On Sun, 16 Aug 2009 09:32:22 +0100, Jim Lesurf wrote:

In article , David Looser
wrote:
"Eeyore" wrote in message
...

Perhaps you'd like to explain exactly how the techniques you have
used to ensure unconditional stability are an improvement on those
used by Jim in his designs for Armstrong.

(a) I don't have the time.

(b) It's commercially confidential.

Yeah, yeah. Excuses excuses.

Going off a tangent: I must admit I found (b) above quite interesting/
amusing. There does seem to have been a trend in recent decades for makers
and desigers to feel that physics and engineering can somehow be kept
'secret'.

A few decades ago makers of items like hifi amps and tuners where happy to
let users have circuit diagrams and explain to people how their equipment
worked. They were proud of what they had built, and wanted to explain its
ingenuity. Indeed, in my exprience they generally felt that open
discussions with other engineers about what they had done would help
everyone to improve. And they had the confidence that they would have new
ideas and improve as they learned.

More recently there has been a tendency to treat circuitry as being a
'commercial secret', perhaps even extending to behaviour like removing the
printing from some components so others can't read the part numbers. I
even read reports some time ago of a well-known designer putting ball
bearings into the potting of his output transfomers to stop anyone opening
them up to see what he had done.

Afraid that to me this behaviour seems to betray a lack of confidence in
their work, and in their ability to have newer or better ideas later on,
perhaps even almost paranoia in extreme cases. It seems odd to me as it
seems like a belief that others are frantic to 'steal' their 'idea',
rather than being quite capable of doing things for themself. Perhaps in
some cases a form of self-flattery to think others would need to do so.

I have often wondered if this obsession with 'secrecy' over matters which
could usually be uncovered *if* some other skilled engineer with resources
*wanted* to reverse-engineer what had been done is a factor in the growth
of 'snake oil' as it feeds ignorance amongst users and may help
technobabble to flourish.

Perhaps this is a factor in the way users have been led to treat some
designers and makers as 'magicians' who practice a magic art beyond the
ability of mere mortals to understand.

When I worked in audio I and other designers at other companies quite
happily exchanged ideas, and loaned circuits to each other. I guess it may
be very different now. If so, it may well impede the education of some
designers as they will find help from their peers harder to obtain.


My personal view is that if you buy something, then it is yours, and with
that you should be entitled to have the info to allow you to understand
how it works or alter it if you so prefer. So in another area my
preference for Linux and the approach of its community to software. And in
electronics, a wish for full technical onfo on any item I might want to
buy/use. Perhaps this is the 'academic' in me wanting to understand
things. Maybe it is that I object to being told, "we want your money, but
you can only use the item, not be allowed to try and understand how it
works." I've had various items of 'consumer equipment' which have broken
and are then impractical to repair as the makers won't release info or
parts. So there may also be what seems like a scam here to me, causing
repairable or improvable items to end up as landfill.

I wonder how many computers will end up as landfill as a result of people
feeling "Must have Windows 7 to follow everyone else"?...

...but that is well OT. :-)


So coming back on topic, the above does rather support my wondering if all
current/recent amplifiers are as good as they *could* be if their
designers/ makers were more open, and less fearful of others being able to
study what they had done.

Slainte,

Jim

I've seen instances where builders have rubbed off component markings.
They are not very common though. What I'd like to say is this, I think
that design today is more about fashion than practicality. Looks and form
over function. You can see it everywhere.