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MrChiSox
My little room work in progress.
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RNT47
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MusicLvr
Drop x Campfire Audio Darkstar Review
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And people talking about "valid patents" on diy designs are driving me nuts.
And one with a little more detail and background: http://www.onmyphd.com/?p=voltage.regulators.linear.series
Although it is the most visible, the top board is not the only part of the RDAC. DACs using the same delta-sigma chip are not all the same, nor are DACs using the same basic R-2R topology the same. From the side angle photos of the RDAC you can see some of the circuitry underneath for handling the power, digital input selection and decoding, as well as our digital signal processing and clocking mechanisms, etc. These circuits define the RDAC as much if not more than the top board, both in terms of sound signature and design time and effort.
Has nobody from massdrop responded to this? (Would be indicative of the times and not at all in a good way.)
If not that is truly shameful,, as are the poleoole who knowingly signed up anyway.
I suggest you hit them hard enough to wake them up if nobody has addressed this by now.
Good luck. My massdrop participation tiny though it is hangs in the balance of this issue.
https://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#102 102. Subject matter of copyright: In general28 (a) Copyright protection subsists, in accordance with this title, in original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression, now known or later developed, from which they can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a machine or device. Works of authorship include the following categories: (1) literary works; (2) musical works, including any accompanying words; (3) dramatic works, including any accompanying music; (4) pantomimes and choreographic works; (5) pictorial, graphic, and sculptural works; (6) motion pictures and other audiovisual works; (7) sound recordings; and (8) architectural works.
(b) In no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work.
They're not from the gerbers, as some of the traces are positioned differently, and some components are different packages/footprints, etc, but the layout appears to be too similar to happen purely by virtue of optimizing the same topology. I'll tell you right now, if I had drawn this board and was using 0603 resistors instead of the 0805 on sosolar's version, I would have ended up with a much smaller board, and almost inevitably, many other parts would be oriented or positioned differently.
My guess is that someone either had the PCB sources, and made the changes and tweaks as they wanted, or more likely, they just sat down with a PCB and redrew it, with all the positioning the same.
Or think about it from a business point of view. The moment sosolar litigates the entire shipment will be held at custom until the case cleared in court right? Now MD can't deliver which will lead to unhappy customers. Right?
Well you can say that the other way too.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/news.artnet.com/art-world/cave-paintings-neanderthals-1230620/amp-page
Patent infringement is another matter, but R2R ladder DACs have been around for decades, and are not patentable. Something must be new technology and involve and "inventive step" to be patentable, amongst other things. And, any patent that might have existed on R2R DAC topology would've expired long ago.
Quit being armchair attorneys and enjoy the product. Nothing improper has been done here.
Does anyone here who is complaining use an Android smartphone? If so, you're being hypocritical.
To sosolar, differentiate your product via marketing, make improvements to your design to stay one step ahead of Massdrop/Airist, or come up with something new that qualifies and get a patent. This is how competition benefits us all.
As for me, I hope they don't cancel this drop, but, rather reach some sorts of an agreement with you. As all the big-shots at HF and SBAF seems to approve this DAC, it is also an attestation of your work. More than anything, it makes a finished R2R DAC available for us at an affordable (?) price point. But I do believe financial compensation is in order since you did part of the work in a product they are trying to market, what ever the laws of the land says about intellectual property.
We're talking about a small market of moderately priced luxury goods being sold through a limited platform. The stakes aren't legal. The stakes are whether people like you.
You can read more here: https://www.massdrop.com/buy/massdrop-x-airist-audio-r-2r-dac/talk/2100186
Another question, how does this particular DAC perform with the power delivery chosen by Airist?
There are only so many ways to lay out pixels on an LCD screen, and there are only so many ways to lay out a pair of resistor ladders on a board, along with the buffers and other components required.
There is going to be a particular optimal routing of the traces to avoid noise, induction, oscillation, etc. There is only so much space that 48 SMD resistors are going to require on a PCB, which will dictate size.
For all we know, all of these boards were independently designed with extremely similar characteristics based upon widely accepted best design practices for this type of circuit using what would prove to be consensus components given the cost target.
And, if the board was essentially copied, so what. There is no intellectual property there. The circuit topology is nothing more than a commodity, and I could do that board layout from scratch in a few hours tops in a CAD application, probably less. So, nobody is being deprived of the fruits of any significant labor.
If anything, the fact that a couple of well-known and well-regarded companies implemented a clone of his design (if that is indeed a fact) could actually lend credence to his heretofore relatively unknown design and name and boost the sales of his competing product.
