[sdiy] SSM chip reissue

[rsdio at audiobanshee.com]

I imagine what's happening here is that true stories are told, then filtered in the retelling - with enough resonance that the story goes into self-oscillation. Sorry for the horrible analogy.

If the board said "Mackie" then the Chinese fab was simply making more boards than were ordered and selling them on the black market. I doubt that Behringer was involved or even needed. In the Asian market, there are definitely cloned knockoffs that say "Mickie" on the case because there's no legal protection that can stop that. But those Mickies don't come from Behringer.

The other story about Behringer copying a circuit flaw is more likely than Behringer photographically reproducing the screen printed legend. Anyone who does layout knows that the copper and solder resist layers are what's important, so why even bother with the screen layer if you're going to make a clone. Besides, I assume that Mackie uses power layers as well, so it would be very difficult to photographically reproduce a PCB without a focused X-ray.

There are stories of Soviet clones of U.S.-designed chips (maybe Analog Devices?) where the U.S. designers' initials were in the doped silicon of both the original and the electron scanning microscope copies. Maybe that story got fed into the filter along with a few true Mackie knockoff stories and a bizarre hybrid popped out of the rumor mill.


On Apr 26, 2017, at 2:46 AM, Tom Wiltshire <tom at electricdruid.net> wrote:
> Photos or it didn't happen?!
> 
> I'm joking, but I'd be very suspicious of such claims without solid evidence.
> 
> On 26 Apr 2017, at 03:24, Ben Bradley <ben.pi.bradley at gmail.com> wrote:
>> "I am sure Behringer would have been able to copy the Mackie circuits
>> without having access to a service manual, tracing a PCB is not rocket
>> surgery."
>> 
>> I recall a Usenet post alleging the Behringer PCB said "Mackie" on it
>> - they photographically reproduced Mackie's PCB and didn't even bother
>> removing the competitor's name.
>