=============================================================================== Hagerman Technology WebLog 2008. Comments? =============================================================================== Aug 18 ------ Oh my, time flies. Took some time off from development work. Been thinking a lot about new products. Oh, what to do. RMAF coming up, almost forgot. Need to get some machines ready and shipped out. Bought a piano. A Yamaha Clavinova. Its for the kids, so they can practice. I should find a way to get a line level output so I can plug it into my real amps. The built-in digital amp sounds kinda thin and you get listening fatigue pretty quick. Still looking for La Scalas. Wanna hear them on my PA-10s. Bought a PIC NIC, but now the computer isn't hanging anymore. I think it's really messing with my head. Aug 01 ------ Ok, here are the scans. I marked up the PA-10 design for use with 300B output and a WE437 driver. I aimed for a 300B bias of 320V at 70mA and -60V. The driver stays at 175V, 20mA, and -3V. Might take up to 2V input to reach full power. To get there, B+ has to be +400V, it takes a 1000Vct power transformer at 160mA. Sticking to AES catalog, the Hammond 282X will work. This drives a 5u4G rectifier. A single choke input will suffice and I use the 4H 159S. Load capacitance has to be 400uF minimum. With load a 450V rating will work, however if you power up without output tubes, the B+ will fly unloaded up to almost 600V. So rate these caps high! The filament trannys can be 166L5. I added 75 ohm resistors to anode of rectifier to tune down the LC input tank. Basically, the ESR of the 159S is not high enough. You can lower the 75 ohm value by whatever the ESR is of the 500V secondary. So maybe it cancels out down to roughly zero, in which case you don't have to worry about it. Very important to get the power supply tuned right, or it ends up responding to line and load, thereby imparting a sonic signature. The WE437 is almost plug and play, changing the 160 ohm resistors to 150. It should bias well and easily drive the interstage tranny. Best to use a high quality 1:1:1 here. The 124B works, but this is a good place to spend more money. Maybe a Tango or Audio Note? The output tranny needs to handle 20W and I like the 8k:8 ohm ratio. The Hammond 1650F is close enough. Anyway, you should get a solid 12W to 15W out of this without feedback. Ideal for horns or Lowther type drivers. Output impedance might be about 4 ohms on the 8 ohm tap. 300B push/pull amplifier page 1 300B push/pull amplifier page 2 Jul 30 ------ By accident I was on the dell.com site and noticed a user comment that said all of their 15 optiplex computers locked up because of the onboard network cards. Fixed when they put in a extra one. Meanwhile, trying to solve a hum issue. This is the first time I've been unable to get rid of buzz. Well heck! It's because there is no earth ground in this house. Two prong plugs only. Try running your phonostage on that. So installing a reference earth wire from the water pipes. Need a long drill bit to get through the house. Jul 29 ------ So a customer, no actually just some guy in Europe, likes my PA-10 amplifier concept and topology and wondered what it would take to change it to 300B output tubes. He was going to pay me. But I'm too busy at the moment to take up a full-blown analysis, something I could charge for. So instead, I thought about it, used the WE437 driver tube he liked, and came up with a solution. I simply changed the values of trannys and Rs and Cs in order to scale up to a 300B. Looks like it should work pretty easily. I won't fit in the existing chassis, but for P2P wiring it should be ok. Into an 11:1 tranny it should deliver 20 watts. Or did I do that calculation wrong? I didn't consider the relatively high output impedance, maybe 4 ohms. But it should be at least double the PA-10. We set the 300B bias to 320V at 70mA. That requires a B+ of 400V. The WE437 looks to be a fabulous tube, running at the same 20mA and 170V that the 6E5P did. I'll draw it up tomorrow and scan in. Power tranny needs 500-0-500 on secondary at 160mA. Choke is 4H. Jul 19 ------ I ran a full week without a computer problem. Then it finally froze again. I was starting to thing the new ethernet cable did the trick. Not. Took me about 8 or 9 reboots (over two days) to get far enough along to type this. Anyway, someone reminded me that Greg already uses the SKA franchise, so it would be wrong for me to use the SKP. And SKD. So I'll come up with some other name. Jul 08 ------ New ethernet cable is doing much better. Have not crashed in 3 days. I'm not sure anymore, but I think it crashed even with the new cable. But anyway, stable enough to get work done. Definately an issue with ethernet. If not cable, then hardware. So I'm ok again. If not satisfied with current reliability I can just switch to a separate card. Thinking maybe I can do a new series, add an SKL. A simple killer linestage. All of these would have that new low-cost form factor. The idea is to push prices back down to $1000. That is the new sweet spot in the marketplace. My TEN series not fairing so well, as they got pretty expensive. Too far upscale, perhaps. A marketing blunder? Who can tell. Combine the economic turndown with a divorce and things change. Mostly, if I can do a tube phono and a chime-like tube DAC for $1000, they'll sell in today's marketplace. Decided it is easy enough to add a linestage to the mix. After all, I still need a linestage myself! Using an HA-10 at the moment. Works well with the PA-10s. Jul 05 ------ Oh my, all of my computer troubles might be tracked down to a bad ethernet cable. We'll see. I have a new one in there now. So far so good. You'd think I could have thought of this earlier? Jul 04 ------ Ok, the consensus is VMWARE for mac. I'll buy one of them and try it out. *** Had an idea this afternoon. The SKD. Simple Killer Dac. Seems to me the DA-10 is overpriced for today's market. I pushed performance too much. Maybe if I scale back and focus on cost instead. That's what I did with the SKP. I could use same chassis for doing a DAC. Of course, I never finished the SKP layout. Been so busy with other stuff, and this damn computer flakiness. Tomorrow I will sketch out the SKD circuit. Of course, it will use a HAGDAC as the enginer - there ain't no better solution out there. Yep, today's economy came at the wrong time for my TEN series. A little more than most people want to spend. The magic price point for a tubed phono or dac is $1k and slightly over. I aim for that. Meanwhile, I've been playing the Frankenvandys on my PA-10s, and it seems a little thin. Not getting the punch until I crank it up. Want to get that same dynamics and slam at lower volumes. Not happening. Running off of the 4 ohm taps helps a little, bass has better definition, but doesn't seem as loud. Have not tried speaker placement, went only with the golden ratio dimensions. Soundstage is fine, only that I feel the sound is a bit thin. The good news is that all of my TEN series equipment is performing without a glitch. Thinking I need to get into some horns. Jul 03 ------ Yeah, maybe my computer crashing is network related? Not USB. I remember they did not plug in ethernet at the geek shop. Unfortunately, it is built into the motherboard, so I'm not sure what my options are. Got rid of everything else I could in terms of software. Still hanging regularly. Not quite ready to pour too much more money into it. But hey, here's the question I really want to ask. What is the name of that Mac program that allows you to run PC (XP) software? Is it an emulator? Or something like vmware, where I need to actually load a copy of XP onto the machine? Please let me know! My oldest daughter can't run all her favorite games on the iMac I just bought. Jun 28 ------ Crud. Computer hung during reading email off the server. Copy was not saved locally and is now wiped off server. This is a first. Anyone who sent me an email or order this morning - it's gone! I never saw it. Not sure what to try next. Did the fan thing, no help. I was pretty sure it was not thermal, as most hangs occur cold. Usually at the end of boot, when there is some network activity going on. I am running zonealarm firewall and the icon shows I/O. Machine does not stay alive long enough for me to type or pull up the task manager, see what is processing. Sometimes the machine runs for hours. My next step might be just to buy a new box. Move the drive. Maybe the problem moves with it? Or maybe monitor the power line? I have other PCS on the same circuit, nothing else hangs. Hate this. I just keep throwing money at it. Must have this machine running. It is the only way to charge credit cards, do invoices, print manuals, make schematics and layouts. Really do not want to build a new machine or transfer over to the imac. Driving me nuts. Jun 24 ------ Still working computer issue. Took it back to shop, runs fine there. Only seems to hang at my place. Maybe I can use the Dell warranty. It's only 3 months old. Just can't run a business when your computer (with everything on it) keeps hanging at random. I don't even know if I can finish this sentence. Ok, I did. I'm almost wondering if it is heat related, hangs on USB driver only when hot. Wonder if there is a way to kick in the internal fans to a faster setting. Meanwhile, I have a production FRYDADDY 80% complete, just sitting there waiting for me. Jun 21 ------ PC is now more stable, but still hanging. Can't find anything else to play with on the inside. Using new keyboard and mouse, new printer cable. Not sure what to try next. I did delete all printer drivers, then re-install the one I need. No change. Had the cover off the PC for awhile, no change. But I have good news. Discovered there is more money in my bank account than I thought (bad bookeeping?). So I spent it on that iMac I've been dying to get for about a year now. It will be turned into my music server. I can use it for demos and shows. Beautiful machine. Got it home, fired up ok, did the username and password thing. Got onto safari. Then I noticed a dead pixel. Crud! One black pixel in the middle of a white screen. Gotta take it back. Hey, for this kinda money I expect better. We'll see how they are about customer service. The original buying experience was superb. Easy, fast. Had the machine in about 5 minutes, walked out of store with one box. *** Another tip. Hated my old file cabinet, so I just tossed it. Was planning on getting a nice wooden one, but then I saw these Sterlite plastic crates (look like for milk cartons) that stack, yet have hanging file folder rails. $6 a pop and they work fantastic. I just load 'em and stack 'em. My mostly used files on top. Super cheap and way better than that old steel hulk. Jun 20 ------ Ok, so far so good. Opened up the PC, reseated everything. Trying out a new USB cable for the printer. Possibly I had TWO problems. Messed up USB keyboard and a bad printer USB cable. Both items seem to contribute to the problems. Meanwhile, Patent #7,388,196 was issued. Jun 19 ------ Sorry for no updates lately. I am so hamstrung by this computer glitch. If I can get the machine to boot at all, I get somewhere up to an hour of normal operation before it hangs again. Very counterproductive. It is all I can do to process orders and answer a few emails. Jun 16 ------ Ok, computer finally back. In the shop running diagnostics all weekend. They found no problem. I plugged it in and it hung within seconds. All I had plugged in was keyboard and mouse. So ran out and bought new ones! New mouse didn't help. New keyboard fixed it! Gads. I fried my hard drive and shut down the business for a week because of a flackey keyboard? Cost me $450 by the time I was done with it. Aye. Meanwhile, building up the production FRYDADDY. So far so good, but I can't find where I put the power transformers. Which box are they in? Oh, and new post office box. My new company address is: PO Box 61911 Honolulu, HI 96839 *** Aw crud. The computer hung again. Same problem. No idea what it can be. Jun 12 ------ Wow, what a long delay! My business computer again suffered a hard drive crash. Really slows me down. You don't wanna know what it cost me to fix. I still don't have the printer running yet. My laptop covered me for most emails at least. But I am back. FRYDADDY boards came in. *** Did another good race on Sunday. Came in 3rd. Really good run! 6:27 per mile pace. NS triathlon results *** Crud, the computer hangs a lot. Have to try several reboots to get it going again. Back to shop. Ugh. Jun 03 ------ TRUMPET burned in, ready to go. I can't believe sometimes how damn fabulous this thing sounds. The new version is so quiet. With the STEPUP for a front end, it is scary quiet. I have to crank it sooo loud just to hear some hiss. And then the FRYDADDY panels came in. Will start putting one together. But will wait for production boards. All looks really good so far. I'm happy with the product. Meanwhile, no progress on the SKP. Need to get that layout complete. May 30 ------ Dang, postman did not bring my digikey parts. Have to wait until tomorrow. Trying to finish up that TRUMPET to send out for review. Everything else done, just needs the electrolytics. Maybe I do it tomorrow night. Gee, fun. Meanwhile, making good progress on the SPK layout. Very tight. Parts on both sides, overlapping everything. Doing just the left channel for now. It don't leave much room for the power supply. No idea where that B+ regulator is gonna go. Perhaps middle top. Too many damn caps. Already I have the cinemags underneath and overlapping the input tube sockets and gain selector. Small standoffs maintain a 3D clearance. Wires come out top and are short looped down to holes in board. Makes layout easy in that section. One problem are the large 1uF 400V caps. The audiophile polyprop films. No way the huge electrocubes are gonna fit so I use the ppfmx from the TRUMPET. Worked out well before. I have them mounted to bottom of board all in a row. I need at least 3 of these per channel. The B+ and G2 decoupling for input stage, and then the output coupling cap. Output stage decoupling not as critical because it is fed with CCS. Super linear performance and super high headroom expected in this design. I think this stuff can be made to fit. Another issue is running the output signal trace down next to input tube. As the design is noninverting, have to watch out for parasitic instability due to positive feedback at HF. Note I have almost all the ground returns down a path through the center of the board. That is, sort of single-point ground, all currents return to roughly same spot. I will split this up from the input, but overall the concept tends to keep noise floor down, especially if the power transformer can induce eddy currents in a ground plane. If this design works, it will be one very compact, very solid, and very heavy phonostage. SKP layout May 28 ------ Ok, got a preliminary SKP layout done, trying to place the major components (tubes, caps) to see if everything will fit. Made some changes in construction so power tranny will fit. Luckily, the