alt Hacker NewsI watched too, and the whole time I was thinking about what Cathode Ray Dude said about high end electronics companies in this episode:
https://youtu.be/pjrcB2qMbYU?si=sc9V6v27S2wyvBMj
And my own experience working on the design of complex projects as an architect. A good job will still include stupid mistakes when designing a one-off project because there are always gaps in institutional knowledge and time and money constraints.
$25k is a lot of money to spend on home audio. It is not much income even for a side project. Never mind a manufacturing business with engineering and advertising overhead in addition to logistical and fabrication costs...and I think the devices in the video are manufactured in limited annual numbers so there's not even an economics of scale.
I love Mark's channel, but videos that embarrass non-celebrity individuals is not why. Youtube drama doesn't seem to be his strong suit, and while what happened isn't justified, it is not terribly surprising now that I've thought about it.
Anyway, it might have been someone who bought one of those amplifiers who filed the takedown. Because owners were also likely to be embarrassed by the video and also likely to have the wherewithal to file a takedown.
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£25,000 is $31,900.
Subtract the VAT to get £20,833.
Then note the average annual salary for a man in Wales is £40,000. This would be a good income from a side project.
I don’t think the intent was directly to embarrass anyone, but the standoffs and loosely stacked pcbs really did seem unfortunate. It was dropped, Mark repaired it and it was quite likely just as good as new minus the enclosure damage.
Audio equipment definitely has this issue of extreme pricing for questionable things. In all likelihood the amp on a chip is the best designed amp for the money. Sure discrete stuff might have a better noise floor and reduced noise. I’d argue few people could tell the difference.