@@morph-the-cat I don't see it being badly made. After all a splash of $3 worth paint on the canvas selling for $300k isn't creating the shitstorm. Buying a Chinese made CNC enclosure to satisfy your shopkeeper taste would almost certainly be much much cheaper than sourcing tupperware plastic enclosure from domestic supplier. It is a racing car meant to perform and not to please ignorant simpletons with it's looks
Let's face it they used a PCB. I repaired a motor driven for a high value glass record deck that used the splattered bug approach to taking an AC PSU and ensuring the motor went the right way with appropriate capacitor. Reading a circuit in 3d is a little challenging for an amatuer like me but I cracked it for 50p.
In trying to make the video go away Tom Evans has succeeded in highlighting their shoddy workmanship and severe markup in something that uses already well known circuit designs.
@@MartinPiper6502 I seem to remember there was an audiophile/engineer who did just that, Said he could build a superior amplifier for a lot less cost and did just that. Eventually became a high end audio company. Can not remember who the chap was.
To level-set expectations, I used to help build bespoke vacuum tube phono pre-amps at an audiophile company. For the equivalent of about $10k USD in today's dollars, you got a custom folded , anodized aluminum chassis with pressed, metal stand-offs, solid milled aluminum bezel and knobs along with a beautiful custom monolithic circuit board. All tubes were burned in and matched. If you looked inside, you would see sublime elegance. Go to any audiophile trade show an you will see similar craftsmanship. The preamp Mark worked on looked like a prototype.
@@ljones2087 Indeed, a 70s flag ship Marantz or Sansui, Yamaha or Pioneer is something to behold. And back then, they solved almost every audio problem. Those things were build like a tank with cutting edge designs, craftmanship and finish. This thing is not one of them. Looks like a DIY project or a first of a kind prototype. He sanded down the op amps to hide these are just normal components.
Thanks for supporting Mend it Mark. I share your sense of injustice. If Tom Evans had done the right thing by repairing the unit in the first place (and I suggest at £25000 there should be a lifetime guarantee!) there wouldn't be an issue.
@@JonnyMac351@JonnyMac351 True, £100 or so. But he wanted £6000 for the repair, which is what kicked this whole thing off. Bloke is just a greedy fucker and got what he deserved.
A classic example of streisand effect. Tom Evans is getting what he deserves, and then some. Absolutely ridiculous though, that people can still abuse the youtube copyright so blatantly, and get away with it! I fully agree with you (as probably do most others). Showing the inside of a device is not copyrightable, nor is PCBs, nor are reverse engineered schematics. If Mark was using the reverse engineering to sell an identical unit for cheaper, sure, but that's not what happens.
I think Mark made a wiring diagram that looked so cool that Tom Evans thought it was theirs. What they did was probably hand drawn on graph paper. At least when you look at what kind of school project the product itself is.
Bang on the money with the Streisand effect. From what I hear, many of the Audiophile forums are on fire about it. What should have been a good laugh between the professional repairers and the hobbyists and then forgotten has turned around and sunk his "£25,000 flagship product" and probably his business and reputation. What an idiot.
Exactly! You can reverse engineer everything you want and you can show it to the world either. Copyright infringement is only the case when you start producing copies of an original product (media, music, art, books). Products and ideas aren't under copyright, they can be patented (not always). When something is patented, you are also allowed to reverse engineer it and show the world how it's made. Even the original patents aren't secret, you can look up any patent you like. But, you are not allowed to use the patented stuff in your own commercial product.
Yes, the most famous is the clone PC market, where the clones used the published Intel reference design ( which IBM used as well) and only used the IBM public docments of the BIOS entry and exits, along with a description of what the code had to do, and wrote code to do that same function, and thus the massive PC marketplace, with IBM now just a small bit player in it, and buying PC and clones from others as well, along with BIOS written by others as well. Anyway, those modules are pretty much all almost exact copies of application notes, plenty of prior art, plus the application notes are all released by the manufacturer to be used, either as s, or with minor, often documented, changed. you might find that actually those modules are very likely copies of other designs, I would guess Douglas Self as the original inventor, as he did make so many novel new designs over his lifetime, and his site probably still has a good number still in copyright and trade protection as well, unless you licensed them from him, which he is very willing to do.
I had never heard of Tom Evans or mend it Mark before this controversy- But after this controversy, I will (A) never ever consider a Tom Evans product, (B) have already watched several Mend-it Mark videos
@5:59 - I didn't notice this, before, but he even used nylon hardware on the power transistors. Nylon stretches. Heat makes nylon brittle and eventually breaks. When either of these happen, those transistors are going to lose their cooling. When I see work like this, it makes me say "That's where they ran out of money", but how do you go over budget, on a $25K phono preamp? As a retired EE, I'd be ashamed of this, too. Scrubbing your component numbers, is also a jerk move.
