Repairing The Questionable £25,000 Tom Evans Audiophile Pre-Amp

[Old_School_Brad]

Hello,
Is there anybody that took a look at the schematics showed in the original video, the part after the passive RIAA network (which is only partial, I guess) ?
It doesn't make any sense at first sight, so i tried to simulate it with spice, and, as expected, this does not work correctly at all. Did Mark made a mistake when reverse engineering it ?
Even if there is a mistake somewhere, the overall topology is non sense; most of the op amps are useless.
Or I missed something. I don't recall that Mark made it available.

The other "smart technologies" are absolutely not new, paralleling stuff is know for ages and loading the output of opamps is a way to shift the operating point (output biasing); all of this is described in Douglas Self books (and Burr Brown application notes shown by Mark). If he used 5532 for this wonder, the current sources are in the wrong way, but who ever know ? References of op amps are only known by the creator himself. Please, don't let him discover the world of Jim Williams or Bob Pease, he would have a stroke.

Not very impressed by the analog stuff, let alone the overall construction... Did he found a large batch of plastic stand-offs of the wrong size for very cheap, so he has to stick several of them together ?

The worst of this : in audiophile forums, people don't see any problem with this. They are so far from industrial production constraints and possibilities that they don't even see the difference between a teenager school project and an automobile industrial product. Even worse, they would trust the former and discard the latter.

Jerome.

Which audiophile forums?

 

[DSJR]

Is it a better phono that the Michael Fidler designs ( at 1/25th the price)
Keith

The Michael Fidler designs would more than double in price if sold via a dealer - and I haven't factored VAT at 20% in properly there. People looking at this expensive box wouldn't give the Fidler-boxes a second glance irrespective of performance, as exclusivity and high price tags mean far more to them in my experience. Many threads here about gear designed to answer a non-existent problem with often high price tags to sell the concepts.

 

[jsrtheta]

Yes. I think YouTube will allow anyone to claim copyright without validating it. They'll simply consider you guilty, take your video down, and then threaten to take your channel down if it happens again... with no arbitration or discussion at all.

American law, at least, doesn't require validation to be enforceable, depending on the facts.

 

[Roland68]

And when Mark asked for a service manual or schematic, the 'genius at work' told him where to go. At that point Mark decided to not only fix it, but draw up his own S/M as a bit of a "screw you" type payback.

Same thing as the Topping PA-5 fiasco. It took someone to melt/dissolve the module, reverse engineer the module, produce a schematic, make their own PCB and help others, because no service manual or schematic was forthcoming.

It is long overdue that manufacturers worldwide are required to provide circuit documentation for repairs, as well as firmware, software, special ICs and all necessary information.
This should always be mandatory if repairs from the manufacturer are disproportionately expensive (common practice to circumvent current laws), are not offered, or devices are discontinued.

 

[sergeauckland]

It is long overdue that manufacturers worldwide are required to provide circuit documentation for repairs, as well as firmware, software, special ICs and all necessary information.
This should always be mandatory if repairs from the manufacturer are disproportionately expensive (common practice to circumvent current laws), are not offered, or devices are discontinued.

The problem there is what's 'disproportionate'? I'm sure the manufacturers can easily justify their outrageous repair charges where it's sometimes cheaper to buy a new one. Manufacturers should be obliged to make service manuals available to owners/repairers and not be allowed to wipe off device type numbers. If the chips are specially selected, fine, but make that clear in the manual that a generic IC will work, but perhaps then not meet spec. Sadly, whether cars or HiFi, manufacturers need the stupidly high service charges both to maintain their mystique and to bolster profits that aren't available selling the item in the first place, in part due to dealer and distributor margins.

As for stuff that can't be repaired, and the manufacturer will sell you a new one at a modest discount. that practice needs to be made illegal. Come on EU!

S.

 

[Koeitje]

That copyright claim is so stupid. Only people in a few smaller communities would have known about it if Tom Evens didn't respond by copyright striking, now he has got the attention of a channel with over 2 million subscribers.

 

[Roland68]

The problem there is what's 'disproportionate'? I'm sure the manufacturers can easily justify their outrageous repair charges where it's sometimes cheaper to buy a new one. Manufacturers should be obliged to make service manuals available to owners/repairers and not be allowed to wipe off device type numbers. If the chips are specially selected, fine, but make that clear in the manual that a generic IC will work, but perhaps then not meet spec. Sadly, whether cars or HiFi, manufacturers need the stupidly high service charges both to maintain their mystique and to bolster profits that aren't available selling the item in the first place, in part due to dealer and distributor margins.

As for stuff that can't be repaired, and the manufacturer will sell you a new one at a modest discount. that practice needs to be made illegal. Come on EU!

S.

When it comes to disproportionately expensive, you have to distinguish between two basic cases.
Case 1, using the example of a dishwasher:
Defective approx. 6 months after the guarantee, components defective for approx. 50-100, flat rate repair price from the manufacturer €385 plus travel and taxes, new price approx. €500.
It is extremely difficult for pure repair companies to get spare parts and documents. Estimated repair costs €150-200.