box is 4" deep, so there is plenty of room. The problem I see is that the power tranny is way too close to the input tubes and input trannys. Spacing is only 5" to tube and 6" to step-up tranny. Have the coils oriented for minimal coupling, but from experience I have a feeling this ain't gonna fly. It might be fine for MM. I'd rather get MC capability out of this product directly. Maybe I'll play some more moving input tubes farther away. I could get another inch perhaps. May 27 ------ Wrote preliminary FRYDADDY manual today. Uploaded. Cleaning up shop. Tossed out a lot of old stuff. Think I'll work on SKP layout tonight. May 25 ------ Took my kids to the Indy movie today. They got scared and grossed out at all the bugs and skeletons. Oh well. Otherwise not too bad. They lived up to the franchise hype. *** Finished the SKP schematics. Now ready to see if I can make a layout fit into this tight box. Really worried that it is too small. Too much magnetic interaction with tranny inputs or input wiring. If it ends up being just an MM stage I might not turn it into a product. At least it is a nice design exercise. SKP power SKP phono Hmmm. Just realized I did not leave enough headroom in the regulator. It can only handle a 5% line drop. I need to cover 10%. May 24 ------ Mostly taking the weekend off. But I did get a few hours in late tonight after we had gone out to dinner (gyros). Put the SKP schematic into CAD. Decided to add a GAIN control. Barely squeeze it in. This selects the 3 primary taps of the step-up tranny. Three gains for three types of MC carts. LO, MED, HI. The MM version will have no gain control. May 23 ------ Got another DA-10 out the door. Discovered I forgot to order 450V 100uF caps for the TRUMPET. Dang. It won't ship until next week. One thing I really like here is that I solder in all the parts on the DA-10. Fire it up and no problems at all. It just works perfectly. That means not only is the design robust, but so is my construction. Zero errors. Turn it on and go. *** Then I had this flash of an idea. I don't know where it came from. I call it the SKP. Simple Killer Phono. For some reason, I was looking at a STEUP and thinking what a nice little box that would make for a tube phono. And way cheaper than the expensive TEN series chassis. But it would have to be bigger. So I started thinking, maybe I can do a quickie version of the CA-10 phono section, the new pentode input topology. The schematic is done, maybe I just implement part of it into a cost-reduced box. Heck, make the whole design cheaper, but without sacrificing performance. Easier said than done. So a box the size of the LINE FILTER or bigger (I found one at 8.7" x 5.7") that will fit all the parts. So I take parts of the CORNET, parts from STEPUP and other older projects, come up with a very simple design. Went in circles for awhile and came up with a good starting point. My goal is to put this together for $999 retail. Or maybe I do $999 for MM and $1499 for MC? I had a 6X4 rectifier in there for awhile (because it is cool), but it made me go with ac on the heaters. I really didn't want to do that for phono. So I made the filamant supply just like a CORNET. The B+ supply, in order to cut ripple and reduce the number of big caps, I decided to insert a discrete linear regulator. An IRF830, two ZTX458, and one LM358. All borrowed from other projects. It will provide a more stable B+ (regulated), plus cut a lot of ripple. Good DC supplies will reduce hum. However, the one problem I face here is the super close proximity between the power tranny, a 269JX, and the tubes. And the input trannys! I think I have a smart arrangement where the fields cancel. Tube-wise, it is a pair of 6688 and one 6CG7. That should give great sonics and tons of gain. Yes, a simple killer phono. Looks like a big PICCOLO. Sounds like a TRUMPET. It may not be beautiful, but at $1499 the MC version will likely trounce just about anything out there. It's a good idea. Not many people pay for an assembled CORNET anymore. They want something new and better. This is it. A part CA-10. Ready for RMAF? Best thing I can do now is come up with a layout next week. Then build a proto in June. *** Ok, penciled a schematic, came up with values, workable circuit. Simple little feedback linear regulator. Not the ultimate in performance, but rather a simple and hopefully sonically benign stage that gets out of the way, merely removing ripple. Chenged it to use a 6.2V zener. Heaters are rectified and filtered DC, just like the CORNET & CLARINET. No regulation. But I think the regulation on B+ might end up being beneficial. The basic phono circuit is from the CA-10 design. Step-Up tranny into pentode stage, followed by a simple passive RC EQ, then a triode output with a CCS plate load. Should make for a very linear circuit. No feedback in the amplifier. High gain phono using just two tubes! For stereo, it requires 3 tube envelopes. Drew up a top panel tonight. Overall size is a little under 6" x 9" x 4". Trannys inside, tubes stick out top. Heavy. Probably $1k for MM, $1.5k for MC. Can be factory wired for gain and loading. SKP panel May 22 ------ Got the FLUGELHORN shipped off to Harry Pearson. We'll see what he comes up with for a review. Or at least his research into the different equalization settings. This could be fantastic exposure! Is he not tops in the field? I took a chance and also sent him a new FRYBABY. Maybe he'll use it to finish the break-in the the phonostage. Hey, one sentence in TAS about it's existence is worth a lot more than what it cost to build. *** Got some pics back from the triathlon. So excited about it, I might do another one on June 8th. We'll see. I wasn't fully aero on the bike for this shot as it was right after a speed bump. Got into the bars about two seconds later. And I know it looks like I am barely moving on the run, but that was the last 1/4 mile of the run and I had picked it up to a 6:30 pace. Easily. The photo doesn't do me justice. I blew by that guy in front of me. Bike photo Run photo *** Made more changes to FLUGELHORN boards. These are now ready for production. Same as the one HP got, but with some minor manufactuability improvements. Extra wire solder holes, mounting holes in the corners for easier assembly (fits into jig), I added LEDs so they connect direct to front panel like the PICCOLO does, fixed up placement of EQ caps. FLUGELHORN layout May 20 ------ Added BLANK ADAPTER card to the HAGLABs order page. They will be $39 each (with connector). Working on a bio page. Sort of a few paragraphs about the designer and his audio philosophy. *** Finally fired up my pair of PA-10s. One of them has been sitting all built for about 3 weeks. Now they are both operational. Last measurement needed was SNR which came out to 85dBA below 1 watt. Or 0.15mV. That's quite good, perhaps ten times better than what most people get out of a DHT. Excellent. Now they go into my listening room, which is being built. Auctioning off the FRYDADDY proto. Figured it came out quite good, and it is fully operational. So rather than pull it apart for scraps, I'll sell it! FRYDADDY auction May 19 ------ Ok, got the FRYDADDY design completed. Tweaked on circuit, made changes to both layout and top panels. Had to move the mounting screw holes 1/4" away from the RCA jacks. This allows me to use the existing circuit boards. Also placing all red connectors (hot) on upper half, black on lower. This will make more sense to the user. Anyway, bought parts, ordered production boards, and bought production panels. Oops, forgot the darn cases. Anyway, added this product to the order form. This product is now officially for sale. Lead time for first units is 4 weeks. After that, I'll speed it up to maybe 2 weeks by always keeping panels in stock. This is going to be a killer product! However, when putting an accurate parts list together, the factory-direct retail pricing came out to $649. So this is $50 more than I originally estimated. That's ok, nothing else out there compares. Need to get me a better photo, then do product manual. But hey, this is a big project finish. Nice when you finally order production parts and can take real orders. That is such an incredible milestone. *** Just spent several hours updating the HAGLABS product pages with testimonials and sections cut out from the professional reviews (sometimes I think the brevity makes for a better and more convincing presentation). Sort of cheated on the DA-10, as I took the customer testimonials from the Chime. Ok, same HAGDAC, similar concept. I'm thinking if the Chime was that good, then they'll go nuts over the DA-10, which is clearly better. Better power supply, better tube gain section, better components, and better chassis. May 18 ------ Had me a good race. All of the really good athletes did the long course today, so I placed high in the short course. Did well, a good tactical race from start to finish, but with the races mixed together there was no way to know what you place was. I ended up winning my sge group, getting 12th overall. They gave me the award for 3rd place "masters" instead. I guess that is anyone over 40. So a good day. Honolulu Sprint Triathlon Results *** And then I carved up the covers for a TRUMPET. Maybe I will paint them tonight. May 16 ------ Got the rest of the FRYDADDY up and running. Some trouble with amplifier stability and low frequency feedback through power supply rails. Ok now. The transformer output works spectacularly. Fabulous solution. Output voltage is not so great on RMS basis, but I am getting 20V peak-to-peak. That's about five or ten times a FRYBABY. Big powerful signal with a lot more current horsepower behind it. And perfectly balanced, too. Never a danger of failure causing a dc output voltage. Checked the attenuator in SPICE, yeah, I got it right. Will add a small cap to input of power amplifier to cut some of the bandwidth beyond 150kHz. Ok for cables, but too much for phono. Carved up the corners for proper radius and everything fit perfectly, just as I had measured. Even the tall binding posts fit with nothing to spare. Hey, as long as the lid closes! I have some changes to make. The circuit changes are small, and I can use the boards I have. It is the panel. I think it needs some engraving lines or arrows to show how to connect a cable. Something intuitively obvious. FRYDADDY Also made a nice photo of the LINEFILTER. It is ready for sale now. LINEFILTER May 15 ------ Borrowed some caps out of a RIPPER and put them in the FRYDADDY. Came right up but with some issues with the waveform generator. Odd, as it is quite similar to the FRYBABY. But with supply voltage changes and such, I had to tweak around some resistor values to pull things into play. Then I optimized some more to get exactly the waveform desired. So that part of circuit is fine now. Having a little trouble with the attenuator. Maybe. Could be ok, but it looks like by the time I push it through the power amplifier the levels for phono equalized outputs will be too high. Hard to tell, as there is so much high frequency content, that it appears 20dB higher than it actually is on an oscilloscope. Maybe I should do some SPICE simulations at 1kHz to double check. Tomorrow I'll get the power amplifier installed. See if there is any smoke. Then check the transformer output. The top panel came in today, so if all goes well I can button it up and take photos. And they'll be ready for sale! This is going to be a beautiful product. Also got in a new LINE FILTER panel. One without the power switch. This will be the final design. Two more panel orders in limbo. The FLUGELHORN for HP, a couple of DA-10s, and then a pair of TRUMPETS. Hopefully I can get all of these machines completed by the end of the month (all depends on when parts get here). Finished cranking through about 50 HAGUSB boxes. I hate doing this. Have to run each one through the CNC machine, then add holes to the other panel, pull it apart and clean it (plastic dust shavings everywhere), put it back together and into storage. Takes long time to get through a batch. Also carved up all the old FRYBABY cases I had. Made up a batch of HAGUSB XLR boxes. Should be set just in case I have to take down the CNC machine for awhile. *** Started putting the FRYDADDY panel together. Oops, wrong corner radius, does not fit into case. Also, might have a problem with the binding posts being too tall, top won't shut. Damn, that's a big on. We'll see once I carve corners. Also discovered the teflon insulators for the RCA jacks are too big to allow for the #4 standoffs and screw between them. I use the standoff to help mount the board. Maybe they are not needed. Anyway, here's what it looks like at the moment. FRYDADDY proto May 14 ------ Spent most of the day pounding through manuals. Yep, I did all of the HAL manuals. That's ten or eleven of them. They are simple, but still take a lot of time to generate. Hope you like the look. Uploading them all right now. May 13 ------ Dang, I can't fire up thie FRYDADDY because I don't have the 4700uF caps for the power supply section. Swear I had a pair sitting around. Can't find them. So now it sits until I put in yet another digikey order. May 12 ------ Getting a LOT of interest in the DA-10. However, some folks want the old SPDIF input. Therefore, I will make it an option. You can have either. For the same price you can buy the SPDIF version. I can then upgrade it to USB at a later date. What I don't want to do is have a select switch and toggle between two inputs, as that will mess up the 75 ohm termination. This is a top-shelf DAC and cannot make that compromise in performance. Yeah, it is only $2299, but you need to compare it to anything, including a $20k meitner. The DA-10 ended up being a pretty much no-holds-barred high performance design. Anyway, I can see I need to get more parts on order, as orders are starting to increase. Got a call from SonicFlare today. They want to do a review on the new Trumpet. Ok, I guess I can spare one. Reviews seem to be one of the best ways to do advertsising. *** Getting excited about my first (and probably only) triathlon race of the year. It is next Sunday. I am doing the sprint distance at the Honolulu Triathlon. Great course. Tons of people. Super fun. Yes, I do like doing this. And I go all out, pushing as hard as I can. A little bit of a competitive streak. My biking and running lately are getting to a good level of fitness, and my speed/endurance is up. Could be a good race and I think a good possibility to medal. May 09 ------ Added a new option for the HAGTECH FRYBABY kit/2. For an extra $10, I'll add a plastic case. Normally these cost $13. I bought too many, and so will sell at discount to get rid of them. I will even drill the holes for you, so they are ready to go. These are the translucent grey ones. Assembled FRYBABYs are now red and sold on the HAGLABS website. It just kinda makes sense to do that, group all of the burn-in stuff together. Soon I will be adding the FRYDADDY to the arsenal. *** FRYDADDY boards just came in. Will start building it up tomorrow. May 08 ------ I've resumed my google adwords campaign. Turning if off and then on again to try and measure its effectiveness. Hey, at $5 a day, maybe it brings in some good sales. A lot of people who find me do it from searches. So I try and get as high as possible in the engines, then suppliment with the sponsored ads on the side. Meanwhile, just auctioned off some units on Audiogon. Hopefully that catches a few eyeballs. Trying to get the news out regarding the new HAL brand. One of my blog readers suggested something very interesting. Well, I'll post a link here and let you figure it out. Personally, I think it is very clever. And I am starting to figure out how to do such a thing myself. My first thought is to write a series of papers on how to design a tube usb dac. I would use the awesome DA-10 as my reference platform. Basically, I would give away my design secrets. Maybe I could get these published on 6moons or ETM or PFO? Long marketing video on white papers May 07 ------ Finally starting to make some noise out there. These press releases I think can be very useful. I'm wondering where else to put my advertising dollars. Renewed my audio asylum sponsorship last night. I like that place. Not been spending too much time on forums lately. ETM news What other websites are popular? Banners are expensive. Maybe a magazine ad? What rag would be most effective? I'm thinking of an add in the back pages of stereophile, where a little 1" by 1" add is kinda hidden. But they are cheap. Does anyone look there? Really, all I have to do is get the word out about HAGLABS, get potential customers to the website. Maybe I just need some more reviews. What product should I have reviewed next? I'm thinking maybe the HAL PICCOLO. I can spare one of them. So who would want to review an active MC headamp? 