Hi ducatiman,
I remember you
- I'm very happy your enjoying one of the very first MDAC's
Due to the continued issues I'm experiencing with MDAC build quality, sound quality variability and our longer term plans to progress forward we are considering changing the direction as to how we handle these MDAC upgrades.
Currently each MDAC upgrade is taking about 4 to 5 days to complete as I'm essentially customising the upgrade for each unit – this is obviously unsustainable, extremely frustrating and not to mention financially unprofitable.
The plan that is now brewing in my mind (I’m putting it out here for feedback) is to offer a whole new MDAC Mainboard that we would manufacture here in Europe thus insuring quality and consistency. To allow us to meet the price targets we would purchase key “expensive” items in Asia – cheaper passive components etc would be purchased locally here in Europe.
As the PCB is built by SMD machine, labour is such a small part of the board cost we could still meet our price targets for the upgrades with a higher quality and more professional product.
To help finance this endeavour I’m thinking upon the lines that say “50” perspective customers send instalments of GBP100 per month – and within 4 months (GBP400) we will be able to ship out upgrade boards (for simple DIY fit) – or I can upgrade units here in CZ as I’m currently doing – being a simple board swap it would be a much quicker process. It would also allow owners outside of Europe to upgrade there unit.
You would be essentially getting a new product with only front panel, PSU and chassis reused from the original MDAC.
I’d go the full hog with the redesigned PCB, not only including the Toy / Fusion upgrades but include Dual pair of ESS9018’s, AV bypass and the potential for an extra say GBP50 and a months extra design effort to add Async USB to 768Fs!! and DSD support etc.
The first 20 or so customers who have paid the Toy / Fusion upgraded MDAC’s can then send them back to me here in CZ once the upgrade PCB is available and I’ll transplant the “Precious” Bulk Foil resistors onto the new MDAC PCB (the PCB will be design for both options) – for the cost price of the new PCB which I'm guessing at around GBP120…
This route has many advantages – not only is it a vastly better product without the restrictions of trying to add the modifications to the existing PCB, you have the DUAL ESS9018’s and the potential of DSD & 786Fs support with each unit tested and QC’ed by myself here in Europe – more importantly we would be helping the local European economy, shifting production back from China.
Just an idea and early days, wondering if there would be interest as the current method of upgrading the PCB is unsustainable in the longterm – while this would be a 4 month plan – so far about 130 people have expressed interest in the upgrade – at 3 to 4 days a unit (hopefully I can speed this up for the remain units here) I’m never going to be able to upgrade all units! While it would add a delay for a few you do get a vastly superior product – and the payments can be spread over 4 months
I would only need 50 commitments at GBP100 per month to go ahead and design a new replacement board incorporating the Toy / Fusion upgrades + all the juicy extras such as dual 9018’s (and DSD / 768Fs support if the consensus is to spend the extra GBP50 and month extra hardware development) – it would be a REFERENCE grade DAC (with all the lessons learnt from the current upgrades etc)… any interest or comments?
