MD x Airist x Sosolar: RDAC design mysteries

Discussion in 'Digital: DACs, USB converters, decrapifiers' started by bimmer100, Jun 5, 2018.

  1. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    TBH, Airist never across well to me before, with the "dudes from MIT, Harvard, Columbia with know-how in quantum boogers, vibranium, and stealth technologies, etc." spiel*.

    I had a few people screen the Heron amp first so it didn't have to go to me. (Too much to do, I dont want to waste my time on crap.) Then out of nowhere, Massdrop gets this Airist RDAC prototype to a friend's place where I first heard it. It was kind of weird, because it sounded good.

    Maybe jumping to conclusions, but things are making more sense now.

    *Seriously, with those credentials, you make six figures+ with Lockheed or gov't funded academia instead of cutting deals with Massdrop. Audio is old tech and easy... well it relies on trial-and-error, iterative development, and good ears (and measurements).
     
    Last edited: Jun 5, 2018
  2. Baten

    Baten Friend

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    *grabs popcorn* etc. Hoping for the best though, I was very likely to pre-order this one after reading the, so far really good reviews (previews?) here so far.
     
  3. rlow

    rlow A happy woofer

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    @Vtory your Spidey-sense (Spock-sense??) on this one seems uncanny. Trying not to jump to conclusions on this one, but man this doesn’t look good. Too bad because this DAC sounded pretty amazing for the price. Too good to be true perhaps.
     
  4. Gofspar

    Gofspar Facebook Friend

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    If I remember right the Heron 5 had a $1,999 launch price, sounded like flaming dogshit next to a Ragnarok, hell even a jot
    Wouldn't surprise me if he had nothing to do with this DAC.
    best part of the heron 5 was the illuminated knob
     
  5. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Would have been funny if the Heron was based on some boards for sale on eBay.
     
  6. Soups

    Soups Sadomasochistic cat

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    Probably not this simple, but if a ripoff has occurred, I hope they can find some way to give the original designer credit and a good cut of the loot, and actually release it so that something so nice and affordable comes to market. And then MD will be free to never work with Airist Audio ever again*. PS - i'm assuming they're innocent until proven guilty.

    *ASIDE: Maybe a similar approach could've been taken with that Roseanne show. Kill off racist Roseanne in the first episode of the next season (by ambien overdose), which makes all the SJW's happy, and then finish the season so that every non-racist person employed by the show gets some time to figure out the next thing rather than take the abrupt nut kick.
     
    Last edited: Jun 5, 2018
  7. willsw

    willsw Friend

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    The Heron's most memorable attribute was the huge price drop that happened. The drop made sense if you think about a product initially priced to make profit through distribution and then re-priced at Massdrop's slightly lower than average margin with a bit less extra built in, but in a luxury goods industry based on perception, they should have just kept the original.

    That nifty little custom-logo FPGA chip could be the key to this. How much of the DAC is the programming? If you use the same components in the same layout but change the programming, can it be considered (reasonably and not just technically) to be an original product with a layout directly inspired by another product?

    Legally, if there's no patent or copyright or anything, I believe that as long as it can be argued that no one would mistake the Airist DAC for the Hibiki, there's no problem, and Airist could even buy the actual Hibiki boards and use them. This might not be accurate, though. I had to deal with a situation similar to this a while ago.
     
  8. Gofspar

    Gofspar Facebook Friend

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    It's a CPLD, it's basically a mega cutdown FPGA. I doubt they're doing anything crazy with it.
     
  9. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    As with @Torq, the interesting thing about the "prototype" is that it was a bare board. My friend had to provide a makeshift power supply, hence the battery. The prototype took 12V. The RDAC takes 5.3V in, but I am not sure if the motherboard does anything else to the power before the DAC module. The Airist prototype board (not pictured here) did have Airist printed on it.

    Here is a side by side comparison of the DAC boards. Sosolar on left. MD x Airist on right.
    RDAC.jpg
     
    Last edited: Jun 5, 2018
  10. Elnrik

    Elnrik Super Friendly

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    Wait... Let me see if I have this straight. A company from China is upset that someone blatantly used their design (allegedly) to produce a product in the US (allegedly) without licensing or purchasing the rights (allegedly)?

    Great! Turn about is fair play! China can't bitch about something like this when they have been ignoring international copyright laws for decades.


    And...
    https://www.google.com/search?q=chinese+copyright+infringement+cases&oq=chinese+copyright
    And...
    https://www.elevationlab.com/blogs/news/amazon-is-complicit-with-counterfeit-sellers
    Etc...
     
    Last edited: Jun 5, 2018
  11. direstraitsfan98

    direstraitsfan98 D2Girls v2.0

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    Is it a company or a lone person? I was under the impression that sosoft was just one man and he had posted the boards he made on a diy forum. Regardless if he's got patents he can can go after MD still.
     
  12. willsw

    willsw Friend

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    Overlay!

    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
     
  13. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    One part of me really wants to say tough titties to Sosolar because of IP theft from China and the Communist Party intentionally not wanting to do anything about it (they never have and they never will). On the other hand, we as Americans have to be better than that. Once we go down that road, our mindset changes and becomes more like that of the people whose actions we despise.

    I hope Airist has a good explanation.
     
    Last edited: Jun 5, 2018
  14. bazelio

    bazelio Friend

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    LOL this is awesome. So they swapped 0402 for 0201 or thereabouts and made some additional board revisions in the way of minor additional components. Pretty hard to do without the original Gerber files. Did the Chinese guy make those publically available without copyright too or did he make the revisions and send out 100s of unpopulated PCBs without caring how they'd be used? And then how did he just happen to find his design on the US Massdrop site within mere hours of the drop without any supposed previous knowledge it was being reused? This is great!
     
  15. Torq

    Torq MOT: Headphone.com

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    It's more like this ...
     
  16. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    My guess is millions and billions of Chinese scouring the Internet. They do have active DIY and audiophile forums.
     
  17. Vtory

    Vtory Audiophile™

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    In my perception, there are two parts in this "interesting" drama.

    One is of course legal or at least ethical aspect. Maybe a popcorn story.. Basically I agree with @purr1n . Let me paraphrase: We as SBAF-ers have to behave better than whoever we hate (am*r, ju*e, Chinese copy cats, ...).

    The other is related to my original concern. Even if rdac is a clone or modified clone (let's assume so for convenience), Does Mr Tse (or his colleagues) really understand what he (or they) is doing technically? Weird measurements can happen and may not be that problematic as @ultrabike already explained. But want to know whether every such thing is exactly as intended or not. I have no doubt at least review units sounded good. But suspect they just happened to sound nice (without careful and/or grounded calibrations).
     
    Last edited: Jun 5, 2018
  18. JustAnotherRando

    JustAnotherRando My other bike is a Ferrari

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    It's deceptively easy to just say this is an entire culture ripping off another. Airist appears to be a handful of people based in the US, and Sosolar appears to be an individual. This isn't a Chinese state backed enterprise here. Or even a private company. It sounds like one enthusiast.

    And even if it were legal, it wouldn't necessarily be ethical.
     
    Last edited: Jun 5, 2018
  19. 9suns

    9suns [insert unearned title here]

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    Even if it sounds like the best thing on earth, I would never buy a rip-off, I don't support disrespectful business practices.
    I'm sure Airist audio will have some interesting things to say (if they say something), but I don't care, so many similarities can't be an "unforntunate coincidence".
     
  20. rshuck

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