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

There's been a few Facebook posts recently.
The A02 board should be ready by the end of the month (it's waiting on firmware), but the comparison to the Chord DAC will now be with the A03 board in mid March.
 
Thanks for the update, any idea what the issue with the firmware is and what the issue is that requires a respin of the etch? Any news on a revised date when product might ship - looks to me like at least June before anything will be available.
 
Thanks for the update, any idea what the issue with the firmware is and what the issue is that requires a respin of the etch? Any news on a revised date when product might ship - looks to me like at least June before anything will be available.

Jarek is writing the software for John W / Lakewest, but he is doing this as an off-spin on his academic studies. The proposed 03 Board will provide John with an opportunity to test and evaluate the workings prior to production, with an 04 Board used hopefully as a final revision and amendments for test prior to actual production runs.
 
So the general drift is that we have once again completed the manoeuvre between a thing being ready by the end of the year, to the generic at some point in the future.

I really can't understand whether John Westlake himself realises what a disgrace he is. I cannot understand how any commercial manufacturer could ever wish to work with someone who is evidently either dishonest or so flakey as to be indistinguishable from a dishonest person.

Scroll back a few pages and all we had was some flannel about the Dev Dac2 being ready in order to justify giving up on his commitment to the Mdac 2 (ie replacement internals for existing chassis). What he said about the state of preparation of the Dev Dac 2 was simply a lie.

This is not an investment in the gold -prospecting in the Andes, a cold-fusion reactor or a cure for the common cold. This project has not failed because of unforeseeable cross winds or insurmountable technical complexities. John Westlake simply cannot be bothered to complete the project. He has had ample opportunities to make up for the earlier flannel , evasion and obfuscation and he is plainly not going to take it. He had a chance to stop lying and he has not taken that chance either.

Only sane thing seems to be to give up and recognise this road crash for what it is.
 
The listening session at the end of January won’t happen just like every other promise John Westlake has made in the past 6 years.
And lo! It came to pass in record time.
I just don’t see how you can be that wrong so many times. In my eyes you are either utterly incompetent or you’re just making it up as you go along knowing full well you can’t keep your commitments.
Those do seem to be the options, but it really does seem more like the latter than the former.
 
As so often in the last months, a few rehearse the dwarves' revolt here. Knowing that they speak only for themselves and a very small part of supporters of J. Westlake here in the Forum through their always same accusations and insinuations. Even more: John, whom they are fondly hostile towards, has long put them on the Ignore List because of their blind rage. -> They can't even reach him anymore... And if you consider the lack of support, of the silent majority, others don't care about their texts either.

So why? Because of the long-term memory of Google Search. If you just make a little effort and produce decent click numbers, even with the biggest crap, you will get up in the search hits!

J. Westlake is certainly a designer who should report here in the forum more regularly and in more detail. This is a debt to be discharged, which he is not even close to fulfilling! But when "blaming" him for the lack, one should not confuse cause and effect. Correct is that
- the design process takes more than a long time
- therefore the life circumstances (age, hearing, finances) of the sponsors have changed fundamentally in some cases
- this is not taken into account, financially
- we may also be victims of the turn towards DAC devices without DAC chips

In total J. Westlake has collected over 100T EUR in development funds here. But even in the Czech Republic you can not live on it for a long time.
It is therefore understandable that spin-offs in commercial projects were and are used to generate income. But transparency would have been helpful here. Even a J. Westlake can't leave the professional scene for years and only take care of a few dozen fishies.
Not to forget his advance investments in components, machines and old audio gear. These are also known here in principle. Whether he will ever be able to use them beyond the production of "our" gear remains to be seen.

It is also true, however, that we, the supporters, have at least contributed to the delays through a never-ending wish list and by raising the requirements. For example, I am very enthusiastic about the fact that there is an output stage equipped with tubes . This is then enhanced by the perfectionist ideas of J. Westlake about his work...

John was generally quite transparent about his actions and the reasons for them. Also his turning away from the ESS DAC's was transparent. I cannot think of a big outcry in this respect.

Nevertheless, in the last few months the same accusations and hostility came from the same smal group of people.

