums of money and gave seen nothing in return have been incredible.

To suggest these people are being unfair to John W and accusing them of ranting is shameful IMHO.

I think the word rant in the quote was possibly not meant too severely....I see it as mostly some resigned frustration boiling over.

 

[ti33er]

“Sincerely not intended to come across as insulting” was meant for John

Of course there is ranting going on, you included; not meaning some of it is not deserved either

I’ve got £1000 tied up in here and in desperate need of this DAC, have been for some time...I am frustrated too, but have good faith John will eventually deliver - just hope he doesn’t have a nervous breakdown in the interim (hoping he has Theresa May’s tenacity to persevere as what she goes through in the House of Commons would break most men, imo)

 

[Space is the Place]

Some of us were with the mdac from day one. In fact it was I who migrated the original thread over from diyaudio.com. that was a four year run, I expected no less this time round.

Given he can make pcbs on site and much of the design work is done I'm confident people will start to see dacs soon. Ish

Ditto, but no one had contributed to that designs funding and the mission creep was minimal, and it seems a lot longer than 4 years now...

“Sincerely not intended to come across as insulting” was meant for John

Of course there is ranting going on, you included; not meaning some of it is not deserved either

I’ve got £1000 tied up in here and in desperate need of this DAC, have been for some time...I am frustrated too, but have good faith John will eventually deliver - just hope he doesn’t have a nervous breakdown in the interim (hoping he has Theresa May’s tenacity to persevere as what she goes through in the House of Commons would break most men, imo)

To compare someone to Theresa May is insulting! , at least John is good at stuff and a nice bloke even if he's rubbish at time management and is perfectionist!

Comments are supposed to be lighthearted, at least by me, although if id have invested 10 times the amount I had, I don't think I'd see the funny side of the saga...

 

[adamdea]

(I hope John can just take away the positives from these rants - the core message is that people are tired of waiting, so rather deliver the MDAC2 board as close as it is to being perfect, as it will never be perfect, very soon)

Sincerely not intended to come across as insulting

Leaving aside the relentless optimism, I think this is a very fair summary of the core message.
I hope you are right. It's just that the core message has been the same for a long time.

 

[misterdog]

Ditto, but no one had contributed to that designs funding and the mission creep was minimal, and it seems a lot longer than 4 years now...

No the DIY Audio thread was 4 years long before being migrated here.

 

[sq225917]

He's an honest bloke, he'll deliver, and it'll be beyond expectations pretty much like everything else he's made.

 

[PhilCTTE]

He's an honest bloke, he'll deliver, and it'll be beyond expectations pretty much like everything else he's made.

Agreed...

 

[Obi1]

Maybe he needs to stick to his guns and complete something then?

Detox was supposed to be a quick project to give us something while we where waiting for the Mdac2.
How long ago was that? Anyone even remember? Where is it?

Everytime John posts something everything has changed since his last post of confirmation of delivery order and/or dates.

Well, I am sick and tired of waiting and I see nothing wrong with that!!!!!
I am amazed to see people not being infuriated by the constant delays and twists and turns in what is supposed to be done first or new products appearing on the priority list.

Going by the facts I have, I consider John to be a con man. But I really hope that he proves me wrong. Soon!

 

[stellablues]

i’m not sure how i became the biggest “lakewest loser” but that seems to be my position. paid fdac l3, 2 detox and vfets...

so tell me did i pay enough to get the right to complain from all the righteous people here?

first plan might be to create t shirts with the slogan “ lakewest loser” to sell around pink fish to recoup some funds. would be fun to see those floating around munich next year with no product delivery again...

step two might be to file class action law suit? who’s in ? anybody an international lawyer?

what’s step three? do we need to fly to czech and check on our investment? maybe have a sit down as the board and elect a new ceo? we’re the investor after all right? we set direction.

waiting in good faith has not worked well. as they say the definition of crazy is doing the same things and expecting different results. many parallels to john production estimates.

agree with all the fed up sentiments here. i didn’t sign up to pay for johns home manufacturing plant nor him selling our designs to other companies before we have a product ourselves. i really cannot believe that people choose to support and talk up a vaporware organization.

