Neurochrome HP-1

Discussion in 'Headphone Amplifiers and Combo (DAC/Amp) Units' started by Cspirou, Oct 26, 2016.

  1. Cspirou

    Cspirou They call me Sparky

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    It's like installing a motherboard. No clue on why casing it is so expensive.
     
  2. Hrodulf

    Hrodulf Prohibited from acting as an MOT until year 2050

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    It's a regular price for a custom anodised, milled and printed case in small quantities. Again - expect some premium for design work. With that said, casing is a major PITA. Especially for board mounted components where alignment is critical.
     
  3. Cspirou

    Cspirou They call me Sparky

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    Well I was talking about the way he prices his fully assembled PCB, chassis and complete product; not the price of his customized chassis.

    Assembled PCB - $850
    Chassis - $200
    Finished product - $1499

    That's a $450 difference for putting it in the case, or the price of 2 PCBs. Normally I don't really question some pricing decisions but this seems weird. Not saying there isn't some skill involved but I would think most people visiting his site are DIY types and would rather insert the PCB themselves. Of course the only thing available to buy is the assembled unit so maybe this is a temp price until everything else is in stock.
     
  4. chakku

    chakku Friend

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    $70USD at minimum to ship the chassis and populated PCB to NZ.

    [​IMG]
     
  5. ultrabike

    ultrabike Measurbator - Admin

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    Welcome Tom! \/

    (Sorry about or pricing rants. Your can amp is too cool and my piggy bank not as mighty as I would like it to be.)
     
  6. tomchr

    tomchr MOT - Neurochrome

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    My ears have been burning from all this talk behind my back... :) I'm Tom, the owner and operator of Neurochrome and designer of the HP-1. I was invited to participate on this forum (thanks for that) and this is my first post here. I hope you'll let me address some of the questions that have popped up in this thread thus far.

    First allow me to give you a primer on my background. My interest in electronics started around age five. By the time I started in high school, I was repairing radios and TVs, and was employed by the high school as an electronics tech. I earned my BSc.EE from the Engineering College of Copenhagen and my MSc.EE from the University of Washington in Seattle. I was three years into a PhD in electrical engineering, not really getting anywhere with it, when I was offered an internship with National Semiconductor and decided to join the corporate world. I spent my first two years at National in the Precision Amplifiers Group, where I designed the LMP2021 opamp among other things. Following a reorganization, I ended up in the Precision Timing Group where I designed various precision clocking circuits (oscillators with -160 dBc noise floor, for example) and precision biasing circuits for use in the various clocking chips. These biasing circuits are basically extremely high end voltage regulators and amplifiers that operate in the audio band and beyond (in some cases DC-100MHz or DC-1GHz). Precision is my life. As many of you probably know, National was acquired by Texas Instruments in 2012 and I hung on for three years after that. In 2015 I had the opportunity to move to Canada and try out another hobby of mine, psychology. I am a full-time student at the University of Calgary working on a BA in psychology.
    I started Neurochrome in 2010 as a "let's see if this works" kinda thing. I was making some circuit boards for myself and figured others would like to buy some as well. I threw the noodles at the wall and they stuck. I kicked the business into high gear around 2014 in anticipation of leaving TI in 2015. Neurochrome is now my only source of income and it does pay the bills, though only barely so. My bills are pretty low too.

    So that's me. Now to your questions and concerns. Pricing: I deliver state of the art circuits. That costs money. To characterize the performance of my products, I use an Audio Precision APx525 ($12500), which I own. I use various other pieces of test equipment as well which I had to purchase and pay for. There's the cost of development. Software isn't free. Neither are components. Small scale PCB manufacturing, in particular of 4-layer boards, is rather expensive. So I have real costs that I need to get covered. I have to pay taxes like everybody else. Oh, and I don't work for free. Nor do I think I should. State of the art circuit design does not happen overnight and with my prices as low as they are, I am not making anywhere close to minimum wage. If money was my main objective, I would be far better off working for someone else.

