MOTM

At 4:06 PM -0600 01/19/02, J. Larry Hendry wrote:
>
>Bingo and Cha-ching. Kudos to Paul and John Blacet for supplying >schematics.
>
>While I am not critical of the business model that supplies only a finished
>product without schematics, I must say I prefer what John and Paul do.  I
>feel like I am getting something extra for my money when I assemble these
>kits as I learn something from each.  No, I'm not interesting in soldering
>SMD.  But, I would be interested in sticking my nose into learning more
>about how my stuff ticks.

The funny thing is, that in the pro-audio world, schematics are readily
available.  This goes double for broadcast equipment.  For example, if you
buy an Aphex Dominator, schematics and parts lists are automatically
included.  When I bought my Drawmer 1960, it came with a service manual
that not only included schematics and calibration procedures for the unit I
bought, but for every other revision up to that point.  I would be more
than shocked if I called dBx or Crown, and they told me they couldn't send
me the service docs.  Although some companies charge their customers a
nominal fee, many companies will gladly send you schematics for evaluation
purposes before you decide to buy their product.

Of course, this isn't true for consumer audio.  I remember Harmon-Kardon
telling me "it's only available for their authorized service dealers".  I'm
not going to type my reply, because I know many of you have kids who might
be watching :)

Synth companies are somewhere in the middle.  I have the service docs for
all my Roland gear (which I bought for $15-20 each), but I remember I
couldn't get the schematics for my MAM VF11 or Niche ACM.  At first glance,
it seems that smaller companies don't make their schematics available and
larger companies do, because larger companies could always hire an army of
lawyers if someone tried to steal their designs.  Then again, Synthesis
Technology and Blacet Research are very small companies.  Yes, I know
including schematics is necessary because they sell kits, but it's also
unlikely that a competitor could offer a "clone" for less money without
making significant sacrifices in quality.  The same applies to people
cloning gear for their own use -- by the time they bought all of the parts,
and had the panel and PCB fabricated, it would cost more than the kit.