Case 2 defective refrigerator:
Repair costs either astronomical (above new price) and without guarantee, or not repairable at all due to the cheap construction (completely foamed in).
This is also now a widespread problem, and not just with refrigerators.

 

[krabapple]

Lots of chatter and speculation from people who've neither seen nor heard one. And Louis muddying the waters by incorrectly showing noise on the broken rail. It's a bit of a dog pile....

The physical internal build is a dogs dinner, but working right, its a fine phonostage, as good as any I've heard, at any price north of 5k.

All we know for sure, is that it broke and was inappropriately shipped and sustained more damage. I expect it was bought cheap, 2nd hand, already broken, electrically.

I'd suggest on initial receipt by Tom that he quoted a full service and re-case cost, the owner balked at the price so it went to/ back, to Mark. Tom probably wound mark up telling him he couldn't fix it, some mark showed him....

Tom sells to trade, at generous margins, so he's seeing probably £10-11k a unit. After costs and vat that's probably £6k, assuming based on the scatty build that he runs a loose ship. I bet there 20-30 hours build, assembly and testing time in one of those. Factor in the years he's spent designing and developing his range of kit, business costs etc and the numbers he sells, he's not getting rich.

Don't defend this 'high end' clown.

On his website, Evans claims this of the preamp :

The new MasterGroove SR Mk3 is a quite literally beyond reality!

He's illiterate, or a bot, or the people who believe his claims are idiots. Maybe even *quite literally*. Take your pick.

This claim is empirically verifiable:

This provides the greatest dynamic range of any phono stage in the World* by an incredible margin.

Has it been verified? Or is the margin, in fact, incredible?


I hope Mark gets tons of new viewers from this.



*why capitalized?

 

[threni]

Don't defend this 'high end' clown.

Evans claims on his website of the preamp :

The new MasterGroove SR Mk3 is a quite literally beyond reality!

He's illiterate, or a bot, or people who believe his claims are idiots. Maybe even *literally*. Take your pick.

This claim is empirically verifiable:

This provides the greatest dynamic range of any phono stage in the World* by an incredible margin.

Has it been verified?


I hope Mark gets tons of new viewers from this.



*why capitalized?

Scammers use bad grammar/spelling in emails to provoke the people smart/educated enough to detect them to ignore them, leaving the credulous.

 

[Petrushka]

It is long overdue that manufacturers worldwide are required to provide circuit documentation for repairs, as well as firmware, software, special ICs and all necessary information.
This should always be mandatory if repairs from the manufacturer are disproportionately expensive (common practice to circumvent current laws), are not offered, or devices are discontinued.

Look for a service manual before buying.

 

[sq225917]

Keith I haven't heard the Fiddler so can't say. The Emerald i built, dual mono improved circuit layout, 1611s etc isn't in the same league.

 

[Purité Audio]

I hear that a lot from boutique manufacturers but doesn’t always survive under scrutiny (measurement).
Keith

 

[Keith_W]

New Louis Rossman video.

Sounds like he is going to re-upload Mark's video and challenge Tom Evans to put in a copyright strike against him.

 

[TonyJZX]

lol i love it when Louis gets really riled up

he's a curmudgeon but he's fighting the right battles

thing is Tom Evans doesnt want this fight... what for in the end?

 

[Count Arthur]

New Louis Rossman video.

Sounds like he is going to re-upload Mark's video and challenge Tom Evans to put in a copyright strike against him.

Third time's the charm.

 

[Petrushka]

If Tom challenged Mark to fix it, he is an idiot. Mark goes to astonishing (and frankly uneconomic) lengths to finish repairs for his YouTube channel.

Watching the video, I was thinking $1000 would not be an unreasonable repair charge. That might be low.

 

[Tryphon]

I don't think anybody would question that but it equally the case for most HiFi from small manufacturers having to amortise design and tooling costs against a tiny number of sales, but Tom Evans claiming copyright infringement to protect his BS is outrageous.

We have seen what can be achieved by a first class engineer making a BS free phono stage so nothing about this thing is impressive.

It looks like Michael Fidler had taken some inspiration from Tom Evans, not on design but the the price has increased to £25000 (availalble on first of April 2025!)

 

[Frank Dernie]

It looks like Michael Fidler had taken some inspiration from Tom Evans, not on design but the the price has increased to £25000 (availalble on first of April 2025!)

Yes, he is being very witty, it made me laugh.

 

[harkpabst]

It looks like Michael Fidler had taken some inspiration from Tom Evans, not on design but the the price has increased to £25000 (availalble on first of April 2025!)

Strictly speaking he didn't say "available on first of April 2025".

Considering popular demand, there may be a small run of units made in the first half of 2025 for UK-based users (or less likely, global market), to be confirmed by April 1st 2025.

And further more:

Now standardised in black for £25,000/€70,000/$30,000 direct from Classic Audio Ltd., ...

Note that exchange rate. Funny.

 

[Soniclife]

New Louis Rossman video.

Sounds like he is going to re-upload Mark's video and challenge Tom Evans to put in a copyright strike against him.

Audiophile popcorn futures just went up.