6moons, ETM, Dagogo? It is really quite superb with the new capacitors installed. I can't imagine the Elevator at twice the price can come close to touching it. Indeed, I am finally starting to think logical strategy again. *** Took some more photos. Did the HA-10 and DA-10. But I forgot to measure the noise floor of this DA-10, which seemed to be quiter than my personal unit. So something came out right. Sounded great with the new caps. My most analog-like converter yet. DA-10 photos May 06 ------ Got a note from HP. He's interested in borrowing a FLUGELHORN to do some LP EQ research. Ok by me. I'll get one built right away. *** I finally got to making the new manuals for HAGLABS. Started with the FRYBABY, as it was the easiest. I am discontinuing the HAGTECH version, replacing it with the red HAL one. Same machine, but without all of the adapter connectors. I ran into a problem buying the binding posts. Crap. So can no longer offer the full kit. So I'll let AA and MD run out of stock. It was a nice attempt to break into catalog sales, but too many variables in the marketing strategy that real life got in the way. There is no point selling a machine at cost! And that is what I did selling it OEM. Anyway, this move thus brings all of the burn-in devices under the HAGLABS banner. Assembled, anyway. I will continue to offer the FRYBABY kit/2 at HAGTECH. Here is the new manual style and format. FRYBABY manual May 05 ------ So it has been about 8 years now I've made my living solely from HAGTECH. Not quite the big 10. But was reflecting a bit on how many products I've come up with in this time. Certainly, it has been by far the most productive time of my life. Tried to make a list here: 01) iRIAA FILTER 02) VACUTRACE* -> HAL VACUTRACE 02) TRUMPET* -> GOLD TRUMPET* -> HAL TRUMPET 03) CORNET* -> CORNET MC* -> HAL CORNET 04) BUGLE -> BUGPRO* 05) POWER SUPPLY 06) FRYKLEANER* -> FRYPRO* 07) OBOE* 08) UFO 09) CLARINET 10) CORNET2 11) HAGCLOCK 12) CHIME 13) CYMBAL 14) HAGDAC 15) HAGUSB 16) RIPPER 17) FRYBABY 18) FRYGOLD* -> HAL FRYKLEANER 19) ARCHIVER* -> HAL FLUGELHORN 20) PICCOLO -> HAL PICCOLO 21) CASTANET -> HAL HA-10 22) HAL DA-10 23) HAL PA-10 24) HAL STEP UP 25) HAL LINE FILTER 26) HAL FRYDADDY** * discontinued ** new I also had a few projects that never saw the light of day. 01) HUSH, an ultrasonic sinewave balanced drive for DHT heaters. 02) DACPRO, a low cost opamp alternative to the CHIME. 03) JIMDAC, a TDA1543 version of the HAGDAC. 04) MOTORPOD, a variable speed motor controller for Galibier, with built-in recharger for batteries and a strobe. 05) COMPRESSOR, a microphone preamp and opto-compressor And then there were several attempts at getting DoD grant money (SBIR) for a novel approach I invented for real-time imaging SONAR. I think I must have written that up four times without success. Then two more proposals I can't even remember. Let's not forget the consulting projects on the side. In the early days of HAGTECH before things really got going, I supplemented my income by doing odd projects for local companies and the university. Mostly electronics, but some were software intensive, with C code, Z80 code, and even Windows GUI front ends. 01) RFMS, four generations of PC104 electronics to control, drive, and read the mass spectrometer. With CPU, power supplies, electrometer, frequency synthesizer, and RF output power amplifiers. With software. 02) BITCANNON, a lasercomm tx and rx board with adaptive optics beam steering and peltier thermal control of lasers. With software. 03) CONTROLLER, a cpu and tx and rx motherboard for a microwave radiocomm link running at 3Gbps. 04) NRZI, 3 versions of FPGA-based nrzi codecs for radiocomm data. 05) PRBS, an SFP paddle board with prbs generator for observing eye patterns. 06) FLYSPEC, a motherboard gluing together various pieces of an air sampling instrument. With software. 07) SEAMODEM, a compact and low power dual-band FSK modem for use on a thousand mile long underwater cable. With auxiliary AM voice channel. Last and not least, there are my three patent applications surrounding the novelties of the Hagerman 3HMS Spectrometer. One, so far has been approved. 01) Hyperbolic Horn Helical Mass Spectrometer. 02) Horn Mass Spectrometer having Fan Deflectors. 03) Horn Mass Spectrometer using Digital Deflection Drive. So to recap 2000 to 2008: 01) 26 original new products (13 still available to DIYer). 02) 11 redesigns. 03) 5 cancelled projects. 04) 6 SBIR proposals. 05) 10 major consulting projects. 06) 3 patents. *** Just spoke to Thom of Galibier. He wants me to design for him a new turntable motor control unit. I had done one previously, but it was for a dc motor. Now he is looking at ac motors. Three-phase to be exact. These are very well balanced and perhaps the least noisy of all the types. No brushes, not so much torque cogging. The controller / supply would create the three ac phases 120 degrees apart. And I was thinking, heck one of the phases alone could power a Rega or similar table. So this product could be an upgrade that applies across the board. Plus, folks have been asking me for this for year, albiet in kit form. And so I will start to mull it over, think of how to do such a thing, what the controls might be. My first thoughts are to make a HAL box just like the LINEFILTER. Have a 120V/240V input switch, ac power cord. Then a 50/60Hz select switch (although I might have this done automatically), and then an 11 position rotary switch for speed trim. Say have 60.0Hz nominal, and then increment by 0.1Hz steps, plus or minus 5 steps. Simple, easy. Any thoughts? Email me. *** Just noticed that 6moons finally got my press release out regarding the new TRUMPET. 6moons *** And then, for days I've been trying to figure out why sales started slumping a little after mid April. Duh! Taxes. Sheesh. I think a lot of folks are waiting for a refund. Things should pick up soon. May 04 ------ Got the PA-10 wired up. Took some photos. Ready to fire this thing up! The mate is also almost finished, so I'll have a working pair this week. PA-10 front view PA-10 back view PA-10 amplifier side PA-10 power suplpy side I must say, this amplifier came out beautifully. Super compact, everything tight with short signal paths. *** Ok, trying to do what I can to drop prices again. Putting the TRUMPET down to $2699. The PA-10 and DA-10 down to $2299. That's about the best I can do, considering the amount of labor involved. Just doing my part to try and increase overall sales during the slow summer months. May 02 ------ I turned 48 today. Been doing some financial analysis, trying to get a better indicator of performance. Looking at various things. Hard to spot trends, as so much stuff is variable. My weekly income is up and down, very spikey. It just happens that way. But I did come up with something that might be useful. I plotted the average number of sale by day of the week. Seems that on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays I get my most orders. I wonder why that is. Sales per day Actually, I didn't do any real work today. Just reconciled the checkbook, did the financial analysis. My kids had their big Lei Day things at school. This weekend I plan on finishing up the PA-10s. Get some photos, some specs. And by golly, let's give them a listen in stereo! Oh wait. Not enough 2A3 tubes in the shop. Have some on order. Dang, I am always ordering stuff. May 01 ------ Finished the FRYDADDY layout. Finally. Got it done this morning. Came out pretty good. Luckily there was a lot of room on the board to get things to fit, easy to route the long traces. Hope I didn't make any mistakes, would like to start shipping this product soon. Now have a minimum of ordering 4 proto boards. Get one free. So I have 5. Would save me some bux if I didn't have to make any revisions. So boards are ordered, so are is the front panel. I already have most of the other parts (transformers, etc.). FRYDADDY layout FRYDADDY schematic *** Had a thought. In order to speed up manufacturing of HAGLABS machines, I think I'm going to try and always keep one set of each panels in stock. Not the entire machine, but at least the panels. Normally they have a 3 week lead time and that causes too much delay. I can get all the other parts in a few days. So the idea is to build up a stock of panels. Then, when I get a new order, I get a replacement set, not the original. This will reduce my backlog from 3-4 weeks down to 1-2. Even for the big expensive machines. Duh, why didn't I think of this before? Yeah, I end up with $1000 worth of panels sitting on the shelf, but I think overall the efficiency improvement will be worth it. *** Wondering what I should work on next. Should it be the RA-10 or the CA-10? the former would be much faster. The latter far more profitable. But waaay more development work. On the other hand, the circuit I came up with is absolutely fabulous. At least the analog tube section. Maybe I spend my summer doing that, since I doubt I will be going on vacation. Apr 30 ------ Hey, this month wasn't so bad after all. Sales ended up quite good overall. I guess my worries about the economy might be a little overblown? Anyway, let's keep it up! I am working again on advertising. The simplest and easiest way is to auction a unit on audiogon. Cheap. Except there is the cost associated with not selling something at full price. So I take the hit there. I always like to start the auctions out at $1. Gets lot more people interested. Trying to get as much eyeball attention as possible. Need to get word out about the new HAGLABS stuff. I put out some press releases the other day. We'll see what effect this all has. I now have 4 auctions going at audiogon. Auctions Oh, I ran into Stu today (unclestu52). Sure was nice to visit for awhile. *** Almost finished a PA-10 today. Just need to wire up the power tranny. The upper (amplifier) side of the board looks like this. Very clean and orderly. The bottom looks way better. PA-10 amplifier guts Apr 29 ------ Ok, I'm having trouble buying some of the FRYBABY parts, the binding post adapters. They aren't selling much more, and they never did make me much money so I am going to just not build anymore. The DIY kit/2 is still available. The new FRYDADDY will be the king of burn-in machines. Somebody tried to order one today. I best get my butt in gear. Made a new HAGDAC for the CHIME GOLD, trying to shotgun that random "tic". Nope, still there. So I've replaced both HAGUSB and HAGDAC cards. Same issue. I'll have to rip the machine apart. Just to make sure, I then plugged the USB output into my DA-10. Whoah! Yeah, no tics, but more importantly, what a nicer sound! The ambience and clarity just punches through the mix. I wish I knew exactly what did it, but the DA-10 is a good step up from the CHIME. Seems to me the DA-10 and HA-10 combination is pure magic. Both best on planet category. Apr 28 ------ Thought I found a bad solder joint on the VCXO of that CHIME GOLD. Fixed it, gave it a try. Nope. Still gets a few tics in while the machine warms up. Seemed to stop after awhile, so maybe it is something thermal. I'll check wiring and other parts tomorrow. Other than that, the machine sounds great. Will put it back on audiogon soon. Dave Clark of PFO wants some HAGUSBs for review. Oh yeah! I still get a lot of business from the 6moons review. Turns out the HAGUSB is at the perfect price point, delivers way better performance tham all the other low cost solutions, and is a lot better than a $2k slimserver. Hey, you order them, I'll keep pumping them out. Dave also wants to try out a DA-10. Apr 27 ------ Finally got the PA-10 chassis painted up. I like to let them dry for 2 days, so that the paint isn't soft and picks up damage. I glob it on thick to get that nice glossy finish. Must wait! Do not touch yet. Can't wait to get the build complete. These are going to look superb. I already know they sound good. Looking forward to firing them up with a real system. That CHIME GOLD I auctioned off a few months ago? It came back. Something wrong with it whereas it glitches once every few songs. I thought it was a bad HAGUSB in it, but replacing didn't quite solve it. There is something intermittent in there. Anyway, I bought it back from the guy. If it don't work as advertised, I will stand behind my machines! So tomorrow I will see what else might be the trouble. I'm thinking HAGDAC. Will run a battery of tests and then try to confirm I solve the problem. Once it is fixed for sure, I will auction it off again. Yeah, same machine. This time used for two months. Also starting to box up and sort the magazine collections. Maybe I will auction them off later. Then there are the menial tasks. Take up time. Like the front panel express folks modified my HAL logo such that it is cheaper to produce. So now I have to copy it onto all of my panel designs. That's like 20 or 30 panels! Apr 25 ------ Finally caught up with orders, putting the finishing touches on a VACUTRACE. Thinking about the lab re-organization. Going to sell off a bunch of books and magazine (glass audio) I never use anymore. Lighten up the load, make more room. Orders picking up again. After reading Forbes magazine last night, they actually seemed a bit upbeat that things will be picking up, economically speaking. Ok, food and gas prices will remain high, but I think folks will start buying some