Leo, and all anxiously waiting ...
As we full heartedly intended the beginning of this week (or mayby somewhat earlier), DACs should be shipping last Thursday (yesterday). However, with so much "exporting" fuzz (and really not experienced on it) to 11 countries just at once - in the mean time helping everybody as good as we can here with just that
- me arranging for this all and in between some lines testing SPDIF input (didn't work well) as well as SPDIF output (all OK) ... some DACs could have left yesterday. Still they did not, why ?
We run into a problem we just *never* expected. And, because you will never have heard of it, you just as well might not believe it. Still it is so ...
Yesterday at 12am or so the first unit rolled from the band so to speak. Another due an hour later, and so on. What would be left are measurements, and assuming that would be allright, the only thing left would be the SPDIF-Out - really not to do earlier, may something be the matter. Well ...
Something WAS the matter; I was looking at things (through measurement) I never saw before. After two hours I gave up, and since in the mean time the next unit was ready, I took that one. And, exactly the same !
Maybe slightly better, but nothing to call the shipper for. So, obviously I didn't.
On a side note : all land transport has to be called for on day 1, and it is collected at day 2 (hence the next day). Money for air transport wasn't in yet (which can collect the same day when early enough) so I thought to awaiten today (which is Friday, and no shipments will be collected on Saturdays).
What I saw from measurements looked "dangerous" to me, but I decided to leave on DAC one for the remainder of the day, shut it off for the night, and lastly it was switched back on again first thing this morning.
At 10am I picked up measuring again and wonder oh wonder, it was close to right, but still was not quite. Seeing that we put the remaining ready DACs under power (3 I think at that moment) and for the remainder of the day we denoted the times next ready DACs were put under power.
As it is right now we have 2 DACs which I would send out blindly, but the remaining still not. Btw, the latter includes the second one mentioned above, which is quite allright but not on par.
So, what do we have here ? a sheer case of burning in needed, which looks so severe that no measurements can be done - SO BAD.
Btw, I lastly measured one which was under power for 4 hours, this time watched the figures closely just to mention it to you, and distortion is 4% while it should be under 0.0015%. So you see, how can I know whether the end result will be around that 0.0015% or that it maybe stops at 0.005% when it won't be shipped at all ?
As said, two measure allright at this moment (being on for 12 hours at least), and for the remainder we really must wait until tomorrow. And only then it may turn out that something is wrong afterall (like probably that "second one" mentioned -> good figures but not the best noise figures in that case).
Maybe I owe you an explanation why this was never noticed before ...
Well, each time a new PSU (pcb) arrived, DAC the same, everything, I always built over the capacitors. Because as you can expect, I can't live with poor sound for a small month for, say, professional reasons. Also, never more than one part regarding this was changed at any one time, and whether only one is doing this to us, or all of them add up ? we really don't know. The only thing I do know is that apparently this is so, and we just have to wait for it ...
Fot those units ready next Sunday, the shipper will be called on that day, and things will be collected on Monday. This means Tuesday all will ship really (unless Air which will ship on Monday itself), and I didn't see transit times longer than 3 days ...
One last thing may happen : the export documents towards the shipper may cause problems. Why this ? because there is no way to test it dry, so once it is Sunday and all will be brought in in "some" digital system and problems arise ... no one to help at that moment.
I guess all needs a first time, and for us this is one or two of these occasions.
I hope you will except my personal apologizes, especially handed to those who were fast with the money transfer. Luckily most take their time for it, which only may give us some extra time when needed.
Thank you,
Peter
PS: If all goes as should, tomorrow 3 DACs should be ready for those 3 who were about to collect. But at this moment there really are 2. So I can't promise anything. One thing though : I would think twice anyway. At this moment (8:50 pm) there are still 24 queues with an average length of more than 20 kilometers, people probably spending the night on the highway. And it keeps on snowing.
Travel times of over 2 hours per 4 kilomter have been reported ...