 

[PhilCTTE]

i’m not sure how i became the biggest “lakewest loser” but that seems to be my position. paid fdac l3, 2 detox and vfets...

so tell me did i pay enough to get the right to complain from all the righteous people here?

first plan might be to create t shirts with the slogan “ lakewest loser” to sell around pink fish to recoup some funds. would be fun to see those floating around munich next year with no product delivery again...

step two might be to file class action law suit? who’s in ? anybody an international lawyer?

what’s step three? do we need to fly to czech and check on our investment? maybe have a sit down as the board and elect a new ceo? we’re the investor after all right? we set direction.

waiting in good faith has not worked well. as they say the definition of crazy is doing the same things and expecting different results. many parallels to john production estimates.

agree with all the fed up sentiments here. i didn’t sign up to pay for johns home manufacturing plant nor him selling our designs to other companies before we have a product ourselves. i really cannot believe that people choose to support and talk up a vaporware organization.

First step contact John via phone call or private message to discuss ...

 

[davidjt]

i really cannot believe that people choose to support and talk up a vaporware organization.

In other words you refuse to accept that some of your 'facts' are incorrect and insist that yours is the only permissible interpretation of events.

Of course we are all fed up with waiting. We all signed up hoping for a tremendous bargain - so there was an element of greed involved even if we don't choose to admit it.

Compared to John's investment yours (believe it or not) is minuscule.

Hard to see where righteousness fits into this - if venting your frustration makes you feel better, knock yourself out.

(But when mastering the basics of civil and company law maybe you should check out the law of libel as well?)

 

[Sloop John B]

Of course we are all fed up with waiting. We all signed up hoping for a tremendous bargain - so there was an element of greed involved even if we don't choose to admit it.

If it sounds too good to be true.............

.sjb

 

[Stunsworth]

Compared to John's investment yours (believe it or not) is minuscule

This might sound harsh, but that's not our concern. We signed up to a project where John was going to design the boards and the manufacturing would be done elsewhere (I think Eastern Europe and the Far East were mentioned). Once it became obvious that wasn't going to be practical the manufacturing had to come in house (or the project cancelled and money returned), either way it would have cost John a lot of money, and he can use the in house manufacturing for other developments.

The problem has always been resolving the problems around manufacturing the boards, and a secondary issue was that it (IMHO) gave John the time to consider revising the design - I can't remember how long ago the original CAD drawings were produced of the M-Dac 2 board.

So far the ADC, phono stage, room correction, and touch panel front appear to have been dropped from what we were offered earlier, together with the slave units. I can understand why that's happened, but some of those were the reasons I was happy to continue to the project.

In spite of all of that I don't think John is a bad guy, I think things that are outside his area of expertise have been the stumbling blocks. I also feel as if we're near to getting something - on the other hand I've felt like that for two years or more.

I certainly wouldn't be surprised if the FDAC never sees light of day, after a 4-5 year wait for the M-DAC is anyone going to wait even longer for that?

Overall I don't feel as pessimistic as the above sounds.

 

[adamdea]

In other words you refuse to accept that some of your 'facts' are incorrect and insist that yours is the only permissible interpretation of events.

Of course we are all fed up with waiting. We all signed up hoping for a tremendous bargain - so there was an element of greed involved even if we don't choose to admit it.

Compared to John's investment yours (believe it or not) is minuscule.

Now there is the problem. The facts speak for themselves- lots of talk nothing delivered. What has been going on behind the scenes- who knows?
Your assumption/interpetation of John's investment is highly questionable. Does anyone really believe that John has been beavering away night and day at this? I can see no firm evidence that he is doing anything other than messing around for his own amusement and developing products to sell on the ordinary market. Then he appears on the forum saying- "look what i did for you guys".

Even if we knew the underlying facts I suspect we would disagree on their interpretation. No doubt John has spent a lot of time in a room with a lot of electronic equipment thinking about different ways of making a dac. During that period he has produced some dacs. But not ours.

No doubt for much of that period he spent more time than is healthy on a hifi forum. (err hello)

Honest guy, not honest guy- these are not necessarily the important categories.

 

[ti33er]

...well there has been a FB update. The DETOX chassis samples have been approved, provided they fit the PCB once they arrive I think, logically.

I’m assuming we will see some of these devices out soon if all works out

 

[sq225917]

My money is on 6 weeks for detox.

Maybe we should start a spreadsheet just to show what the pfm investment is? Any bets on the total, I reckon it's close to 175k

 

[clivem2]

Simon, you've just fanned the flames....during the hot weather too.

 

[misterdog]

We all signed up hoping for a tremendous bargain

Not really, the MDAC itself was the bargain the updated board was originally priced at some £ 3/400 because it was too complex for John to rework the existing boards.

As it happens some of us have ended with DIY amps costing around £ 500 which are a bargain and I'm not convinced the VFETS will better them.