non-essentials again. Like DIY audio. *** Did some more layout work on the FRYDADDY. Very busy here with a lot of things. Hard to get the time to get this proto up and running. Ordered a ton more HAGUSB parts. Also re-stocking on FRYBABY connectors and adapters. *** Mostly, what I need to do this weekend is reconcile my bank account. About one year behind. Apr 23 ------ Hot and muggy here today. Today I cut out the chassis for my pair of PA-10s. Finally. Was going to do the HA-10 and DA-10 but discovered I am short on chassis. Always ordering more parts. Meanwhile, I see my page hits are averaging about 1700 per day. So activity is still pretty good. I need to think about advertising and promotion again. Been slacking a lot lately. Must do them darn product manuals too. But first, I'm going to upload schematics to the website. I wasn't going to do that, but what will it hurt? These are fabulous designs. You should know whatyou are buying. Huge bang for the buck. Sorry they take so long to build, though. Try to have that done tomorrow. Oh, did I mention I got a LINEFILTER wired up yesterday? Works just fine. I will be removing the power switch. No point for it. Must run a listening test, make sure all is well. Right now I have the secondaries totally floating. I think I will reference them in balanced common mode to ground with a pair of 100k resistors. Or maybe 10k. Apr 22 ------ Since I am custom building all of the HAGLABS stuff, I decided to add an option for faceplate color. Not everyone is enamored with the red/yellow scheme. So I will offer most products in silver/black, too. But in return, I'll make the return policy 10%, instead of 5%. Silver CORNET Apr 16 ------ A dealer on the phone today gave me some good tips on how to improve your web search engine ranking. Basically, put big long detailed descriptions in the page title. Put all keywords there, that somebody might be searching for. So I edited all my pages today. Meanwhile, it was a good production day, as I finally got two VACUTRACEs out the door. Will try to make more progress on the FRYDADDY tonight. Apr 15 ------ I've gotten the FRYDADDY layout half done already. Just inching my way along when I get some free time. Should be done later this week, I expect? Will then get boards and panel, build proto. I think this is the burn-in generator audiophiles are looking for. Big, robust, powerful, and all in a nice box. It is what you guys wanted in the first place. And I am back on the PA-20. Only I am going to call it the RA-10 (Reference Amplifier). Keep it in the TEN series properly. I figure, the paper design is done, it is mostly a modification to the PA-10. Heck, it should not take long at all to implement. The CA-10 will have to wait. I'll just pump out as much stuff as I can right now, get the brand going. Must try and fabricate sales out of this slumping economy. Something to pay for the CA-10 development. Once it is done, I should be home-free. It will be the killer product I always needed. So tonight I will upload some more website info. CAD drawings and an RA-10 page. Apr 11 ------ Ok, it is now official. New price of FRYBABY is $299. I was on the hairy edge of breaking even (they're a lot of work to assemble), and used it mainly as an advertising tool. Small uptic in price to reflect my costs. I have notified both Audio Advisor and Music Direct, and expect they'll update their websites and catalogs asap. The other change is that HAGTECH will no longer sell them assembled. I moved it over to HAGLABS, which will now produce only RED ones. RED FRYBABY *** Ok, added FRYDADDY and CA-10 info to website. The photos are just panel design sketches, but give you a fair idea of what to expect. Apr 10 ------ Crud! Finishing up two VACUTRACEs, and discover I don't have any of the power trannys in stock. Ugh. Also missing the filament trannys for my DA-10. Ok, more parts on order. UPS should get the stuff here Monday. Apr 09 ------ Cranking on websites. I added short descriptions to the product pages, added some photos. Built a StepUp (see guts). Then I re-did the HAGTECH pages, added a big HAL banner to link up. Took out obsolete references, etc. Sort of cleaned everything up, try to make it looks sensible. *** I think I need to raise the price on FRYBABY to $299. Starting to lose money on it. At the same time, maybe I can add a RED version to the HAL site. It will then set the stage for the FRYDADDY, to come out later (already half designed). *** Ha! How about that? I just renamed the PL-10 as a CA-10. Why? Because the letters looked better on the web page. Something about kerning. It will be known as the CONTROL AMPLIFIER. Same machine, new name. Apr 08 ------ Building up new production HA-10, DA-10, and my pair of PA-10s. Got halfway, finding part shortages. Glad I had already bought all of the iron. Sheesh, just building machines for myself costs a lot of money. Mostly these are needed for a photo shoot. Get the pics posted to the website. Then I can start to think about product manuals. I have obsolete ones posted right now. Also thinking of writing a description for each product. Just having a photo and specs seems somehow insufficient. I'll get these parts on order. Then spend the rest of the week finishing a pair of VACUTRACEs. Apr 07 ------ Ok, finally getting some forward motion again here. Completed that TRUMPET over the weekend and shipped it out today. Fits perfectly in that Box-7 from the post office. And I am using shredder remains for packaging. It's a little messy, but cheap and it works fantastic. Fills every crevice and provides good protection. And I've been shredding a lot lately. Grinding up all those old records I don't really need any more. Like HAGTECH orders from 2002. I'll keep hardcopy backups for only a year now. Oh, and that TRUMPET? It really did sound better than my tweaked CORNET. More open, is the word I would use. Meanwhile, going to get back to the website, fix the photos and links. Adding a features section for each product. Must add the JUMPER card to VACUTRACE page. I'm also going to change the billing policy. Forever I did not charge credit cards until after product was built and ready to ship. I'll keep doing that for HAGTECH, but HAGLABS will be money up front. As if you paid paypal. Each product is custom built to order. Delivery can be anywhere up to 4 weeks, typically 3 weeks. Unless I happen to have certain critical parts in stock, which I sometimes do. So HAGLABS will charge your card up front now, then I can more easily buy parts and proceed with custom contruction. There will be a 5% cancellation fee. Same deal as the 5% restocking fee. Running out of LSK389 again. Must order more to keep those PICCOLOs shipping. Oh yeah, with the differenc chassis connectors in the RED PICCOLO, I can't include the internal battery pack, so it will be AC powered only. In return, I'll add the 0dB gain setting. *** Ok, got some photos of the LINEFILTER. Wondering why I put a switch on it. Not needed. LINE FILTER Apr 06 ------ Ok, so I had a bad day yesterday. Forgot to cut an etch, blew up and expensive 273DZ tranny. Replaced it, found a better way to wire it in (forget the inline connectors). New TRUMPET with lots of modifications is now up and running. And then I discover I put in the wrong MUTE switches. Shoot. What a pain they are to remove. Anyway, once I got the right ones in, everything was perfect. It all looks good, sounds fantastic. I'll have photos posted soon. Ok, so maybe I was a little harsh, thinking I could not handle this product. Today I feel better. But I'll have to raise the price, as the amount of labor involved cannot justify such a low price. I don't have much choice. The TRUMPET lives! But at $2999. TRUMPET Apr 04 ------ Wow, listening to the new PICCOLO was an experience. I can't believe how much better these caps are. Damn! The red HAGLABS version sounds absolutely stunning. This is a hit, worth every extra penny. I think I'll send one to Thom to use at RMAF. It is now clearly better than the tranny. Not quite as quiet, though. Got the parts in today to finish the TRUMPET. Maybe I can get it shipped out tomorrow. Meanwhile, the two VACUTRACE sit there unfinished due to lack of LED bezels. Man, I just can't keep up with inventory control. Apr 03 ------ Excellent, my Electrocubes came in. Just in time. I can now build up the DA-10, PICCOLOs, and other items that were on hold. Grinding away here, filling backorders. My apologies for all of the delays. Apr 02 ------ Shoot, I can't believe how long it takes me to build a new TRUMPET. The original was so well designed. Everything went together a snap. Hardly any hand wiring. Only trouble was all of the woodworking. The new design requires a lot of chassis work, machining and painting. And wiring the boards into the boxes is a pain! New inline connectors, wiring the up the RCAs and XLRs. The original had everything solder righted to the board. Great design. Oh well, the new one looks and sounds better. I wonder if I have to raise the price, though, as so much extra labor is involved. Pondering. For now it stays the same. Apr 01 ------ I should have the first production TRUMPET done any day now. All finished except for an inline connector I added between transformer and board, well, I bought the wrong part. Once I get the design tweaked, they will be easier and faster to build. I still expect a 3-4 week lead time. Bought that vmware workstation, absolutely fabulous software! Highly recommended. Yeah, it cost me $189, but it lets me run a fake Win NT operating system inside a window within XP. It is incredible. My schematic program runs great in this mode. It acts like it is a completely separate computer. This, plus the dosbox software, I now have everything running on one machine. And just in time. Mar 19 ------ The PA-10 and DA-10 boards came in. Finally, I'll be able to have some amplifiers to listen to. And then I realized why I haven't finished the new TRUMPET. I scavenged the electrolytics for a CORNET and CHIME. Damn. That's ok, I place one or two part orders per week. Taxes are done. Shipped off to accountant. Computers up and running. Now I can focus on assembly and the new website. I still think I'll have most of it going by April Fool's. *** Ok, got a PICCOLO partially built. Waiting for the new expensive capacitors to show up. Good enough for a photo shoot, anyway. PICCOLO photo *** D-day. Mar 18 ------ And now I wonder about credit card debt. Although it may be counter-intuitive, paying off my credit cards may not make sense. At the moment. If the value of the dollar continues to plummet, and I'm hedging it will, then the value of my debt plummets with it. Let's look at this from scratch. If I buy $10k in gold tomorrow with a credit card at 10% interest, what happens in a year? Usually you lose. But my guess is that next year gold will be double. So a year from now I'll owe $11k in dollars, but own $20k worth of gold. Basically, the value of gold stayed constant, but my debt was roughly cut in half. Am I nuts? I'm thinking there is no need right now to pay down my cards too fast. Instead, I should concentrate on owning assets. In that respect, I bought sheetloads of expensive audiophile caps, a bunch of PCM1704K converters, lots of leaded solder, and as many circuit boards as I can store. My next move should be to buy a pile of tubes. Assets keep their value, the dollar won't. The idea is to not own anything in dollars. Unless they are negative! Or perhaps I am a fool, driving myself to ruin. On the other hand, by next year people will be desperate to sell off whatever assets they have left, just to eat. So maybe 2009 will be a good year to find vacuum tube bargains. Could be I am spending too much time reading stuff on the web. Like this guy Weiss, who must be a genius. Martin Weiss *** Spent the morning doing taxes. Every month I have to pay Hawaii excise tax on all items sold (they even tax me on shipping charges!). Fortunately, if item shipped out of state I can declare an exemption. And that is 99% of my business. It just takes a lot of paperwork. I'm still using my old QuickBooks 99 in double entry mode. I keep customer invoices in a separate file from checking account balance. Everything is entered twice, makes it real easy to go back and find glitches. Ok, so I am about a year behind on reconcilliation. Anyway, for federal taxes I made me a spreadsheet that adds up all my deduction in various categories. Part, postage, office expenses, advertising, travel, etc. Fortunately, it doesn't take me 8 hours anymore, as being organized can help. I just go through all checks written and credit card statements to find my expenses. I spent $4906 on shipping last year. Mar 17 ------ Seems a few of the photos didn't quite make it. I lost about 5% of the collection. Not too bad. Working on this LINE-FILTER project, and I realized I messed up with the choice of isolation transformer used in the LC-10. Had a hard time finding the right size to fit. Well, I thought I had one good for 120W per outlet. Turns out it was half of that. Crap. Not enough juice. I need to make sure each plug can power a PA-10. Or less. Ok, I find a tranny to do the job, but it is 5" diameter instead of 4". Should be able to squeeze in the box. Going to increase price a bit. That's four big trannys at $81 a pop. Meanwhile, I have four of the smaller ones sitting on a shelf. Well, it turns out that it is just about right for the new LINE-FILTER. I'll wire the secondaries in parallel for 1 amp output current. Both plugs are together and pump out 120W total. That's enough for a TRUMPET and something smaller. Or a DA-10 and HA-10. Or two CORNETs. It solves my problem for a low cost answer to 240V operation. And it is not just a voltage converter, it offers BALANCED ac line outputs plus line filtering. I should be able to offer it for $499 direct. Box is 7x5. I've already bought the parts to build a prototype. It is a perfect match for a STEP-UP and looks something like this: LINE-FILTER panel And while at the post office today I notice a sign that says fixed rate large box. Hmmm, that's new. They've added a 12x12x8 box any weight for $12.95. Unbelievable. That is the EXACT size I chose for the TEN series components. Somebody is looking out for me. The timing of this is perfect. Not only does it cut my shipping costs in half, I no longer have to buy boxes! What a stroke of luck. *** Finished that other ARCHIVER, getting it ready for audiogon auction. Burned it in. Did cap testing. I realized that I was working with three different types. Blue, red, and pink. The warm, earthy sounding ones were pink. Not my taste, as I thought they were too much, tending toward muddy. The red and blue have a different tone, more clear, more sparkle. I think less smear. The blue ones are still my fave (but not by much), as they retain the microambience and microdynamics the best. So the ARCHIVER will retain the red, the FLUGEL will use blue, and I'll stop using the pink. The pink, by the way, are the panasonic PPS dielectric. ARCHIVER in rack chassis *** So what happens if the dollar's value is cut in half again? Let's say oil