I am not a qualified engineer. But it is not my understanding that the board is the only element of @sosolar's DAC that has been copied. The misappropriation being alleged seems far more extensive than that. This includes a prototyping and revision process that, presumably, requires far more effort and expenditure than replicating a widely understood board layout.
To date, no official attribution has been given to @sosolar for his design of the DAC in question. The extent that he is receiving any recognition is due entirely to his own efforts to call attention to the impropriety he is alleging. On the contrary, Massdrop has opted to stand behind @WilliamTse's (rather tortuous) claim that the design of the DAC is exclusive to Airist Audio.
Reasonable people can make up their own minds as to the merits of each disputant's case. I have little doubt further information will emerge one way or the other.
Do you people get bent when the vast majority of audio amplifiers designed and sold over the past several decades don't credit James Bongiorno for the dual-differential, fully complementary topology?
Reiterating basic legal theory and practice, albeit correctly, doesn't really address the salient issues. I do not expect Massdrop would have proceeded with the marketing and sale of this product if they were not receiving sound legal advice as to their potential liability in an intellectual property and/or contract dispute.
You can rest easy knowing that you've made your own position on the legalities of the matter quite clear.
Well, unfair is not illegal, so I will stop here.
Yet said defendant already said it was pure coincidence they are the same, there was no research of @sosolar board/designs.
https://www.massdrop.com/buy/massdrop-x-airist-audio-r-2r-dac/talk/2100186
If the design has no value, and (according to several users on this thread) could be easily thrown together in an hour or two, why copy it?
This isn't a case of similar general layout of a well known circuit topology. It's a straight up clone.
Even if it's legal, it's a scummy thing to do. Especially the part where he claims it's their own design.
If he had said "Here's a dac we implemented, based on a board design we found wherever." "we improved x,y,z, and added whatever features on the base board", etc. That would at least be the truth, and whether or not the original creator is compensated, buyers at least know who did what, and have a more realistic idea of the design practices.
I doubt that anyone who would simply copy a significant board in the design has put in a whole lot of engineering time measuring and/or revising things for the best results.
You can read more about the development process here: https://www.massdrop.com/buy/massdrop-x-airist-audio-r-2r-dac/talk/2100186
Never mind that they both look like castles, or even the same castle for that matter, as there are only so many ways to conceptualize a simple sandcastle. But the same dimensions, window placement, crenelation, and corbels? And with all but a couple stones placed the same, with such similar mortar lines between them?
I would have a difficult time being convinced that we didn't use the same mold, or that our molds weren't at least created in the same mold-making machinery, maybe by the same mold-makers, or even that one of us didn't somehow acquire inspiration from the other, intentionally or otherwise, with or without good intentions.
I mean - it's certainly possible that we both came up with the same thing. Right? And in such a case, I know I'd be pretty... surprised, and shocked - speechless even. What about you though? Would you be surprised? I would think so, and I'd find it kind of weird if you were instead defensive, and quite verbose about it , and proceeded to educate me on the history of sandcastles that... don't look like ours.
Pretty sticky situation. Best of luck to you and your team in navigating it.
The engineer we worked with for the RDAC drew inspiration for the layout from several different sources, including implementations of R-2R from MSB, Soekris, and the Hibiki. These informed the basic arrangement of components and served as a starting point for the rest of our design for that 4-layer PCB. In order to get the sound we wanted, that top board alone was not enough, hence the DSP, clocking, and other enhancements implemented on the bottom board.
You can read more about how the RDAC came about here: https://www.massdrop.com/buy/massdrop-x-airist-audio-r-2r-dac/talk/2100186
What happened to your first ever statement on this thread? It reeks, you know.
In the product development process, you build a team and assign responsibilities to the team. Those responsibilities come in the form of specifications and goals. The RDAC is a combination of several products. The top PCB, the bottom PCB, the PSU, etc. Separate team members managing separate parts.
I was unaware of the Hibiki top pcb design, it was not something I researched when writing the sign-magnitude conversion logic. After seeing sosolar’s post I asked the team member focused on the top PCB if he was familiar. He explained it was one of a variety of implementations he looked at, and took inspiration from over the course of designing our top PCB.
So to conclude, I was unaware of the Hibiki, thus my post saying as much, and the engineer who designed our top PCB had seen it before.
The Hibiki is physically incompatible the bottom board of the RDAC. The basic inputs to the top board of the RDAC are power and i2s signal, and the output is two channels of analog out. If you forcibly wire the inputs and outputs together in this way, you might be able to get sound out...or you might start a fire.
Now it seems you are quite familiar to the Hibiki board.
Do you sweep the floors at Airist or have any authority at all?
You presented yourself as President or Founder and certainly spoke at the outset as someone looking for credit.
Whose responsibility shall it be?
You are a fraud... 'sir'.