Platin Plate Amplifiers

[D!sco]

I wanted to share a recent exchange I had with the customer service department at Platin Gate, the manufacturer of Buchardt's plate amplifiers. I wanted to know what it would take to complete a project using their services, prices, and software availability. My hope was that I could install either their 40W bi-amplifier on my nearfield speakers, or their four-way XLR Amp to my TV three-ways. Below is the exact email chain with private information removed.

If I'm understanding correctly, that means this streaming interface is actually what's getting programmed and the devices themselves are more or less dummies. The part that intrigued me was the price point of their "Monaco" set of HT speakers with all active, wireless plate amps. For $1000, these plate amps can't be more than $100 a piece from wholesale. If their performance is good, and if Platin develops some usable interfaces, they could have a winner for DIY use. Programming a WiSA hub could be a step up from a Raspberry Pi, but with some usability tools I genuinely believe the DIY community would put in the work.

I'm going to say this rabbit hole has been spelunked reasonably. If there's any discussion to be had I'd be happy to ask customer service on behalf of the community as well.

 

[somebodyelse]

I don't think that's what they mean. I think they're saying the board has both a microprocessor and a DSP chip on board, and that the microprocessor is responsible for sending the instructions to the DSP chip. Whether this is because the DSP chip has to be programmed that way, or just to save a little money by using one storage chip instead of two, I can't say. Anyway this would mean that the program for the DSP has to be bundled in to the firmware for the microprocessor. If the microprocessor needs to adjust the DSP settings while it's running then they program for each would need to be done hand in hand. You can get a flavour of this if you look at the more advanced use of the HifiBerry DAC+DSP where custom DSP programs are written is SigmaStudio, and can be loaded by the attached Raspberry Pi without being stored permanently on the board (although the DAC+DSP does have the extra storage chip that can be used to store the DSP program if you want.) If you include something adjustable in the DSP program then your program on the Pi needs to know about it in order to adjust it.

As the HifiBerry example shows, there will be a subset of DIYers that can cope without the tools MiniDSP or Hypex provide, but I can see why they might consider this more trouble than it's worth.

 

[bigjacko]

How do you know the prices? From what I can see those are for b2b, I can't see any price. Also how do you estimate the price of whole sale? I am interested in the price difference of buying bulk and buying induvisual from retailer etc.

Do you know the performance of the dac and amp? I am also interested how good is Wisa compare to regular pi approach. I have seen one guy complain the Wisa on A700 does not work. Not sure how reliable that comment is, it is only one guy.

 

[muslhead]

FWIW
I have had 2 two of these die in 6 months.
I am now on my third

 

[VintageFlanker]

FWIW
I have had 2 two of these die in 6 months.
I am now on my third

Wait... What?! You mean 2 A500 backplates?!?

 

[D!sco]

I don’t know the prices, I’m making an educated guess based on another product’s cost. Asking the price was in my original email I sent on their b2b site. Their answer on price was related to the cost of producing a viable product for market, not selling individual pieces.

I mostly wanted to know because of the US pricing for Hypex amps. If I could get a decent product at half the cost, I might. And if I could actually get my hands on a set, one would be off to Amir immediately.

 

[muslhead]

Wait... What?! You mean 2 A500 backplates?!?

yup

 

[D!sco]

That's pretty bad. Has it cost you anything?

 

[biglebowski]

yup

Do you mind elaborating a little bit on what happened ? Thanks

 

[muslhead]

That's pretty bad. Has it cost you anything

No, Buchardt customer service has been excellent. Almost as good as their marketing
Seriously, after testing and determining a probable solution, they shipped a new unit from Denmark and was on my doorstep (US) in 2 days. Way faster than any US provider has done.
I did some in depth testing and because of the modular design of the a500, there are not that many things that can go bad so its pretty easy to find a solution and fix. In my case (both failures) it was the electronics (wifi related) not the amp itself

 

[VintageFlanker]

it was the electronics (wifi related) not the amp itself

Hum. What was the issue exactly?

