Does it annoy you when companies don't show the internals of electronics ?

They have no legal basis to cancel the warranty and it becomes a small claims court case, already decided by law, in your favor.

At least in Canada.

A box seal or a ’warranty void if sticker removed’, carries no legal weight in Canada.

The government of Canada decided long ago, that people are allowed to look inside their electronics or washer or TV, with no ill being capable of being laid upon them, via the source company.

There are exceptions and it’s in the area of a gas furnace or whatnot. Where a license is required to mess with the guts.

Taking the cover off, though, only (on the given item). Messing with the innards becomes a problem, for all the right reasons.

Deciding the line of looking vs teardown/disassembly becomes the issue, if any, in the given small claims court, or civil claim.

eg, it is very likely that Merril’s ’no look inside’ warranty is invalid in Canada. AFAIK...legally unsupportable and contrary to Canadian law regarding consumer protections and rights.

Source: tech training in repair and electronics work via schooling/courses/degrees in Canada regarding following the law in repair and design/build. Or..said another way.....the information comes via government documents that explain the real world of the legal aspects of the laws, within in-situ context ----as dealt with in degree courses/instructional classes.

I suspect that US law is similar, but I don’t know for sure.

Apologies, but.. (nothing personal, I’m just having a bit of fun and overstating my case)

That is when art finally overtakes all sensibility in design and just... ruins it.

Worse than a Bugatti Chiron as a ’transformer’ styled monster truck.

I have no words for the sum total seen. Almost speechless. (almost)

Like a train wreck liberally sprayed with poorly glitzified low budget dead hookers.

Like a mack truck crankshaft built out of previously happy now dead butterflies, just cuz it looks cool.

It may be an interesting design, visually, in some ways... sorta..kinda... and a few design points of it are ok regarding ’best’ function, but mostly, just plain off. way... way..... off.

Art shoulda been left at the curb on this one.

Apologies to the designer. See encyclopedic entries on the word ’kitsch’ and how to not do things. See engineering of audio equipment for best quality and attend classes. Please learn something.

I wish I could say more nice-nice. But it’s wrong. It’s all wrong. Eg, a $200 used Arcam alpha integrated is going to be more honest and correct in reproducing music.

mahgister4,166 posts01-22-2021 12:40am

Lots of failure points ..

I think you are right even if i am interested by this product...

My actual NOS dac is minimalistic.... I chose it for this reason and the price...Correct me if i am wrong but the noise level of a minimalistic design may help or compensate in some measure for the lack of sophistication.... I am very satisfied by my actual dac anyway.... But the denafrips has glowing reviews indeed...

I am pretty sure that you know more than me about dac by the way..... 😁

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The array of resistors is not likely to fail. No thermal stressing. They are central to the design goals or reasons for the DAC being made. In some manner or another, they have to be there. I would do it slightly differently, but that is neither here nor there, regarding basic operational functionality.

Nothing wrong with the resistor array, per se. And we’ve not heard much about failures, have we?

The capacitor arrays, though..could be better considered and better done. But opinions and thinking vary, and that’s a good thing, even if it may grind some.

Too much dogmatic thinking leads to what is eventually circular or curved motions and nothing gets done. There’s no ability to correct the arrow of science when dogma projects control onto science. A place it should not be. Rigor and method? Sure, but dogmatic laws? No.


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To be clear (and ramble...), this point is about ’science’. Not ’engineering’--which is a thing that operates under the umbrella of dogma in it’s fundamentals. people get them confused with one another all the time.

Eg, even Elon Musk decided to address that point about two weeks back (via twitter). That is he not a rocket scientist, he’s a rocket engineer. To clarify that there is no such thing as a rocket scientist. Like bridges, you don’t build rockets with ’theories’. You build rockets with facts, as they are tough enough already! Research: "The tyranny of the rocket equation." Space is hard because rockets are barely viable.

Scientists work with theories, which can change, they are mutable, correctable, changeable, amenable to new data, new hypothesis, new projections.... and then to proof them out. to make ’facts’. things that are ’relatively constant’, as... We don’t’ know. We never have known. We logically cannot know.. We can only theorize. Facts don’t exist, only theories exist. The quantum riddle of reality is writ large across science.

But.. to attempt scientific rigor...To make ’facts’ (math, formulas, constants, etc), for the bulk of humanity which possesses dogmatic minds. For the engineers..as engineers work with facts. To make safe functional ’things’. If engineers begin to experiment to gain new ground... then they are acting like scientists, in some regards. 

Note how ubiquitous that the term ’rocket scientist’ has become. It’s a total misnomer. Fundamentally incorrect. It illustrates how much people project and filter in permanence (some mindsets) or as 'dogma' in their fundamental thinking processes. A hugely damaging innate slowing/blocking filter in the progression of science.

Dogmatic thinking is innate to the concept of space-time and atomic aggregates, as we know it... or innate to how we filter ourselves into being... though the mechanism of mind... as tied to the atomic reality and relativity we live collectively in and though. (the animal basis and side of the fundamentals/projection of 'human consciousness' in the relative world and relative reality) 

Science says the same as the sex pistols regarding too much dogmatic mindset trying to control and corrupt science: 'No future, no future'....