is $200, gold $2000. It could happen in 2008, given the pace of where things are headed at the moment. It appears the Fed it entirely willing to sacrifice the dollar in order to save banks. Or something. Did I bet on the wrong horse? Let's take a look. Three years ago I came up with the concept of HAGERMAN AUDIO LABS. The idea was to take my hard-earned reputation and move upscale to a new line of products that would be sold dealer direct. Why would I do this? Because history was showing me that the best way to move product was to have somebody else act as saleman. Companies selling boxes through dealers were making far more money than the one-website type of company. Ok, I figured that was the way to expand. So I came up with the FRYBABY. The whole idea behind that product was to get it into the mail order catalogs and boost the HAGERMAN name, get it recognized as a dealer product. Well, my first choice was Acoustic Sounds. Chad wasn't interested. Ok, Wayne at Audio Advisor saw differently and took the chance. That was followed by Music Direct. Ok great! Two giant audio catalogs. The FRYBABY was off and running. And I'm thinking I have a foot in the door. The problem was money. My idea for a giant preamp, fully tubed, balanced in to out, was going to be a costly proposition. How to fund development? That's where I got stuck. Meanwhile, the economy was chugging along, ripe for such a product. It was a cool machine, a TRUMPET phonostage with multiple inputs, step-up trannys, integrated with a balanced tube linestage. All under remote control using my new one-button concept. Inside it had a built-in tape loop. Except it was digital! Yes, I had an ADC to USB and USB to DAC as a tape loop. It would record any of the inputs (level controls built in), play them back, or just be a line/phonostage. It was a RIPPER deluxe. XLRs everywhere. It also had a FRYKLEANER built-in, capable not only of self-break-in, but it would also burn-in any cables attached to it! Yeah, it was a dream machine. Then I added it up. Retail price would have been about $20,000. Holy crap! That is ten times what a TRUMPET was going for. How was I going to pull this off? I had the entire design down on paper, but couldn't afford to move forward. The cost of R&D was more debt than I could handle. I had the endpoint, but no way to get there. Then last year, after cleaning up my product line (ARCHIVER replaced BUGLE PRO, etc.), somebody suggested again to make a tube headphone amp. Ok, been on the back burner for 5 years. So I thought about it for awhile. It had to be a kit. And things started falling into place. For me, design is full of kharma, metaphysical inspiration, feng shui, whatever. Things happen. Ideas come and go for no reason. I started moving in the right direction with choke input power supplies, tons of iron throughout the design, all tubes, etc. And then it hit me. The chassis I ended up with would provide a perfect platform for a HAGLABS series, but only if I changed to single-ended circuits. And so I thought some more. Sure enough, I could morph this new chassis into the "TEN" series, leaving me the opening for a future "TWENTY" series (the XLR balanced of original concept). It was a solution that met me halfway. All of a sudden I could afford the development costs and build me a series of products still destined for dealers. And so I aimed for that. Expensive front and rear panels along with a classy paint job made the chassis beautiful enough to sit on a dealer shelf next to just about anything. My wife chose a unique and identifiable color scheme. Yes, yellow LEDs. And realizing my production would be limited, I could aim this line solely for US dealers, expanding into Europe later. Hence, I was able to compromise and use 120Vac only power transformers. Doing such allowed me to keep the trannys inside the super compact chassis. The designs were falling into place. Solutions were happening. And now the bottom is falling out. Will there be any dealers left in the US? Sure, but what are the chances of any of them taking the risk of a new line? That's my present conundrum. Do I have a workable business plan? Or is it the right plan at the wrong time? As a small company it is super easy for me to adapt. And fast. I can change policy the next day. Like recently, when I changed to free shipping worldwide. Bam! Next day it was implemented. So what does this mean for me now? The question is, what should my new strategy be? With a falling dollar, methinks I need to focus on exports for the near future. That's why I invented the new LINE-FILTER today. It allows a TRUMPET or CORNET to run on 240V. I also recently switched the HERITAGE line of products to factory-direct sales only. That cut the price to super competitive levels. Moreso overseas. So what am I worried about? I'm worried about the TEN series. Am I about to waste a lot of time and money courting dealers when they're on the verge of bankruptcy? The dealers in good shape are the ones selling $100k speakers and $20k amps. They never had any interest in my stuff anyway. So whom am I chasing? Did I totally mess up? I could use some advice here. Do I completely change course here and switch the TEN series back to factory-direct? If so, I shoot myself in the foot. I screw up years of planning. I set myself back a long way. My chances of getting the big magazine reviews are shot. My exposure in the marketplace is shot. I have no sales channel (other than a website). Cutting out the dealers is like cutting off your hand. Or am I saving myself with a brilliant move? I have no idea. I'm nothing more than a circuit designer. The bonus here is to the customer, who can then buy the world-class DA-10 for a mere $2299 instead of $3760. That's the difference. For me, the profit margin is the same. I consider this, as I find lately I've been really struggling to get boxes built. I'm realizing I don't have the production capacity I thought I might. A hundred boxes a year is about it (a box equals a CORNET or DA-10). If dealer demand takes off, I am unable to produce without expanding and hiring a bunch of assembly techs. That will turn me into a CEO. I will spend all my time managing and no time designing. Is that where I want to be? No, in fact, I'd like to someday do nothing more than design. Outsource production. Sort of like what I think Tim de Paravicini or John Curl do. No, I don't want to be CEO or sales manager. Right now, I can handle a hefty load of production and assembly work. That's fine. But if I am limited to 50 or 100 boxes a year, then maybe I messed up thinking I should chase dealers? Maybe I change HAGLABS into a halfway measure. Maybe it is nothing more than a vehicle to get me to where I really want to be. Build my reputation. Build a customer base. Pay the bills. Get me to a point where I can partner with the right people and finally go big time. Anyway, that's sort of what I am thinking today, as the price of bread climbs skyward. Mar 16 ------ Good, the file recovery program did it's job. It's got a wierd interface, and is a bit of a pain to use, but so what. It worked! I haven't checked yet, but it appears to have recovered all of my lost photos. I had to click on each one to recover only them, and not the ten thousand temporary internet pics saved by explorer. Anyway, after many hours (and the entire Saturday, all the way up to 11pm), I have 1108 precious photos recovered taking up 749MB. And I quickly copied the folder to my new machine for backup. This time, I think I will make a few CDs. Hey, I also have a completely rebuilt XP machine in pristine state, upgraded with all of the latest updates (I swear, they must issue one per day!). The kids may now play games. And I can return to audio. Speaking of which, I came up with a brilliant idea for a product. All of my fretting lately over the dollar, well it made me realize that this is a time to focus on exports. While my assets are loosing value (as is my debt!) I can take advantage of the exchange rate, as now my products appear to Europeans and others not only as bargains, but outright cheap. The $119 HAGUSB is selling all over the world right now. It is the right product at the right time at the right price. Anyone can cheaply turn their computer into a high quality CD or music transport for less money than any other option. A very simple upgrade to your existing hardware. Anyway, I realize I have to do the same for the HAGLABS products. Last year I made a (fatal?) compromise in that I chose to go with 120Vac power transformers. It was my only solution to fit inside the chassis and keep costs down. So I exchanged the ability to run at 240V for tranny inside. Was that the right move? In hindsight, maybe not. However, all is not lost! I realized last night all I have to do is make a smaller and cheaper version of the LC-10. I can do the same thing in a STEPUP-like box. Duh. Way cheaper. A single outlet, one big isolation tranny inside (instead of four). Basically, 1/4 LC-10. Do I call is LC-2.5? Nah. Maybe something like LF-10? It will offer a solution for dropping from 240V to 120V, while adding the benefits of filtering and isolation. I'll put it into the HERITAGE line to keep cost under $500 (we'll see). That way, a bloke in England can buy a full-blown TRUMPET package less than L2000! That's a TRUMPET, a STEPUP, and a LINEBOX, shipped to your door. Ok? A stereophile class A tube phonostage with MC step up tranny and the ability to run at 240V. L2000. Yeah, this is a backup plan to cover for and expected sales downturn on the domestic side. Mar 15 ------ I got another ARCHIVER built. This is the one without ADC, put into a spare rack chassis. Looks beautiful. This is nicer than most machines you see at the store. I'll do some listening tests to compare with my FLUGELHORN to determine the best coupling capacitor for the application. So far, the blue ones are winning out over the red. ARCHIVER in rack chassis Meanwhile, I think I'll hold off on my ebay purchases. No point paying $300 for a 25 year old calculator. Heck, in a few months there will be a lot more sellers and a lot fewer buyers, driving prices down. I think this summer will be a good time for ebay pickings. *** Trying to rebuild my old XP machine. Ugh. I've got old install CDs all over the place. Have probably 5 Dell machines, 1 IBM laptop, and I'm on my 3rd Toshiba laptop. The oldest Dell I rebuilt years ago into the NT machine. Its been by far the most robust. Odd, when there is a power line glitch, all of the other machines reboot, the old NT beast keeps right on ticking. Inside, it is a dustbowl. Anyway, I had two hard drives in the XP machine. One had all my data files, the other the operating systems (multi-boot). Decided to sacrifice the data drive (had copied everything to my new machine already) and ran the Maxtor reformatter and made a new partition. Well shoot, my XP disc that came with the machine would not boot. The XP disc that came with my wife's machine would not boot. I tried a DOS diskette and it would not see C: drive. Nor D:. Ok, plan C. So I found my old NT install floppys. After a couple of hours, I got an NT install working. Sadly, it could not use the ethernet card nor the video. Still, limped along. When I tried to run the XP install discs, they said I must have service pack 5 to continue. Crap! So many dead ends. No net. So I tried installing drivers for the card. Nope. Only works with XP. Sheet, how do I upgrade to SP5 so I can load XP so I can use the network? Ok, tried pulling the net card from the NT machine, as I have the drivers. But for some reason it remains undetected. All is lost. I'm thinking I may have to go to Costco and buy a new XP. One more try, I stick the XP install disc I have (SP1) and now it boots! So running it. Wiped out the NT partition I just spent four hours building. Well, it seems to be working. I was thinking, just before I lost all my photos and crashed the system, I stupidly ran that Registry Mechanic software again. Thinking it might clear up the machine a little before I handed it over to the kids. Well, that was the last thing I did. On reboot is when it failed for good. So whatever you do, NEVER run that software! I might have to quit the audio business and travel the world warning people of the danger. I still have the hard drive. Will stick it into the rebuilt XP machine as a slave. Hopefully tonight I can run that pareto recovery software I bought. Mar 14 ------ I am so impressed with this DOSBOX software, must repeat, it is phenomenal. *** Been trying to catch up on internet news. Everything is pointing to economic depression, not recession. I have to wonder what it bodes for our industry. Will brick and mortar stores be able to ride it out? What is the best way to position oneself to profit or survive such a thing? And why is it the Fed will bail out bear stearns but not audio research? The US dollar Hey, I'm just a circuit designer. But one thing I have learned, is that the price of gold is constant. It is the dollar that is changing. I wonder if I need to turn off my google adsense campaign. Am I just throwing money away? *** My production DA-10 and PA-10 boards just shipped. I need to buy me a whole new couple of matching sets of magnetics for the amps. I have the panels and chassis already. Meanwhile built up a STEPUP. No guts, but I needed this photo for the website. STEPUP photo Also got the OEM phonostage complete. This is a pre-production model. I still have to adjust panel dimensions, but this is what I expect it to look like (without the AA badge). On first listen, I the caps I used are not as good as the blue ones I put into the FLUGELHORN proto. These PPS dielectric are a bit muddy and too warm. I like the more open clarity and lower smear of the blue EPCOS caps. OEM phono Mar 13 ------ Ok, some suggestions to try out vmware. A virtual os machine within a machine. I also found virtual pc 2007 (yeah, but it is from microsoft) and one called dosbox, which looks very promising. Honestly, I would love to be able to run all of my software on this one computer. At the moment, the old PC is unable to boot XP, but it will boot to DOS and run my layout code. This is ok, but I have to get files in/out using a floppy disk. Not so happy. The NT machine is continuing flawlessly. Maybe because it never had to deal with a kid's game. I'm pretty sure that is what finally broke down the XP machine. So I am up and running, albeit not with perfect convenience. And my palm keeps hitting the ctrl key! I have made new backups, just in case. The USB backup drive is now running again, but had to be reformatted. That leaves my old photos missing. My last shot at them is plugging the disk into my wife's old XP machine. Will have to attempt when she is not looking. Meanwhile, I will take a break from this computer nonsense and focus on soldering. A few more machines need to be built. Oh, you might also notice that the www.haglabs.com website is slowly growing. I added a couple of placeholders for the other pages. I need to work out how I want the individual product pages should look. I might borrow a bit from the HAGTECH stuff. Seems to