The people who could met J. Westlake personally describe him as a sincere person. Who also knows what he is talking about... From my point of view, who has never spoken to J. Westlake personally, or even met him, I have little (financial need, but who wants to judge/ decide) or no understanding for the hostility that is being poured out on him!

If these lines meet reality halfway, you can see that much was dependent on many things and is mutually dependent. In the end, it is personal sensitivities and oversized egos of a few, which have caused the poisoned atmosphere. I'd make myself scarce as a victim, too.

I assume that we will soon have devices in our hands that will make us one of the privileged people in the audio / DAC sector. In terms of value, price-performance and features.

And I doubt that the people who talk so badly about J. Westlake today will persevere and praise him with the same dedication!

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version):D
 
As so often in the last months, a few rehearse the dwarves' revolt here. Knowing that they speak only for themselves and a very small part of supporters of J. Westlake here in the Forum through their always same accusations and insinuations. Even more: John, whom they are fondly hostile towards, has long put them on the Ignore List because of their blind rage. -> They can't even reach him anymore... And if you consider the lack of support, of the silent majority, others don't care about their texts either.

So why? Because of the long-term memory of Google Search. If you just make a little effort and produce decent click numbers, even with the biggest crap, you will get up in the search hits!

J. Westlake is certainly a designer who should report here in the forum more regularly and in more detail. This is a debt to be discharged, which he is not even close to fulfilling! But when "blaming" him for the lack, one should not confuse cause and effect. Correct is that
- the design process takes more than a long time
- therefore the life circumstances (age, hearing, finances) of the sponsors have changed fundamentally in some cases
- this is not taken into account, financially
- we may also be victims of the turn towards DAC devices without DAC chips

In total J. Westlake has collected over 100T EUR in development funds here. But even in the Czech Republic you can not live on it for a long time.
It is therefore understandable that spin-offs in commercial projects were and are used to generate income. But transparency would have been helpful here. Even a J. Westlake can't leave the professional scene for years and only take care of a few dozen fishies.
Not to forget his advance investments in components, machines and old audio gear. These are also known here in principle. Whether he will ever be able to use them beyond the production of "our" gear remains to be seen.

It is also true, however, that we, the supporters, have at least contributed to the delays through a never-ending wish list and by raising the requirements. For example, I am very enthusiastic about the fact that there is an output stage equipped with tubes . This is then enhanced by the perfectionist ideas of J. Westlake about his work...

John was generally quite transparent about his actions and the reasons for them. Also his turning away from the ESS DAC's was transparent. I cannot think of a big outcry in this respect.

Nevertheless, in the last few months the same accusations and hostility came from the same smal group of people.

The people who could met J. Westlake personally describe him as a sincere person. Who also knows what he is talking about... From my point of view, who has never spoken to J. Westlake personally, or even met him, I have little (financial need, but who wants to judge/ decide) or no understanding for the hostility that is being poured out on him!

If these lines meet reality halfway, you can see that much was dependent on many things and is mutually dependent. In the end, it is personal sensitivities and oversized egos of a few, which have caused the poisoned atmosphere. I'd make myself scarce as a victim, too.

I assume that we will soon have devices in our hands that will make us one of the privileged people in the audio / DAC sector. In terms of value, price-performance and features.

And I doubt that the people who talk so badly about J. Westlake today will persevere and praise him with the same dedication!

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version):D
Hi,
If you look at the beginning of this thread, the discussion, orders etc., were from 2013 for MDAC and August 2014 for the VFET. You can see peoples point when complaining. There are people on this forum who can design an amplifier within the 5 years (as per VFET) from when the VFET discussion started.

I hope everyone gets the product they paid for.

If no work has been completed on the areas proposed such as the VFET, or other product not being design for listening the end of this month, then why doesn't the designer give people back their money ?

Regards,
Shadders.
 
As so often in the last months, a few rehearse the dwarves' revolt....
.

‘Feckin A Gandalf. There are plenty of people here that would be quite happy to have a populated pcb with minimal software that they could upgrade later, that would at least allay the suspicion that the now stripped back to basics projects, which it should have stayed at, will be completed.
 
To see all those complications with dac design changes and waiting on hardware, then software, then hardware, I would like to have VFETs as pure analog amplifiers and not be them involved in this digital evolution madness.
 
