Thanks! Actually I just got pinged by the folks at Mola-Mola. In response to precisely that remark on my part they’re suddenly getting inquiries relating to "old design" etc etc... It’s odd that people might think that the development timeline should affect the performance of the product but there you go. To save my former colleagues from having to answer these queries, I thought I’d quickly resurface to respond in public:
The DSP and DAC boards (common to the Makua and the Tambaqui) were indeed developed in 2013 and first presented to the public in 2014. The response from the market was rather muted which was odd considering that new DACs in general quickly become hot property among audiophiles. It transpired that people simply wouldn’t consider a DAC as a serious proposition unless it was presented in its own chassis. Reviewers wouldn’t touch it for the same reason. We could of course have simply bundled the boards into a box but by then it became clear that folks wanted network connectivity and a plethora of other inputs. The development got delayed because by 2015 both myself and Bart left Hypex/MM to fan out and start new projects. Hypex/Mola-Mola then had to train new staff (Ruud, Jan-Willem, Sjoerd and Jurjen, you've read it here first), to take over the project. I helped oversee this from a distance as a consultant and must say am quite pleased with all four of them. The addition of a network input further forced a rethink of how what part of the process ran on what processor, which didn’t speed things up either. The finished product has been available for about 2 years now. Although I still help out occasionally I’m not much involved with Mola-Mola anymore. That said, I’m rather happy with the product as you can imagine.
Back into hiding…
In these times of 'incremental updates' and (semi-) annual launches of 'new' mobile devices, people tend to believe that recently introduced products should be better.
While this applies, to some extent, to ICT, one could nevertheless dispute the net performance gain of say, the i5-8265U over last year's i5-8250U.
Although semiconductor advancement has been slowing down industry-wide since around 2010, Moore's log-linear relationship between device complexity/size/performance and time is so widespread that its impact on consumer perception cannot be denied.
Contrary to (digital) electronics, in my personal field of interest - loudspeaker technology - Hoffman's Iron Law applies, which ao has prevented breakthrough inventions from happening since the 1920s (Rice & Kellogg) and 30s (Wente & Thuras).
That's why exceptional products and subsequently long life cycles are not uncommon. An example is the Revel Ultra Salon 2, it's still a benchmark product, even though it hasn't been upgraded since the introduction in 2008.
Genuine improvement is not so much about individual components, but rather about a concept, or paradigm.
This is where market(ing) power often conflicts with technology (science). History has shown many examples of superior technology that eventually failed to 'beat' prevailing standards.
According to Buckminster Fuller:
"Change doesn't come from fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete."
Bruno seems to pursue a similar objective, not only in development of the Mola-Mola DAC, but definitely also regarding amplifier technology.
This interview sprang to mind while reading Bruno's post on the development phase of the DAC.
Speaking of longevity, I have a couple of older Class-D amps, one of which has been on >95% of the time since 2004.
I'm sure Bruno will immediately recognize the bipolar comparator/power stage that's at the heart of these amps.