    Rather than comparing my products with whatever you find at Best Buy, I suggest comparing my product with a custom made boutique product. You will find my products very reasonably priced, if not downright inexpensive. My business is very low volume, thus, the margin needs to be high in order to sustain the business. That's a fact of life. I don't buy the argument that if the parts cost $100 then the finished product should cost no more than $100. That's not a business. That's a hobby. Would you walk into the Ferrari dealership and demand they sell you their flagship product for the cost of materials? Probably not...

    Pricing II: $850 + $200 = $1499 (or $2200). Yeah. That's stupid. I caught that the other night but haven't decided what the pricing should be. Pricing isn't my forte. Maybe I should increase the price of the assembled board to $1800.... ;) Based on performance, I think $2k+ is a fair price for this amp. I'm willing to put it on sale at $1499 until I get some traction in the market.

    Now about the circuit. As noted a few pages back, the HP-1 uses the OPA1612 for the differential receiver and input buffer. Input selection and gain selection is accomplished by Kemet relays with gold plated switch contacts. The headphone output stage is an LME49600 in a composite loop with an OPA1611. The composite amp has a built-in compensation network which ensures stellar performance even with heavy capacitive loads (long headphone cables). It'll drive up to 22 nF || 300 Ω. That's close to 1 km of headphone cable. That aught to do it... :) I have seen OPA1611+LME49600 amps from other vendors. I wonder if they noticed that it'll oscillate at load capacitances in the 100-500 pF range (common cable capacitance). You need that compensation circuit... To minimize DC on the output of the amp, an OPA2140 provides a third order DC servo for an output DC offset below 100 µV. I chose a 3rd order servo to ensure a fast settling time while not impacting the THD at 20 Hz. The servo settles in about 30 seconds. The HP-1 needs no further warm-up than that.
    There are no capacitors in the signal path as the HP-1 is DC coupled. Should any part of the amp or any circuitry upstream of the amp fail resulting in DC on the output, the built-in protection circuit will disable the output. Also, in the event of power supply failure where one rail collapses, the other rail will be shut off. The final feature of the protection circuit is that it provides a turn-on delay, thus, eliminating turn-on and turn-off thumps in your headphones.

    I hope this answers most of your questions.

    Thanks,

    Tom
     
  7. tomchr

    tomchr MOT - Neurochrome

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    The shipping prices are provided live by Canada Post. I pass them directly to you, including the "commercial" discount I get. Perhaps you could write Canada Post and let them know you don't like their prices...

    Tom
     
  8. tomchr

    tomchr MOT - Neurochrome

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    Thank you. The pricing rants are to be expected. People are used to getting stuff for free with free shipping on eBay. Sorry. Can't compete with that. Not on price anyway. I choose to compete on service and quality instead.

    Tom
     
  9. MisterRogers

    MisterRogers Ethernet Nervosa

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    Hey Tom. Really glad to see you on the forum. I'm pretty far along in a DG300B; I have a question or two I will send you in the next day or so. Either way I can attest – that Tom's work is first rate. I'm enjoying my building immensely and look forward to lighting it up sometime in the next few weeks. This looks like an interesting next build.
     
  10. ultrabike

    ultrabike Measurbator - Admin

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    [​IMG]

    I propose to use this thread to address any questions and impressions regarding the HP-1 similar to this other Thread:

    http://www.superbestaudiofriends.org/index.php?threads/ecp-torpedo-iii-indexed-in-first-post.434/

    Build questions and specifics may easily be addressed here.

    Possible to start a separate thread for the DG300B in a similar fashion to keep things in order.

    Again, welcome @tomchr :)
     
  11. Cspirou

    Cspirou They call me Sparky

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    As far as pricing goes I don't think anyone was questioning the worth, just the price if that makes sense. A 3 star chef puts a lot of work into his meal with a $200 price tag but it's still $200 for lunch. All your justifications are valid and make sense and there is no need to lower your prices, but it's still expensive and we like to talk. Which is all I have to say about that.

    Welcome to the forum!!
     
  12. ultrabike

    ultrabike Measurbator - Admin

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    So currently the price for the fully assembled product is $850 w/o chassis, correct?

    BTW guyses, the shipping for the fully assembled product w/o the chassis all the way to my home (SoCal) is $14 the cheapest. That's obviously not a problem. (NZ might be a bit more problematic though.)
     
