Have you ever spoken with a designer or audio engineer


I'll never forget I was doing an audio banquet some years past. At my table were 2 audio engineers. At the banquet they had a lottery for audio accessories. I happen to win a power cord from a fairly well known companies. One of the engineers laughed when I was showing it to people at my table. He said power cords are totally hocus pouch and there is no scientific studies proving there any better than stock cords. He said there basically made for insecure audiophiles. I had mentioned I already had some after markets cords in my system and they definitely made an improvement. He just laughed and said a sucker is born everyday in the audiophile world.


Now the guy I am talking about isn't some unknown schlub. He works for one of the biggest high-end companies in the world and is fairly well known. In fact some people think he is a great designer of audio equipment. I have only talked to a couple of audio engineers in my life and they were both skeptical.  I wonder if this is common among engineers and designers?
taters

There may be one---I'm sure Roger would prefer the owner of the Music Reference RM-9 that sent the amp in for repair (a result of the eight $49 Hi-Fi Tuning fuses the owner had installed on the output power tubes in the amp not performing as they should but don't---the very reason for Roger's warning about them) had spent spend the $400 ($400---on fuses?!) on more MR product rather than the fuses! Then there was the approximately $400 in replacement tubes and $350 to repair the amp, all because the Hi-Fi Tuning Fuses failed to act in the manner they are supposed to---to blow when they need to, the very reason for fuses. If you want a power amp without fused tubes, buy an Audio Research!

The design and construction of the Hi-Fi Tuning fuse prevents it from performing it's intended function when put in the signal path of an output power tube. And what's worse, the manufacturer does not appear to be aware of what performance characteristics a fuse must possess to make it appropriate for that application! That's all Roger's warning was about---very simple. If that's not of interest or significance to you, you're free to ignore the warning. But to impugn Roger Modjeski's intentions?

Difficult to say what happened in the case you described.  But it sounds like operator error. In any case it would appear to be an isolated case; if this problem with amps blowing up were systemic I'm pretty confident we would be hearing about it all over the Internet.
Bdp24......Roger Modjeski, apparently a polarizing figure here.....
:^)
I wonder why so polarizing ?
taken from Page 2 - RM10 owners manual - Roger’s design section.

My design career began at age 11 when I built my first 3 tube, class A single ended amplifier. I still have the thing that is capable of about 3 watts. Its description reads like a $5000 amplifier that the high-end magazines might cover today. Should I send it in for review ?


LOL - hah hah hah ...

Bdp24
There may be one---I’m sure Roger would prefer the owner of the Music Reference RM-9 that sent the amp in for repair (a result of the eight $49 Hi-Fi Tuning fuses the owner had installed on the output power tubes in the amp not performing as they should but don’t---the very reason for Roger’s warning about them) had spent spend the $400 ($400---on fuses?!) on more MR product rather than the fuses!

Regarding the discusses of any Axes to Grind in regards to these Fuses ?

I will say that those that understand to a certain level Roger’s past history; and it is easy to discover. Just read the RM10 owners manual design section; know that he is big into reliability, and can’t stand products that fail prematurely. Now everyone has button/s that if you push, cause a reaction. Someone defeating Roger’s amp’s design to cause failure may have been a button.

Ok now you guys made me pull out my RM10 manual again :^)

Some verbage from just pages 2 -3.

After installing my select brand of low noise resistors as applied in the critical sections of your rm10, the noise faded into oblivion. Many of the current audiophile resistors are chosen on the basis of their high price or exotic materials. Often by people who do not understand noise mechanisms. Their makers are often concerned with precision and other characteristics that non-audio related applications require . I have not found low noise to be one of them. Lesson two, expensive resistors are not always the best.

Around 1964 my interest and the industry’s turned to the new miracle transistors. I, in my basement shop, and the giants of the industry both did our best to design good sounding amplifiers with these new devices and we all failed.

When a 15 year old kid has to redesign flaws out of a professional product, something is wrong, or maybe something is right and is inspiring me to make better designs. I also had no idea at that time what a manufacturer had to go through to get a product out at a price with good service.

On the bench I saw what every amplifier designer before me has seen. crank up the tube current and the distortion goes down. Sadly tube life goes down faster than the distortion.


did I already say - I really like his sense of humor ?

His polarizing personality aside, I am not into buying audio products to make my friends happy. Once the product comes through my door it becomes mine, including any problems that might come up. The last thing I want to do is ship a product from Canada to California for repair. Unless its January and I am along for the ride. Again.. as to whether there are any axes to grind in this case...with the Fuses.... who knows... I just ask those reading this thread to think about something.

When someone puts this much detail, effort and focus on the type of fuse that goes into his amps.

What is that saying about the actual amp’s design, detail, execution ?
I too would wonder why Roger elicits such animosity from some audiophiles, Chris, but your quotes from the RM-10 manual reminded me! He does not bow down at the altar of high end boutique parts. I believe it is as simple as that. In an interview, Tim de Paravicini of EAR-Yoshino was asked whether or not he was a "tweak", and he responded vigorously that he most certainly was not, he was too much of a professional engineer to be so. Roger and Tim seem to be able to make excellent sounding electronics with garden-variety parts, but designers/manufactures who use boutique parts do so too. But you're right Chris, Roger takes reliability very seriously. He started his career fixing broken electronics, and learned all the wrong ways to design and build an amp!
I repeat, from earlier in the thread,

"Amp designers are the worst, Jerry, the worst! They are at least two paradigm shifts behind the power curve. Sad, really. It comes from putting blind faith in audio circuits and being close minded to any other way of thinking. Happens all the time."

seasons greetings
Haven't personally talked with an engineer, but I did write a letter to Jack Renner (of Telarc Records fame) asking why he used different ADS monitor speakers, and B&W speakers. He wrote a nice reply, stating that when recording in Europe, their engineer there preferred B & W speakers. As far as ADS, they were using L1530's and L1590's at the time, and I was curious as to why. He replied that they liked the 1530 very much, but were looking for something newer. The 1590 was a bit lacking in low bass, and he said they were looking at using a subwoofer. He was very cordial and pleasant. I still have that letter!