me having the price and specifications conveniently shown is a good thing. I can also start taking orders. *** This new keyboard is really starting to piss me off. My left hand naturally lays in a particular spot for comfortable typing. Sadly, they put a goddamn ctrl key there! So stupid! I keep screwing up everything I type with ctrl characters, jumping off to unkown menus, etc. I just was typing a long asylum post and on my last sentence, bam! It all disappeared. Dell, you owe me a new keyboard. This one sucks. *** Nevermind. I ripped the key off. Everything ok now. Ok, after looking around, I think I'll use the DOSBOX for my layout software. That will be my first test. Actually, that's all I really need to do at this point. Eventually, I can then use vmware (looks to be the best supported) to load up a virtual NT machine in a window. I like the entire virtual concept. Very clever, very useful. I will keep you posted. *** Oh my, this was unbelievably easy. I downloaded the free dosbox program. Hey, only 1.5MB. This is good old fashioned efficient code. The way it used to be done. Loaded nicely. I didn't even have to load dos. Just my program. Easy to follow a few simple instructions. And it all worked! This mischevious and nasty dos program fired up and ran without a hitch. The only issue is that it runs in 640x480 mode. So it is small in a window. When I run fullscreen (what I had been doing for years) it gets lopsided, as I have one of those newfangled widescreen LCD displays. Not sure yet how to get it to maintain aspect ratio. But hey, I am duly impressed. This is awesome code. Highly recommended. Mar 12 ------ I was doing pretty good with the data file transfers, but did one thing out of order. I erased a faulty account. Last year when I ran that registry mechanic it wiped out a whole bunch of working stuff. My emails, etc. I found the data bases and copied them, sort of had things running. But I forgot all of my photos downloaded over the past 3 or 4 years was in a Kodak directory buried in there. Crap, I didn't get the photos out in time. About a thousand pics gone forever! All of my yellowstone, england, alaska trip shots all erased. Nothing went to the recycle bin. Ok, I had a backup on a 160GB USB drive. Except it ain't workin now. It loads, but doesn't mount up with a drive number like it used to. Won't load on any machine. I think it lost it's partition. I hadn't used it in awhile, maybe this was why? So my backup is dead too. Jeepers. This is like the house burnt down. Shoot, and it is just because I did this out of order. Had my chance to copy the photos. Missed it. *** Ok, don't panic. The data is sill probably there. Just need a way to find it. Remembered he recent issue of PC Mag has a list of the best 150 free programs. I seem to remember something about JPG recovery. So did some searching. Well, there must be a hundred different companies making software to do this. Most involve flash cards that fit into cameras. I just need to scan my hard drive for data that looks like JPG file. So I went with one of the paid for google ads, got me that pareto logic data recovery pro. Well, sure enough, it was able to locate 22,800 residual images on the drive. Took me two hours to go through the list, one by one, finding the original file names. Also to see if there was recoverable data. The good news is that almost all of them are still there. I bought the $49 key to enable recovery. We shall see. It appears to be hung right now. I have 529MB of photos supposedly being recovered. I have a feeling it ain't gonna work. *** Yup, totally hung. Now it won't reboot. After much futzing, it's the registry that has been corrupted. Will not start XP. Can't put drive into new machine because cables are different. Shux. So now I have a completely dead computer. A hard drive full of erased photos. Hmmm. Maybe I try sticking it into my wife's XP machine? I better get a new HD for this computer, as it is still a good box. My kids can use it for gaming. And now I realize I have another issue. I've been running two boxes with a KVM swich (shares keyboard and mouse). One box was NT to run the schematic software. I bounced back and forh. The XP machine was dual boot, with a DOS partition to run the layout code. What a mess. I need XP, NT, and DOS. I'm a little reluctant to try and make this new machine triple boot. I need to find a place for the DOS code. And mainly, my new keyboard and mouse are USB and won't work on the KVM I had. Hmmm. Do I now run two sets of keyboards? This computer stuff is losing it's fun quotient. Shoot. I could run this new machine as triple boot. I already have he system commander software, just seemed to have lost the serial number. Gads. *** Ok, does anybody know how to run an NT-only program under XP? How about DOS? Mar 11 ------ Well, I am typing this on the new computer. Slowly transfering files and all data and crap over. Tons of programs to install. Have you ever tried to find the address book data? Or your old emails? Sheesh. Anyway, I did. Now I need to move printer. Theoretically, I got the hard stuff done already. The new computer is a Dell optiplex. Big. Looks really rugged. I like the case. The problem so far is the keyboard. Where I normally rest my left palm is now on top of the control key, so it's booching left and right. I can't type normally. I may have to upgrade. Or maybe I can just disable the key. *** Ok, got image processing running again. Here's some shots of the new CORNET. I think it came out beautifully. This thing is a stunner. And quiter than the original. Check out the guts. Expensive resistors and caps everywhere. Very compact little unit. CORNET CORNET guts Mar 10 ------ Interesting destinations for HAGUSB orders. Today I sent one to a radio or TV station in NYC. Another to team CSC (the bike guys) in Austria. You'd be suprised at some of the folks who own one. Almost ready with some photos. Got the FLUGELHORN done, almost there with the CORNET and TRUMPET. As soon as I can find some free time I'll get the SU and PI done too. That should give me enough photos to launch the website. Meanwhile, I keep playing with link colors and other such miniscule things. *** Computer finally got here. Missed the first two attempts at delivery. And speaking of which, during lab testing last week my laptop went wierd. Maybe it was a low battery warning, but it glitched and locked up. Started up again ok, but now the usb-audio driver doesn't talk to foobar. This is a classic issue I've been having with that machine. A few times I did something to get it working again, and recently it was flawless. Now it is totally messed up again. Just as bad, now the wireless software doesn't go looking for wifi. Jeez. When it rains it pours. And this is the laptop I was depending upon for RMAF. *** Ok, got new CORNET done. Took good photos of it and FLUGELHORN. Just can't get them uploaded without bluescreening this machine. The new computer is sitting here, ready to get fired up. Probably take me a week to get everything transferred over. You know, emails, favorites, quickbooks, all my data files, songs. I agonize over having to reload foobar and the dozen other programs I have (many not free). Damn, where did I put all those registration keys? Mar 08 ------ Finally got around to doing some chassis work. Been putting it off. But it wasn't so bad. Sure, it takes a lot of work to prep a chassis. Mark holes (precisely), drill them, countersink, debur, punch holes, clean and paint. My arm gets sore filing the big transformer hole (rectangle) for the TRUMPET, or punching them damn tube holes in the top. The punch gets amazingly hot after grinding out eight holes. The results, however, were awesome. I really got this painting thing down. The coatings are perfect, and the glossy finish gives it a mirror-like quality, even though there is the textured powdercoat underneath. It looks really good and I hope it shows in the photos. Unfortunately though, like other shiny hi-end machines, they tend to pick up fingerprints quite easily. Mar 07 ------ All this economic news. It's a recession folks, pay no attention to those pundits behind the tv screen saying otherwise. I'm not in a panic yet, merely to the point of apprehension. So many things in conjunction, it's like an intereference pattern at a horn mouth where everything coincides, a perfect storm. A recession I can ride. A full blown depression is what I'm worried about. What does it do to hi-end audio? Is there history we can examine? Was there a hi-fi cult back in '29? Who bought hi-end equipment in the '30's? Is my product line properly placed and marketed for such an economy? I look at the price of food, energy, metals. That tells the story. When a donut costs more than $1, we're in trouble (the classic bellweather). What has happened over the past 5 years? In 2003 gas (for me) was maybe $2.00, now it is $3.50. Gold was (I have no idea) $500? Now $1000. Copper thefts were a big story last year. Ok, so if we assume the price of gold, fuel, and bread are constant, and that the value of the dollar is what is changing, then we can see a rough devaluation of maybe 40% in the last 5 years. Not quite half. Or looking at it the other way, prices are 75% higher. So let's look at HAGTECH. A VACUTRACE used to be $1.25k, now it is $1.55k. Or a 25% increase. It will soon be $1.7k, a 36% jump. Only 1/2 inflated compared to other items. In reality, the price has gone down! Think about it. Do not measure in dollars, that is the mistake. Measure in gold, gas, or groceries. A TRUMPET used to be $1.9K, now $2.5k. That's a mere 32%. And a HAGUSB is still $119. That's cheaper (in dollars) than it was in 2005. Ok, so I'm not ripping anyone off. My improvements in efficiency and volumes have helped. The question is, has it been enough? *** I completely changed around the coloring scheme of the website. This was done to match the colors of the new chassis. No, I didn't pick them. My wife did. She liked the gold/yellow text on red anodize. And then black covers. The silver is to represent the color of exposed aluminum extrusions and stainless steel hardware. Got rid of the green, which was an inversion of my red (#801010). The good times font will be used for banners and headers. I also changed to a fixed width format, something a lot of newspaper sites do. This is to make it more readable. My old site stretches with your browser, so you can force it into any shape. I picked 768 pixels for a width. It will always look the same. Simplified menus even more. Left out "dealers" for the moment. About is now the same as home. I'm not really going to put up much in the way of content, the HAGTECH site is for that. This is nothing more than product photos, specs, and the ability to order them. No fluff. Pure, simple, clean, efficient. Nothing more. I'd edit the photos to look better, but with my computer crashing around me, I can no longer save JPGs. Mar 06 ------ Working again on the HAGLABS website. Trying out various design formats and layouts. This time menu across the top. A lot of people suggest I make a fancy website. But hey, I am inherently rebellious in nature, and I just have to be me. I am making this as simple as possible. It will be easy to look at, use, and maintain. No flash, no animations, no shopping cart, no "enter site" gimmicks. Just straightforward purity and simplicity. Same as my amplifiers. Why would I do anything else? The site must reflect my philosophy and design style. This ain't amazon.com or facebook. Anyway, I hope to have a new index page uploaded later today. I realize I have only 3 of 14 products photographed for this. HAGLABS website Speaking of style, I have to say the Veena is right up my alley. I really like what they did technically and visually. It might be what I would do if I were a speaker designer. I worry, however, that my high impedance low watt amplifiers aren't going to be up to the task. Afterall, I do NOT use feedback, like most other tube amps (Lamm, BAT, Quicksilver, etc.). Will I have any dynamics at all with my 6 clean watts? What about the DeVore Super 8? From what I read online it might be more "musical". Maybe I prefer the DeVore sonic presentation better? I'll keep looking, but pretty soon I have to try and make a deal. *** Reading the horn article in AXP. Wow! This has to be one of the best articles they've published in the last ten years. Very well done. Good description of horn designs and some of their compromises. One line in there really did it for me, that the speed of sound is taken to be constant, and that's how you solve for wavefronts. Bingo! I get it. So simple. You set the boundary conditions and solve using certain assumptions, in this case speed. It's like solving electric field isopotential lines, just set the laplacian (del-squared V) equal to zero. Iterate about that condition and the answer pops out. Well, it is the same with doing wavefronts in horns. Just use a piece of string, mark off inches or whatever increments. Pull it tight straight out. That's the front of the sound wave. Now force it along the edge of the horn, that's the same wavefront (in time) position at the horn surface. Ok, it doesn't solve in between (except for a conical), but it's a good start. Intuitive. And now I understand where the various shapes came from. Designers solved for different parameters. A cylinder gives a plane wave. A conical a spherical wavefront. The tractrix came from solving for perpendicularity at the horn surface. Very clever. I get it. You do this such that there are no reflections along it! The wave flows smoothly across the horn. Of course, if you build a horn without a smooth surface you just destroyed this very unique property. Anyway, I can't wait for part 2. My guess is that the hyperbolic is the optimal design. I just have a feeling. Probably because the front surface reaches a limit, whereas all other shapes continue on forever. I find horn design interesting, and maybe someday I will get me a full system. My patent #4 did the same thing (which is why I find the analysis fascinating). The mass spectrometer field solution had a 1/r term in it, and I realized the way to cancel this was to put a z term to the field strength. Thus, if z=r, then the solution has a term z/r that cancels! Problem solved. The horn is a hyperbola of the form z = 1/x, not the generalized formula for a hyperbola, but the simplest. It has a special name, I forget. Rectangular, or something like that. Anyway, I'm still guessing the hyperbolic cross section delivers the smoothest impedance transfer for a loudspeaker. We shall see. *** Hey, I just thought of something while doing dishes. I bet you anything that the "honkiness" of a horn comes from these surface reflections. Hence, the tractrix has least honk, if done correctly. The non-perpendicular fronts develop interference patterns of cancellation and reinforcement. Probably very much frequency dependent. Any of you horn builders attempting rough or irregular surfaces to combat this are heading down the wrong trail. It's a nice bandaid, but not a solution. Try, try, try, you'll never get there. A good horn