[sdiy] SSM2164 last time buys

[David G. Dixon]

> Yeah.  Guess how much they want for it?  100 Euros!  That's $135!  For one
> chip!!!  For that I could build an entire 4P LPF plus the multimode
> extension, including the panel, and probably end up with a better sounding
> filter.

OK, I went and read the Muff thread (or most of it) on the Schippmann VCF
module, and I also scanned the datasheet (again), and perhaps I couldn't
build a "better" sounding filter, because it looks like Schippmann has
addressed some of the same shortcomings of COTA filters that I have also
addressed in my own 2164 4P LPF design, including signal dropoff with
increasing resonance, and poor control over resonance response.  In any
case, I can still build my own complete filter board, with multimode-ready
outputs, for about a third of the price.

Also, their filter offers a selection of various modal outputs and their
inverses (corresponding, I'm assuming, to the possibilities on the Ebbe und
Flut VCF2), but creating other defined modes from these modes is a fairly
complicated mathematical exercise.  It is far easier simply to have the
various stages of the 4P filter (and their inverses) available as separate
buffered outputs.  Plus, this makes the quadrature (actually, octature) sine
waves all available simultaneously.

Unless this Schippmann filter sounds just unbelievably awesome, I'm just not
seeing the market for it at that price point.  Certainly, no manufacturer is
going to use it (unless he isn't interested in turning a profit, or even
recovering his costs).