Edited:
The VFETs were conceived as reference (analogue) mono power amps that would be used to test the MDAC2s, FDACs and all whatever-DACs on. But just like the MDAC2s never materialised, no VFET prototype was ever built. At first Johns's idea was that approximately 5 sets would be built, now that he was going to develop the VFET amp anyway, but as the years flew by, that number was expanded to now 20 or more sets of VFETs, probably to help fund the delays.

To my knowledge digital facilities were never ever meant to be part of the VFET power amp builds.
 
Edited:
The VFETs were conceived as reference (analogue) mono power amps that would be used to test the MDAC2s, FDACs and all whatever-DACs on. But just like the MDAC2s never materialised, no VFET prototype was ever built. At first Johns's idea was that approximately 5 sets would be built, now that he was going to develop the VFET amp anyway, but as the years flew by, that number was expanded to now 20 or more sets of VFETs, probably to help fund the delays.

To my knowledge digital facilities were never ever meant to be part of the VFET power amp builds.
Hi,
In the early part of this thread i collated the costs and the VFET sums totals £30,870. I stopped collecting the details, so this figure is probably higher.

If there has been no work on the VFET, the surely the money can be refunded ?.

Each sum for the VFET was of the order £2,300, which is a significant amount.

Regards,
Shadders.
 
Fred, the sponsors are in no way to blame for this fiasco.

Other than one 'investors vote' to change to the Full Width Chassis for the DAC way back in 2015 every other change has been instigated and implemented solely by John without consultation or agreement with the investors.

Please do not get confused about who is to blame for the total lack of delivery of ANY product (MDAC2/FDAC/DETOX/VFET) which the PFM investors have been involved with.

John has continuously and repeatedly given delivery dates which have never materialised.
Not one single delivery date has been met in 6 and a half years.

Even the 'Detox' has never seen the light of day.
Many times we have been told that it's going in to production and it never has.

We were supposed to have it in October 2015, then January 16, then March 16, then June 2016, then October 16, then December 16, then February 17.

March 2017 we get told the CNC vendor wants a MOQ of 350 despite John telling us in Oct '16 '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'.

If you own the CNC's how can there by a MOQ?

Late March we get told:

'designs for "Lakewest" are in the process of being "merged" into a new company, the agreements has been signed a couple of weeks ago - with the new company managing and producing Detox as its first product - but I'm also running parallel plans just as a backup. The new company backers (4 of us) are based in US, China & Hong Kong.'

A couple of weeks later John tells us he's buying a SMT line to build the boards himself??????

And to this day it goes on with more excuses and nothing delivered.

Don't get me started on the FDAC. If I was to list the MDAC2/FDAC list of missed deadlines and excuses it would run to about 20 pages.

I just do not get how anyone on this project can think this is acceptable.
 
It's just a terrible shame that the money from the sponsors went to John rather than Tony - at least Tony hosts PFM providing us with a good service. From John we've had nothing but heartache.
 
I don’t remember John buying CNC machines, but I do remember him buying equipment to automatically populate and solder PCBs.
 
I assume that we will soon have devices in our hands that will make us one of the privileged people in the audio / DAC sector. In terms of value, price-performance and features.
What possible basis can you have for that assumption? There is no completed design, let alone any roadmap to deal with production issues. This is just fantasy. All we know is that we have precisely nothing after 6 years and not even a concrete promise. And as to whether the non-existent product with the non-existent price will represent good value...well?
 
cnc.jpg
 
It's just a terrible shame that the money from the sponsors went to John rather than Tony - at least Tony hosts PFM providing us with a good service. From John we've had nothing but heartache.

Yikes! No chance! I deliberately keep my business very, very simple. I buy and sell records and CDs. No one pays me anything at all until the mailer is full (which can take months) and the order is ready to go out the door. I’d not do business any other way. I also deliberately keep the Trade Account advertising facility absurdly cheap as not really caring if I renew an account or not is a good position to be in. I can cut traders loose without a second thought if I don’t think they meet the standards of the site (as stated upthread I have not renewed John Westlake’s trade account for several years now).

PS I should really stay right out of it as beyond basic hosting it really is none of my business at all, but FWIW my own personal view is that those of you that have invested so much may need to consider finding a good lawyer between you and get some proper advice.
 


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