has to be smooth. Mar 05 ------ I think I'm running on overload. Mar 04 ------ Uh oh, prices finally moving. I noticed big time trying to order a new batch of USB cables. Electrolytics, too. I'll keep a watch on them, but it could force me to nudge up prices myself. We'll see. Mar 03 ------ Dang, the HP15C are going for well over $300 in eBay auctions. I found the 11C and 10C are pretty close, with fewer features, mainly without the complex math, which I don't use much anymore. Actually, if I can just figure out how to scroll the digits to the right one place, I can live with my broken one. It's just the leftmost digit is in a broken LCD area. *** Looking into ways to run an automatic picture slide show for my new website. Sort of doing a nice fade in and out of various glamour shots of the new HAL products. Found this blendTrans() filter function that is somewhat helpful. Looks like a bit of work, though. Maybe I need to just do the flash thing. Or insert an applet. *** Running short on parts again. I swear, I'm placing new orders while the previous orders are still in transit. Out of screws. Out of HAGUBS boxes. It never stops. Those things are selling like hotcakes. And most going overseas. With the dollar dropping like a rock, I am now shipping most stuff to foreign addresses. Hmmm, maybe I shouldn't have made the HAGLABS stuff 120Vac only. *** Ok, I sort of figured out how to do this. I used the VACUTRACE page as an example. It used to have a bunch of example curve images that if you clicked on it they would change. Ok, so I automated it and put in the fade feature. It seems to work. Maybe just on IE, not opera or safari, I really don't know. Hopefully they will at least display the first image as static. Anyway, try it out, see if the image fade feature works for you. VACUTRACE page with image fading Mar 02 ------ Someone emailed me saying they read an article in the Chicago Tribune about the HAGUSB. So I dug it out. HAGUSB article Mar 01 ------ Ok, I just bought a new computer. Pretty lazy about this, I always just buy a Dell. Yeah, I'd rather have an iMac, but am so entrenched with PC software, I got no way around it. Layout, schematics, credit card processing, etc. This was not a purchase I really wanted to make, but having been given the two minute warning, I'd be a fool not to. Why Dell? Because I like to really personally configure the machine. No box store is going to package all of the options I want. For $800 I get quite a machine. Delivered. The Dell prices are tricky, always start with one of their "deals" or special promotions, then tweak from there. What else do I recommend? Optical mouse. Floppy drive. I even splurged for the widescreen 2" displays. Always wanted to be able to put two word docs side by side (I write a lot of product manuals). Windows XP. And then I read the stereophile review of the cayin integrated. Jeez, $1300 retail for this tube amp. If I built that thing, it would cost me $1000 in raw parts, unassembled. And that's their street price! They actually build it for probably half that! That's why I don't compete on price anymore. I sell performance. *** Eventually, you are what you leave behind. *** Hey, good news. Just got notified the first of my three pending patents was approved. I don't know if it's been assigned a number or not. Have to wait until the lawyer sends me the forms to sign. Anyway, the basis for the invention is described in this white paper. Hyperbolic Horn Helical Mass Spectrometer Feb 29 ------ Just so you know, the other speaker I am looking into for RMAF08 is the Veena from 3A. I heard the de capo years ago and was mesmerized. The idea of direct coupling really appeals to me. So far, it's either these or the de Vore super 8s. Remember, I gots me only 6 watts. Any other recommendations? Speaking of which, the Melody i2A3 reviewed by Tellig claims 18W out of the same tubes and configuration I get 6W. Damn! What am I doing wrong? Well, it is because I operate in full class A. They must be pushing it very close to class B, with a small AB crossover region. Put the bias at 350V and 15mA, you're still on the recommended operating load line (which I don't use because there is a sonically BETTER load line). This shift in bias gets them from a limitation of 100Vp signal swing to 170Vp swing. Basically, only one tube is operating at a time, the other is in cutoff. I guess if all you care about is power, then this is how you do it. *** Ok, good news is that Saelig says they won't charge me the 15% restocking fee for the Owon scope, since it didn't operate as advertised (no persistence in XY). They seem to be good folks. I've bought stuff from them years past, the USB scope and an I2C unit. *** However, trying to start the FLUGELHORN layout modifications to the ARCHIVER, I found the file would not read in. That's ok, I got plenty backups. And I've been having boot issues and a lot of blue screens lately. Gee, I wonder if it is time for a new computer? So I figured I would do a chkdsk. Sure enough, it fixed the FAT partition where I run layout software. Then I ran it on my C: windows drive, see if that helped too. Well, it started, lasted for awhile and then blue screened. Did it again. Got farther, almost done! BS. Sheet. Am I ever going to get through this? Keep in mind, each cycle here takes about an hour! I'm wasting the entire morning, wondering if I will ever see my email again. Third time it made it. And the blue screened. I tried going around it with other boot disks, etc. No luck. The problem is that now every time I boot it starts that 1 hour chkdsk routinge. I finally figured out that unplugging the machine right as it starts the chkdsk, it then realizes it actually crashed and lets me start up with "last known working" whatever. Ding! That did it. Got me booted up and launched into XP again. Everything still here. Email, quickbooks, credit card processing, etc. Suppose the HD is on its way out. At least I have time left to do something about it. I'm not worried about losing data (everything of value backed up), merely the week long hassle of configuring a new machine. Anyway, I did get the FLUGELHORN relayout done. It makes for much easier wiring and fit into the new chassis. Will probably order production boards on Monday. I always like to give it a day or two (if possible) just to see if I think of some feature to add (like a ground hole or test point label). *** The first perfect HAL VACUTRACE is done. I'll take a bunch of photos for use in manual and on website. I'm thinking on my homepage a spot of cool product photos being shown as a slideshow would be neat. Gives the page some "life". Feb 28 ------ CORNET2 boards came in. I will fill all backorders today. Trying to get as much done this week as possible, as my wife will be out of town all next week. Going to be difficult, with all of the trips to school and all. *** Finished a CHIME and VACUTRACE today. Well, except for one is missing the handle ferrules and the other a plastic LED dome. Jeez. Ordered the parts last night. So difficult to keep perfect JIT inventory. Thinking I'll do some minor makeup changes to the FRYBABY-HAL version. It will be red case, of course. I'll put the gold plated HAL RCA jacks in it, and also the more expensive solid aluminum knob. Common pieces with the rest of the HERITAGE series. Price will be a tad higher, maybe $269 or so. The important thing is that I don't screw my dealers MD and AA by undercutting them with the free shipping. They still get the original FRYBABY at $249. *** Tried out that Owon digital scope. Whoah, really cheap. They did a great job making this low cost. But hey, if it works, great! The display is huge, maybe too much. At the low resolution it is fuzzy. Also really low contrast. Kind of hard to look at. Traces are not clean. Anyway, finally hooked up the VACUTRACE to it today to test it out for curve tracing. Fell down flat! Ok, it runs in XY mode, but their display is not so good. The USB scope I have is way better. And the damn variable persistence mode does not work. As I change it from none to 1s, to 2s, 5s, and infinity, there is no change in the display whatsoever. The function does not work. I am probably the only one who ever tried it. As a result I could not get a reasonable display of curves, as it would only capture parts of them. I am very disappointed, I thought this was going to be really trick. Sending it back. Feb 27 ------ Updating schematics today (SU-10, et. al.), sketching up layouts for HAGLABS website, and I realize I need a better way to connect the output of a PL-10 to both an HA-10 and PA-10. Room for only one set of RCA output jacks on the PL-10 (a compromise, you wouldn't believe the ripple effect from such a small thing). So I figured, hey, just put a loop-through on the HA-10! One set for input, the other output. Change the colume control to 100k and it is quite transparent. Turn the volume to zero and it looks like a pure 100k resistor in the audio band. I'm also adding an extra RCA to the PA-10. Same thing. This way you can loop out to a subwoofer with same signal. The TEN series is now a small line, but nicely integrated. The LC provides power, PL the control, DA the digital, and PA the output. You get a complete system by providing the six source components, such as PC (for DA), FM, SACD, TAPE, and 3 TT. Yes, you can connect three turntables (or arms) at same time. Decided for sure to do my "what-if" for the HERITAGE series. And it got big. It has 4 categories. 1) BURN-IN: with FRYBABY (in red), FRYKLEANER, and FRYDADDY (which I am again working on the proto). 2) TEST: with VACUTRACE, JUMPER and BLANK adapter cards. 3) ACCESSORY: with UFO (black). 4) PHONO: with FLUGELHORN, CORNET, TRUMPET, PICCOLO, and STEP-UP. The HERITAGE series is nice and full, all re-packaging of previous machines to go with the new HAGLABS appearance. And lucky for you, HERITAGE is only sold factory direct! I can't tell you how much stress that decision took off of my shoulders. Panic with this possibly faltering economy, how to justify the doubling in price of a TRUMPET, etc. It also solves various little issues, like knobs, umbilical, etc. Just plain makes more sense, and most likely is a more profitable strategy. It buys me a LOT of time before I have to make any dealer or distributor decisions. *** Thinking the panel for the FRYDADDY will look something like this. It fits into that rugged serpac box, same as I use for VACUTRACE adapters. Compact, rugged, portable with handle. Very professional it will look, just like a mini VACUTRACE. Anyway, it's basically a re-shaping of the FRYKLEANER (GOLD) with more output power and a connector for burning in power cords. It has the usual binding posts, XLR, RCA, but the BNC is a raw output, not current limited. You can then use this to either monitor the signal, or have it drive something else, like a speaker or custom rack of connectors. It makes the machine more versatile. Lots more output swing and power is due thanks to an LM1875 power amplifier and balanced output transformer. The AMPLITUDE control is like that on the FRYBABY, but with the added CABLE setting, which is 20dB above line level. I'll have to run calculations, but I think I can get it close to 8Vrms (+20dBu). Price will be somewhere $599 to $699. FRYDADDY panel *** Ok, the text description of what I did for the SU-10 (now STEP-UP) in weeks past may be confusing. So I finally got the schematic done. This is how I get the CineMag CMQEE-3440A tranny to work best for me. The outputs float, getting their ground reference from the phonostage inputs. The case gets a copy of the separate TT ground wire (no signal on it). I then tie this to the tranny inputs, as they need some sort of common mode reference. I don't like floating them in space. This gives the cart a reference ground, yet it has no signal currents on it. It is the exact same ground as what the tonearm gets. This works best for coaxial cart cables. If they are twisted pair, it is also fine, although you might be able to do better by balancing it. This is done by splitting the primary side loading into two resistors, each of R/2 value. The center tap to earth ground. This forces the cartridge to operate in true balanced mode, by providing the necessary 3rd terminal. Anyway, my machine will be with single-ended RCA connectors. S1 selects primary side loading. S2 changes gain. Gain is set by selecting a primary tap, and then the same switch kicks in the proper secondary tuning for optimum transient response. You can have your cake and eat it too. Not a huge range of loading (LO, MED, HI, and extra HI), but it covers the full range. You'll also find that primary side loading is NOT as sensitive as secondary side loading is. Hence, relatively big steps are ok. CineMag wiring The result is gains of 16dB, 22dB, and 27dB. Lowest possible loading on cart is roughly 21 ohms. *** Reading Entrepreneur magazine tonight. Honestly, it's not my thing, I actually read very little of it. But it does make me think. Ok, ok, that Kawasaki guy writes a good column, which I read every issue. Mostly, I skim until I find a good tidbit or sidebar. Anyway, has me wondering if I should put up an eBay storefront. Or add automatic paypal invoicing to my website. Mostly, I realized I need to operate the new company the same as the old one. Both should have identical policies. This will also help prevent confusion. So what does this mean? Well, for starters, I had envisioned HAGLABS products to not have free shipping. Hmmm. You know what, that is exactly backwards! With the declining value of the dollar, I need to focus more on foreign sales. That means I need to offer free shipping, always. Not just USA, but worldwide. Heck, for a long time now I've neglected to charge shipping on HAGUSB orders. Mostly, it's just a pain in the butt to spend the time putting on an extra $6.30 charge. Yes, this is the way to go. Focus on the customer needs, make it as easy to buy as possible. So there it is. Or rather, here they are, the NEW rules for both HAGTECH and HAGLABS: 1) Free shipping. Anywhere. My choice of carrier, though. That is UPS ground for large boxes to USA, first class mail everywhere else. If you want it faster, you pay. 2) 30 day trial period. If you are not satisfied, for any reason, you can send item back for refund. See #4. 3) 10 year warranty. Transferable. That's right, I don't care how many times it changes hands, the warranty is still valid. 90 days for tubes. 