Four/Five Channel Pictures

Kevin Haskins · « **on:** 14 Oct 2005, 12:14 am »

I've got some more pictures of a three, four and five channel custom UCD-400AD amplifier builds. Here is the three and four channel. I'll upload some of the others tomorrow.

This was a basic 4-channel with a natural aluminum front panel. It looks good but the natural aluminum is very easy to scratch and cost an extra $75 for the custom front plate.

kfr01 · « **Reply #1 on:** 14 Oct 2005, 01:35 pm »

Kevin,

These pictures look very good. Have you more or less worked out all the kinks with the Hypex-based amplifiers? i.e., are they ready to sell?

Also, I remember you mentioning on some thread that you were joining with someone else to release a pre-amp. How is that project coming? Who was that joint venture with?

Karl

Kevin Haskins · « **Reply #2 on:** 14 Oct 2005, 04:33 pm »

Quote from: kfr01

Kevin,

These pictures look very good. Have you more or less worked out all the kinks with the Hypex-based amplifiers? i.e., are they ready to sell?

Also, I remember you mentioning on some thread that you were joining with someone else to release a pre-amp. How is that project coming? Who was that joint venture with?

Karl

We have never had any kinks with the Hypex modules themselves. The only problem we have ever ran into was heat issues when trying to use too many UCD400s in a single chassis. That was easy enough to solve as we now limit ourselves to five UCD400s per chassis (you can still do seven UCD180s) and we have over doubled the heat dissipation capability of our standard chassis by both improving ventilation and increasing the aluminum heatsink mass and surface area.

We have been selling the custom Hypex amps for several months now. We are going to standardize a couple and put them on the web site within the next couple months.

We are going to be selling two different preamp solutions. For one, we are partnering up with John Chapman of Bent Audio on his new passive preamp utilizing the S&B TX-102 transformer based passive amplifiers. We are also going to be selling the ModWright preamp which is an excellent active unit.

dhiebert · « **Reply #3 on:** 24 Oct 2005, 02:12 am »

Quote from: Kevin Haskins

This was a basic 4-channel with a natural aluminum front panel. It looks good but the natural aluminum is very easy to scratch and cost an extra $75 for the custom front plate.

Have you considered getting the front anodized (clear anodizing is available)? This makes the surface very hard. You could even do it yourself, if desired. Here is a good site on doing it.

Kevin Haskins · « **Reply #4 on:** 24 Oct 2005, 04:33 pm »

Actually it's hard but it is still easily scratched as we have found on some we have tried. Getting things anodized is so cheap commercially that it doesn't make much sense to set-up our own production line for it. I get maybe a couple hundred parts anodized per year and if you do the math it doesn't pencil out.

We are working hard right now on some design elements for the front. The goal is to make them look good for a reasonable amount of money.

Here is the Lightwave rendering of what we are trying to achieve. I have my machinist working on one right now and after we have done a few prototypes I'll forward the dxf files to our production shop for a quote.

trekker · « **Reply #5 on:** 24 Oct 2005, 08:35 pm »

Nice front panel. I think the power switch would look better if it was centered. May be one that is illuminated(one color for standby and a different color for 'on').

Just my .02

Arnold

wildfire99 · « **Reply #6 on:** 25 Oct 2005, 02:08 am »

Very nice! I of course love the whole "borg rack" look, how about an LED behind the metal plate to indicate "on"?

bald · « **Reply #7 on:** 25 Oct 2005, 02:47 am »

Personally I don't care for LEDs on my equipment. I like my HT dark. LEDs can be pretty annoying. Don't you know if your amp is on by the sound coming out of your speakers? Or whether the switch is flipped up or down? (not meant to be a smartass comment)

I do like that rendered faceplate. Looks kind of slick.

bald

Kevin Haskins · « **Reply #8 on:** 25 Oct 2005, 02:16 pm »

Quote from: trekker

Nice front panel. I think the power switch would look better if it was centered. May be one that is illuminated(one color for standby and a different color for 'on').

Just my .02

Arnold

A custom front panel that just requires computer design, aluminum, machine work, finishing/anodizing and then packaging is doable. To get a custom on/off button requires a lot more money. A one-off prototype of the front panel your looking at has probably cost me over $1000 and I don't yet know how much they will cost in 50 piece quantities. The power button would require specialized molds, UL testing etc... that can only be justified when you are doing many many thousands of units.

I'm open to suggestions on off-the-shelf units if anyone has a candidate.

Kevin Haskins · « **Reply #9 on:** 25 Oct 2005, 02:21 pm »

Quote from: bald

Personally I don't care for LEDs on my equipment. I like my HT dark. LEDs can be pretty annoying. Don't you know if your amp is on by the sound coming out of your speakers? Or whether the switch is flipped up or down? (not meant to be a smartass comment)

I do like that rendered faceplate. Looks kind of slick.

bald

I'm with you but I'll probably play with a couple LEDs behind the faceplate to see what it looks like. I've found it's not something people make a purchasing decsion based upon but the front panel seems to be an important feature.

With our current power switch we have two versions. One has an LED to indicate when the equipment is on. The other is just marked to indicate on/off. This way we can please both the people who want an LED and those who don't.

trekker · « **Reply #10 on:** 25 Oct 2005, 02:31 pm »

WOW didn't realize the cost

Plain black rocker button does it's intended purpose.

davekt · « **Reply #11 on:** 26 Oct 2005, 04:39 am »

My first thought after seeing the front panel was something like "Sheesh if I wanted a pimped out amp I'd hang some blue neon under it." And damn if someone didn't ask for just that a few posts down lol. Ok I admit it I'm turning into an old man. I just like a more utilitarian look. As in blank, with a switch. Except for the logo of course.

Kevin Haskins · « **Reply #12 on:** 26 Oct 2005, 05:47 pm »

Quote from: davekt

My first thought after seeing the front panel was something like "Sheesh if I wanted a pimped out amp I'd hang some blue neon under it." And damn if someone didn't ask for just that a few posts down lol. Ok I admit it I'm turning into an old man. I just like a more utilitarian look. As in blank, with a switch. Except for the logo of course.

You know that is my style too. I keep everything hidden away in an equipment rack so I could care less how it looks.

What I've found is that I'm not representative of my customers though. Most want something that looks good.

Also... how it looks reflects on us as a company. If you put out something that shows a lack of attention to detail people assume you used the same care on design and internal construction.

I've spent the last two years working on the inside. I take a lot of pride in how they are put together. It's unfortunate that most people won't ever see or understand what work went into internal layout and design. All of them see what goes into the external design though so if you don't take care of that all your other work is for naught.

davekt · « **Reply #13 on:** 27 Oct 2005, 05:08 am »

I appreciate that eye-catching faceplates grab attention and understand that it's good business to get all the attention you can. It seems to be the style these days. Like all the PC computer cases with windows and LEDs, it's not easy finding a simple, well built PC case without all the extra window dressing. Speaking of that, if you wanted to show off the internals you could go all out and include a window in the top cover, with some LED lighting inside to highlight it.