 

[muslhead]

Do you mind elaborating a little bit on what happened ? Thanks

Both cases the wifi was acting flaky after working fine. One speaker would always pair and play while the other either would not pair or would eventually pair but have drop outs and other weird behavior. On the first failure, they shipped me a new hub first which did not fix the problem. After that they sent a new plate. After a 2 minute replacement, the speaker paired and play as it was supposed to.
The second failure (same speaker as the first failure and the new plate) i experienced similar things with non-pairing and dropouts, then eventually it just could not be seen by the hub. That was when they agreed to ship me another plate which i just installed on Saturday. So far, after about 30 hours of running, i have had no problems.
While 30 hours is great, I am not convinced my problems are behind me. After the first replacement, that new plate worked for a few months before it puked.

 

[biglebowski]

Both cases the wifi was acting flaky after working fine. One speaker would always pair and play while the other either would not pair or would eventually pair but have drop outs and other weird behavior. On the first failure, they shipped me a new hub first which did not fix the problem. After that they sent a new plate. After a 2 minute replacement, the speaker paired and play as it was supposed to.
The second failure (same speaker as the first failure and the new plate) i experienced similar things with non-pairing and dropouts, then eventually it just could not be seen by the hub. That was when they agreed to ship me another plate which i just installed on Saturday. So far, after about 30 hours of running, i have had no problems.
While 30 hours is great, I am not convinced my problems are behind me. After the first replacement, that new plate worked for a few months before it puked.

Thanks for the detailed story. It does not sound good at all, but limited to the Wisa/Wireless aspect of the plate from what I understand. Maybe these components do not like much how hot this plate can get... If all these dropout issues actually come from hardware defects on the plates themselves they are going to have a hard time trying to fix it with software updates or even with their next preamp/hub... !
Anyway, this is pretty bad news about how reliable Platin (and sadly, Buchardt by extension) products are, but somehow I am personally reassured these issues do not concern (so far) the amplification itself, as I use my (almost new) A500 wired

 

[muslhead]

Thanks for the detailed story. It does not sound good at all, but limited to the Wisa/Wireless aspect of the plate from what I understand. Maybe these components do not like much how hot this plate can get... If all these dropout issues actually come from hardware defects on the plates themselves they are going to have a hard time trying to fix it with software updates or even with their next preamp/hub... !
Anyway, this is pretty bad news about how reliable Platin (and sadly, Buchardt by extension) products are, but somehow I am personally reassured these issues do not concern (so far) the amplification itself, as I use my (almost new) A500 wired

I asked about the failure rate and was met with a generic answer that the rate they are experiencing is within what they expect. Read what you want into that but they werent much interested in getting either plate back to do a failure analysis. I guess they dont feel the cost of shipping is worth the info. I think if this were my company i would do the same thing if i had enough data and had a good grasp on my failure rates and modes.

 

[bigjacko]

I am also interested how good is Wisa compare to regular pi approach. I have seen one guy complain the Wisa on A700 does not work. Not sure how reliable that comment is, it is only one guy.

I asked about the failure rate and was met with a generic answer that the rate they are experiencing is within what they expect. Read what you want into that but they werent much interested in getting either plate back to do a failure analysis. I guess they dont feel the cost of shipping is worth the info. I think if this were my company i would do the same thing if i had enough data and had a good grasp on my failure rates and modes.

Thanks for your input. I think I saw one guy here on ASR saying the Wisa thing does not work, was it you? If it was not you then Wisa is in serious trouble. They seems to have good marketing with lots of companies supporting it, but after seeing your situation I think Wisa is still not a thing yet.

 

[muslhead]

Thanks for your input. I think I saw one guy here on ASR saying the Wisa thing does not work, was it you? If it was not you then Wisa is in serious trouble. They seems to have good marketing with lots of companies supporting it, but after seeing your situation I think Wisa is still not a thing yet.

in my experience wisa works .... sometimes. Unfortunately we want it to work all the time. The window is closing
At this point i would NOT buy another thing that has wisa until i have seen a stable, working system. So much of their success is based upon a decent wifi connection which most customers dont have or know how to get. They are not there yet.
As long as they have lots of support then money is flowing and fixes will eventually come. What will be the death nail is when companies start to pull their support and go elsewhere.
If you jump in at least make sure you have a way to make them work via hard wire cables like Buchardt has done.