4) 5% restocking fee. What? Where did that last one come from? Well, I have to cover the free shipping costs somehow. I think this is reasonable. It also prevents abuse. Dealers subject to same rules (yes, they get the free shipping!). Feb 26 ------ Lately I've been playing a lot of FLAC files through my proto DA-10. And I just love it! I am having so much fun with this digital stuff. It can really sound good. I love digital. And then I find myself playing LPs. God, I love this sound! I love analog. Hmmm, revelation. If I had a tape machine or a decent FM radio station to tune into, I bet I would love them too. And there it is. The answer to that long running debate on analog versus digital - they are both awesome! Merely different means to the same end. And I am happy to report than some of the latest songs to hit the charts are recorded really well. Songs such as "Bubbly", "Teardrops on my Guitar", and "Delilah" are products of fine engineering and mastering. *** Thought I would see what I could do to improve on the HAGDAC, other than removing the unnecessary parts from the optional gain section. Nothing obvious as it was pretty well tweaked a few years ago. So I ran another set of jitter tests, thinking maybe I could lower the output jitter from the CS8415A SPDIF RX chip. Triggering off of the SPDIF signal (from my HAGCLOCK modified CD player) I can easily see edge jitter on a scope of the receiver's output. On an analog scope I see roughly 2ns peak to peak. Now don't think that's a crazy number, because it likely means something like 300ps RMS. The problem is that there is no easy way to correlate PP to RMS (except using the erfc function and BER rates). Oh wait I could have photographed it and then looked at the histogram of the luminance values. Duh. Then if it approximates a gaussian curve, the RMS is equal to 1 sigma. Maybe next time. Anyway, I tried various shifting of the PLL filter values to see what helped. Heck, the data sheet recommendations produced some horrible jitter. Fast lock times, though. Finally, after a lot of tweaks, I realized I was right back where I started. The good news is that the clock output from my VCXO PLL reclocker (after this) totally cleans it up. Absolutely no visible widening of the trace. Not just a 10x improvement, either. Way more. So I have to believe the 5ps RMS specification for the VCXO is realistic. The PLL will add a little random noise to this. Regardless, it is rock solid performance. I wish I could get stereophile to put it on their analyzer. Hmmm, maybe if I can get them to review a DA-10? Feb 25 ------ Finally got that FLUGELHORN prototype completed. Took more work than I expected. Bought me this very nice twisted pair cable for the I/O signals, it is silver plated copper, stranded, in teflon with outer teflon jacket. Nice to work with. I wired up every thing direct, sort of point to point. Missing one LED at the moment, but from this photo you can see the boards mounted to the panels, nothing but wires in the middle. Chassis is lightweight, also consumes only a few watts of power. FLUGELHORN Measurements look ok. So I hooked it into my system. Hey, noise floor is really good. I was worried about the twisted pairs too close to the ac power supply. No problems! In fact, this machine sounded great. I was stunned at how clean and neutral and detailed it was. With zero break-in! Hmmm. I'm working from long term memory, but this sounds better than the original ARCHIVER. Is it the better power supply? Could be. I have a few extra volts to work with, so a tad more headroom. Wow, this sounds incredibly good. It doesn't have that "slowness" that I found with the original. Remember, I always thought the musical pacing was slow and relaxed. Not with this version. Everything moves along with great detail and dynamics. Missing that extra weight and fullness of a CORNET. Or maybe it is just the difference in presentation between the PICCOLO and STEP-UP. Afterall, the FLUGELHORN has a PICCOLO-like front end. Very natural, but not with the usual solid state staleness (BUGLE). Oh wait! I just remembered this sample uses different caps. I wonder if that is it? I'll FRYKLEAN it and listen again later. If all is good, I'll paint the covers. Then I can finally get a real photo of its final appearance. *** Hey, my new digital scope came in already. I'll have to go check it out. Have a new VACUTRACE half built, will make for a good XY test. *** Shoot, I just can't get over this. Playing the new FLUGELHORN and it continues to amaze me how damn good it sounds. Spot on. So I ran it up against my reference CORNET. Whew! Thankfully the CORNET edged it out, slightly more real on cymbals and more chesty and full. That part I don't understand, as they measure identically on equalization. It ain't a dB thing. The CORNET with PICCOLO front end was awfully close in sonics. Noise floor just a tad higher than the FLUGELHORN. CORNET and STEP-UP is definately quieter again. More of that organic sound. My preference. Back to the FLUGELHORN, very much quiet enough for use with my LOMC, slightly leaner and more neutral. Cranked up some Jacintha (not exactly a rocker) and let it fly. No fatigue, easy to hear down into the deep depths of ambience. Even the bleedthru from tracks was clearly intelligable. For the same price as a CORNET, it ain't giving up much, while offering way more flexibility, features, and gain. Honestly, I really didn't expect this much from the machine. Now I just have to figure out if it the power supply or the caps that did it. Have to build another one, I guess. *** Sold the last FRYGOLD. Now it is red. Same machine, new color, new name. I am giving it the original FRYKLEANER moniker. Hey, this is the culmination of everything I learned on generations one (FRYPRO) and two (FRYBABY). FRYDADDY will be gen 3. Anyway, same price. Same everything except color. Once I get this unit done I can take photos. FRYKLEANER Feb 24 ------ Still wondering about my retail/direct mix. After crunching a lot of numbers for business plan, running various scenarios, I find some interesting things. My complicated pricing formula (different multipliers based on amount of inventory carried, plus 10% for shipping), which comes up with the retail price ends up being almost an exact X multiplier. Industry standard is closer to 2X. Shux, in about ten different part lists, they all end up at X. And that means once you take out the dealer's 40% cut, you get a Y markup for oem pricing. Y = 3/5*X. Damn, I had been using Y for years! It has turned out to be marginal. It works fine with robust sales, not so with minimal revenue. So I am simulating another what-if. What if I sold the new TRUMPET and CORNET direct, instead of retail? I would make them roughly $2499 and $1499. And chances are, I would end up selling more of them. They are both older designs, I'm not so confident dealers will want to to sign up for them. Plus they have a history of their mark I versions costing $2k and $1k. To me, this makes more sense. The problem is that I suck at marketing. I have often before undersold myself! Still, seems to me from a profit viewpoint, selling these models direct could be better. Besides, if we enter a recession right now, this strategy makes me way more competitive. So maybe I do a "classic" series under the HAL banner? Hey, Klipsch has their "heritage" series. Then I separate the TEN series as the newer stuff. Do I screw my dealers this way? I like that, "heritage". Perhaps I organize in this category the CORNET, TRUMPET, CASTANET, VACUTRACE, FRYKLEANER, FLUGELHORN. Along with that I should move the PI-10 and SU-10 with them, as they sell in combinations. And honestly, over a grand for the SU-10 seemed high to me. They would be maybe $449 and $649. In the end, the profit margin is exactly the same for me. The premier "10" series is thusly shrunk to LC-10, PA-10, DA-10, and the upcoming PL-10. The glitch in this logic is the HA-10. It is an all new TEN machine. Do I sell it as a TEN or as the CASTANET? Damn, I hate wavering on this stuff. *** Ok, I looked again at my formulas, and I realize the X multiplier method is just too simplified, not taking certain things into account. The pricing is better with the advanced method. Plus, using the Y multiplier, the VACUTRACE goes to over $2000! I realize this is a bit messy, but it is a transition period, so I have a good exuse. The TRUMPET and CORNET HAL models will not last forever. They are an interim measure until I can get PL-10 production up to speed. So now I get the HAGLABS HERITAGE series sold factory-direct: PICCOLO (red) $449 STEP-UP (red) $649 FLUGELHORN $1499 TRUMPET (red) $2499 CORNET (red) $1499 VACUTRACE (red) $1699 FRYKLEANER (red) $449 And then the HAGLABS TEN series, retail: HA-10 $2410 LC-10 $2080 PA-10 $3240 (each) DA-10 $3760 PL-10 $???? Eventually I will add the FRYDADDY as a heritage product to replace the FRYKLEANER (which is a red version of the FRYGOLD!). The CASTANET will be sold as half-kit only. *** I just realized the UFO (assembled) can be a HERITAGE product. Only have 3 or 4 more left, so it's not a big deal. On my HAGTECH home page, I moved all of the HERITAGE-to-be stuff down to the bottom. Feb 23 ------ Aw crap, I dropped my trusty HP 15C calculator. The LCD is broken over the left most digit. Shoot. 25 years I been using this thing. I'll have to find another on eBay. Can't work with anything else. My brain works on RPN. Dang! A good condition 15C on eBay is up to $222 already with 2 days to go. Sometimes I am nuts. As if I didn't have enough work to do, I discovered a new project. Was sort of simultaneously working on a VACUTRACE, CHIME, and the FLUGELHORN builds when I came across the panels for a custom ARCHIVER. This was for the project I cancelled, the panels didn't fit right into the chassis. But hey, here they are, beautiful panels in every other way, and worth about two hundred clams. Last thing I want to do is throw them away. And then I realize I have an old 19" rack mount chassis on the shelf, from about 5 years ago. Dang, these ARCHIVER panels fit right onto the existing ones! Shoot, it looks pretty damn nice, too. So here's about $300 in parts, just rotting away. Fine, let's build it! I can turn this into a revenue project. A one-of-a-kind custom ARCHIVER in a big metal box. It is actually sort of the fore-runner to the FLUGELHORN. So here you see the two partial assemblies side by side. FLUGELHORN and custom ARCHIVER I will sell this on Audiogon. Luckily I have maybe 90% of the parts already in house. Yeah, this one is all about making a few bucks. I admit it. Then again, anyone who ends up with this for under a grand will score a fabulous phono machine. Seriously, compare this jewel to a ph3d. *** I remember all the shit I got for making the CHIME the way I did. Like in John Rocker's professional magazine review of it. He just could not figure out why I did what I did. It made no sense to him (then why the frik didn't you ask?). So he bashed me in writing (ultrafitimes). And many other folks did it in various online forums. They all thought I made a huge mistake. Well, time has proven me right. I foresaw all of this. The main question centered around why I chose to go from USB to SPDIF and then to I2S, instead of straigh to I2S, like everyone else does. Simple Sherlock. It's to avoid the ground contamination. So many audiophiles have problems and resort to nasty solutions like in the post below, or they end up buying the super expensive Opticis cable. Read what this guy has to try and do. It's insane. Asylum post All HAGUSB and CHIME owners have avoided this! I see similar posts all the time and just want to scream. Hello? Now do they get it? Now do they understand the reason for the isolation tranny? Ok, sorry. I had to get that off my chest. Feb 22 ------ Lots of good forward progress this week. I solved a ton of technical issues, bought lots of production pieces. I'm still wondering about how to split up the marketing of various machines. The CASTANET is the main problem. The question is how to turn it into an advantage. You see, the retail price with dealer markup is $2k+. That's ok, but not when you can DIY the machine for under $600. I've wavered on this tpoic before, but I think it is reasonable to offer some machines stricly direct, not through retailers. It has to be a balanced portfolio that makes sense, and does not alienate any customers. I've already put the CASTANET (black panels) up for sale. The thing is, I want to migrate some of the HAGTECH machines to red. I re-did the FRYGOLD into a FRYK red. VACUTRACE is now red. The new FRYDADDY to replace FRYGOLD will look like a VACUTRACE in red (but small). Yeah, the FRYGOLD missed the mark. It does not sell anywhere near as well as the FRYPRO did. Better machine, wrong form factor. So I just take the loss, discontinue it, replace with the FRYDADDY. Well, the reasons are many, but to make a long story short, I'll continue with the HAGTECH professional series, which mainly consists of the VACUTRACE. I will make the CASTANET red and move it into this category, and then add the FRYDADDY. Meanwhile, I'm going to pull the FLUGELHORN from the HAGLABS lineup and move it here. Again, a SS phonostage for $3k just doesn't seem right. The damn thing costs me a lot to build, though. I will only offer it in 120Vac, so it doesn't compete with the similar AA oem unit, which may retail for about $2k (import costs & markup). Same sonics, different chassis. The red HAGTECH units will have the HAL logo. Given recent inflation and other considerations, I think these will end up at: VT-10 (VACUTRACE) $1699 HA-10 (CASTANET) $1299 FL-10 (FLUGELHORN) $1299 FD-10 (FRYDADDY) $599 All great machines. These are factory-direct prices! After you buy one, you'll wonder how I can offer the VT-10 so cheap. The HAGLABS retail lineup then is something like this: Remember, prices are NOT finalized, and are preliminary. Each of these is a really, really fine piece. LC-10 $2080 (Line Conditioner) PA-10 $6480 (Power Amp) per pair! DA-10 $3760 (Digital to Analog) PI-10 $730 (Piccolo) SU-10 $1080 (Step Up tranny) CO-10 $2380 (Cornet) TR-10 $3790 (Trumpet) So yeah, I continue to organize, upgrade parts lists, set up business model. Launch date for HAGLABS is still 4/1, although that only gives me a month! Keeping up with current production makes it difficult. Right now I am humming along with my time split roughly into thirds. One part production, one part R&D, one part overhead (customer service, order processing, purchasing, etc.). That seems a pretty reasonable mix to me. I get all emails answered in a timely fashion, most orders ship right away, and I still get enough design time in for new machines. The R&D is something you have to continually invest in. Whoah, that should keep me busy for this year. I hope it leaves time enough to get a proto up and running of the PL-10. Afterall, that will be the flagship component. Must be ready by RMAF08! Meanwhile, I'll see if I can slip the FRYDADDY in on weekends. Mostly it is already designed. I should also be able to do the CLIPPER detector, as a small half-kit. It will be about the size of a 9V battery. Then in 2009 I can do the PA-20. Yes, I am already thinking what I need for RMAF09. Mostly, a more powerful amp. Maybe LS-10 too? Feb 21 ------ I scanned in the final PA-10 schematics last night. Proprietary stuff, but shoot, nobody is gonna copy me. Nice stuff to look at, though. PA-10 power supply PA-10 amplifier Did some more testing. At full power the waveforms begin to distort at the frequency extremes. So I swept a -3dB level to see where distortion begins. I get clean response from 25Hz to 19kHz. Above and below that, the waveforms deviates from a perfect sinewave. That would be full power bandwidth? At 1W the response is much wider. I al