The boards are a minuscule part of the cost, both monetary and environmental, of the items in question. The cases and PSUs, less so. You can buy the assembled PCBs for a Chinese Quad 405 for £30-40 or so. Shipped to you. That won't pay an hour of a tech's time. It would make sense, both fiscal and environmental, to make replacement boards available for drop-in replacements in the same way that car parts come as bolt-on assemblies. The manufacturing savings will pay for the provision of a spare board or two. Christ, you could give them away for free. An amplifier's capacitors last 20-25 years. Buy a spare board with your new amp, and you are done for 40-50 years with one half hour repair. That's good enough. A vanishingly small proportion of consumers keep anything even 10 years, so 50? We're done.
New QUAD 33 / 303 to be released...
- Thread starter xtal_recorder
- Start date
John_73
pfm Member
Yes I’m tempering any excitement until I have a better idea of what’ll be under the hood. I was very pleased with the Quad Artera Pre and Power which I owned for just over a year (a mint Nap160 de-throned those) which was a tweaked version of the Quad current dumping circuit. It still sounded almost identical to my 606 which was a relief, just more extended at the frequency extremes. If the 333 maintains some proper Quad circuit dna I’ll be very tempted indeed I must say.
Imagine it’ll look better still in the flesh. Agreed on the labels, and not too keen on the orange buttons being illuminated, but again might look better in the flesh. Surprisingly I do love that lcd display though, and love the classic font usage.
Tony L
Administrator
One thing I’m curious about is size. My suspicion is the new 33 is bigger, the 333 smaller. One of the things I really like about the original combo is just how compact it is, though it does make for a very cramped rear-panel on the 33 and I detest DIN plugs!
Nagraboy
Ausculta fili
@GT Just seen that new Garrard 301 Advanced you mentioned. Insane pricing. Is it a newly manufactured motor and chassis or just refurbed? Either way, I just can’t understand it other than being intended for markets where ‘reassuringly expensive’ is part of the selling point. Seems genuinely mad.
John_73
pfm Member
This sickens me. Classic hifi turned into oligarch-fi pricing. Unchecked greed, which the usual apologists will make excuses for no doubt.
John_73
pfm Member
Indeed. Will follow this one closely as I really am very tempted. DINs are evil, though technically I can see how they’re preferable in terms of earthing. I hope the backlit buttons aren’t that bright in reality, or are defeatable like the lcd backlight.
Tony L
Administrator
My suspicion is it is Loricraft’s old-stock, parts inventory etc slapped in a fancy plinth with a fashionably modern high-end audiophile LOLprice. The pictures of the turntables look way, way too good for them to have been recreated with current materials and manufacturing techniques. CNC is a very useful technology, but it just isn’t capable of the sculpted flowing lines of a good traditional casting, and no way would it be economically viable to re-cast all the parts to make a 301 in 2024. Garrard could only do it in the first place as they were shifting 7000 a year. I doubt they’ll shift 7 a year here at £50k, so Loricraft’s stock will likely last a while! That said if someone really wants to drop £50k on a turntable they could do a heck of a lot worse than a real 301! They are stunning turntables.
Ianp
pfm Member
Love your last line Tony
They say it's all newly manufactured, but I have my doubts. As Tony says they have all the old Loricraft stock, plus I would suspect they have been hoovering up old 301's off the web. Don't forget this is the company that once found out a UK dealer was selling a good number of SME tonearms and when asked by the SME's sales rep; "what turntable were these tonearms going on?" The reply was "they were mostly going on old Garrard 301s & 401s". Just a couple of weeks later, that dealer, plus all UK SME dealers were told they would not be supplied with SME tonearms unless they were being sold with an SME turntable. So pretty much over night SME lost most of their UK tonearm dealers. Then SME bought the rights to the Garrard name off Loricraft. Go figure...
I'm sure AR-A would be turning in his grave if he could see what his company is making:
herb
brain's right hemisphere
My old 33, now gathering dust for 20 years,, always sounded more pure than the 34 which replaced it. This was due to the cancel button for the tone and filter functions. Simplicity rules. No LCD display is necessary. Surely.. Oh I see that there is an illuminated tone button.
That is super ugly!They say it's all newly manufactured, but I have my doubts. As Tony says they have all the old Loricraft stock, plus I would suspect they have been hoovering up old 301's off the web. Don't forget this is the company that once found out a UK dealer was selling a good number of SME tonearms and when asked by the SME's sales rep; "what turntable were these tonearms going on?" The reply was "they were mostly going on old Garrard 301s & 401s". Just a couple of weeks later, that dealer, plus all UK SME dealers were told they would not be supplied with SME tonearms unless they were being sold with an SME turntable. So pretty much over night SME lost most of their UK tonearm dealers. Then SME bought the rights to the Garrard name off Loricraft. Go figure...
I'm sure AR-A would be turning in his grave if he could see what his company is making:
One thing that money can't buy and that is style and class...
There is a lot more to it than that! I've been in the repair and service side of industry for nearly 50 years. Although I don't offer a service and repair side to my business anymore, except for what I make, I have first hand experience on servicing and repairing most HiFi and what you have just described is only for cheap budget equipment and not for the type of equipment we discuss on this forum.
SMD resistors and capacitors, you just pick them off the board with heated tweezers. Literally just pick them up off the PCB, the tweezer tips melt the solder as you pick them off. Larger components use hot air or a focussed IR lamp and again pick them off with tweezers or a vacuum pump picker.
No cutting legs off or trying to pull them through while you have an iron on there. No need to remove solder before the component comes out. You heat the board much less for most components reducing the risk of track or PCB damage.
Yes they are smaller, you may need a magnifier to get them into position accurately, but that is no big issue really.
No cutting legs off or trying to pull them through while you have an iron on there. No need to remove solder before the component comes out. You heat the board much less for most components reducing the risk of track or PCB damage.
Yes they are smaller, you may need a magnifier to get them into position accurately, but that is no big issue really.
Through-Hole vs. Surface Mount
Modern PCBA design has two main methods for mounting components onto a PCB: Through-Hole Mounting and Surface Mounting
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