  13. Cspirou

    Cspirou They call me Sparky

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    If enough people are interested I think I could organize an SBAF group buy for PCBs. Although this still seems like a really difficult project with all the surface mount components, but people like the challenge.
     
  14. bazelio

    bazelio Friend

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    @tomchr great to have you here. :) Looks like it's backordered, but I went ahead and sent in an order for the HP-1 chassis + board. Should be a fun project and I'll start brushing up on my SMD soldering skills in the meantime.
     
  15. bazelio

    bazelio Friend

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    Done. :)

    Once I actually get around to building it, I'll send it down to you for a listen.
     
  16. ultrabike

    ultrabike Measurbator - Admin

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    :punk:
     
  17. Cspirou

    Cspirou They call me Sparky

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    @tomchr - I got a load of questions

    What headphones have you tried this with?
    Can you use it with IEMs?
    At max volume do you hear any noise?
    Will this unit be available at any headphone meetups/canjams to tryout?
    You mentioned getting a BA in psych, will your next project plug directly into the brain?
    Will you be using EEG for feedback?
    What opamp is best for EEG feedback?
    Why did you go with an SMPS instead of LPS?
     
  18. Cspirou

    Cspirou They call me Sparky

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    Son of a bitch! Now I have to moderate my own thread?! Good thing I like everyone here
     
  19. tomchr

    tomchr MOT - Neurochrome

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    I see your order and have confirmed via email. Thank you very much! I really appreciate your repeat business.

    Yeah... The boards are backordered. :oops: Given the manufacturing cost of the board, I didn't want to order a whole bunch up front. I am very confident in my skills, but I also know that I'm human and humans sometimes make mistakes. Ya know. Risk mitigation and all that jazz. I'll have more boards in about 2.5 weeks and will take the opportunity of the board spin to improve a few things in the protection circuit.

    Focal Utopia.
    Sennheiser HD-650, HD-600, HD-580.
    Hifiman HE1000, HE560 (and another model whose number escape me at the moment).
    Etymotic ER-4

    Absolutely. Works great with my Etymotic ER-4.

    No.

    If there's a HeadFi meet in Edmonton this year, I'll be there. I was at the Calgary meet two weeks ago. I'll be at The Audio Room in Calgary (1347 12th AVE SW) this Tuesday (Nov. 1st) 4-8pm for the Focal listening event. I'll aim to be there by 4pm, but may slip slightly. I should be there by 5pm for sure, amp in hand.

    Now there's an idea!! :)

    Cognitive psychology has been an eye-opener for me. It's interesting with the various cognitive biases and our decision-making processes. Anyone interested in this topic should read, "Predictably Irrational" by Dan Ariely.

    Switchers provide state of the art performance. They are available world wide. Because I use a switcher, I can offer an ultra-high end amp that will work on international mains voltages. You really should reverse the question: Why would anybody use a linear power supply? To provide sappy marketing copy? Nostalgia? Maybe reliability. Maybe... Switchers are pretty darn reliable.
    With my DG300B I painted myself into a corner pretty badly. That design requires a lot of different voltages and I wanted to use just one (1) mains transformer. There is exactly one (1) transformer in the world that can power the DG300B. Guess how much it is to ship to Europe? So basically my sales are limited to North America. There are a few European builders of the circuit. They've either had a custom transformer made for the amp or eaten the shipping cost of the transformer from the US to the EU. I didn't want to go down that rabbit hole with the HP-1.
    In summary: I chose an SMPS for reasons of performance, parts availability, and ease of use.

    Tom
     
  20. Cspirou

    Cspirou They call me Sparky

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    I can see that although I don't believe you would have run into the same problem with a solid state headphone amp. Tube amps are special and require really high voltages that most appliances don't have to deal with. I presume your amp has +/- 24V rails which is something fairly common anywhere in the world.

    Not that I have anything against SMPS. I have a project now with it and I am even planning a tube project using a high voltage SMPS. Which BTW, I think there is some interest in a HV SMPS module for tubes as well as a high frequency filament supply if you ever run out of ideas. ;)
     

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