I work in the Electronics industry and found the boards looked poorly made especially the heat sinks and fixings, I'd be ashamed for something so expensive to be so poorly made, as someone else said it looks like a prototype, which I get why you might start simple and easy. I understand R&D factors in cost but I cannot see this units R&D would take to much cost. Our company has reversed engineered boards under licence to manufacture a newer design to comply with new laws and the prototypes looked better than this and cost less.
@@M-o-r-l-a-d-e-r I go back to the 1970s and it reminded me of those magazine projects where you would often be expected to make your own PCBs using acid to dissolve a layer of metal, and drill the holes. Though most of the projects then looked much more professional.
I just checked out the website....this peice of junk is £25K so thats $30K+...absolute skocking build qualitythose paper shims made me cry. Not even a bespoke case, off the shelf rubbish.
Not a science fair project, but either a one off or something a keen hobbyist makes for himself (the electronics that is. The casing is a bit meh. But all in all certainly not worth 25k, we all agree on that!😆
I used to make at least cleaner and better looking SS Amps back in School days itself. And ANY Design Marvel of Tom could be totally factored out as his choice of components nearly match the Chip/OpAmp manufacturers Application note. And I give a DAMN about Hand matched components - go for 1%, 0.1% or 0.01% tolerance components , which should NOT increase the BOM cost by even 50 quids
Utter junk. The manufacturer should be ashamed of themselves - for the spurious copyright claim, for the laughable construction, and for having the gall to charge so much.
I’m pretty new to Mark AND already a massive fan. Watching him diagnose and fix old amps - turning new parts on his lathe! He’s unstoppable! Respect to The Mark!! And thanks for highlighting this shoddy treatment. We know who will prevail! 🦅
I did my electronics apprenticeship in the early 80’s courtesy of the MOD. The quality of work shown here is something we’d make in our second year. By the time we finished we were producing high quality circuit boards, with good components in appropriate boxes. Everything we did was designed to be crashed and not kill a crew, but quality didn’t mean expensive. It just meant the correct part for the job. Plastic stand offs have their place, but they’re likely going to suffer from heat and vibration issues and can be easily broken with mishandling. The rest is just low quality workmanship.
Leave professionals like you . A DIY Electroncis / Ham like me used to solder way better in class 8th grade!!! And only apprenticeship I got under my Dad was being gifted with a cheap 25Watt iron and few tips! and I was on my own getting inspiration from cleanliness in soldering of National/Akai VCR of 1990's . And the Standoffs and PCB Quality !! Jeees!!!
@ we all started somewhere. The difference for us was that we did this every day and we were watched and monitored by apprentice masters who wouldn’t allow sub par work to fly.
They do make more rugged standoffs for a few cents more, even ones made of exotic materials that reduce thermal and leakage current... This guy went with the cheapest possible solution that isn't even fit for a hobby prototype.
plastic stand offs are iffy to support just one board let alone four stacked on top of each other, and that poor method to join the two boards together is just appalling.
I a world of Audophools buying $100,000 tonearms, $800,000 4 way speakers, $600,000 250w power amps, and other things are way, way, way more overpriced... this is same-ol same-ol sucker bait. As the late, great George Carlin said "If you nail 2 pieces of wood together that never have been nailed together before, some sucker will buy it."
MIM was asked to fix it, and he did in his usual stylish and thorough way. The "Genius" should have thought a bit longer about a copyright strike because there was none.
Mend it Mark smashed it out of the ballpark, and instead of Tom Evans Audio appreciating what he did for its customer, he lashed out at MIM. It shows you what kind of person Tom Evans is - not my cup of tea.
He certainly believes there is. Part of it, is that Mark revealed to the world what goes into a Welsh made Preamp.. any manufacturer who grinds the numbers off the IC's they use, is hell bent on protecting their company and will stop at nothing in the process. It's a word of caution to anyone showing electronics repairs....
Evans sends it to Mark because customer refused his 6,000 euro repair price. The message from the manufacturer is snarky in saying "you won't be able to fix it" as if he was sticking his tongue out at the same time. Of course it would have been easier if Evans hadn't sanded the numbers off the ICs. Hats off to Mark! I really look forward to his videos.
Yeah. The sales brochure mentioned that it was like alien technology inside. Then Mark opens it and shows opamps and power supplies. No alien tech there.
I didn't know that was what the bugger wanted to charge for repair. And it ended up with one tantalum capacitor fried and I wonder what nonsense and outright lies TE would've claimed he'd fixed.
Imagine being a "dealer" for Tom Evans, and you receive one of these from the manufacturer, and it comes with a rattle. To investigate, you take the cover off, and find these towers of janky towers of cards with hand-drilled cooling holes, connected by poorly dressed and cold soldered wires inside!
Also note that none of the signal wires are shielded in the slightest, in a case that is highly susceptible to RF/EMI interference. Even the cheapest of no-name generic products get this right.
@@donmoore7785 he can't even drill a row of holes in a straight line. Also why reduce the mass and surface area of the heatsinks by drilling them when there's no fan? Then go and paint them black....
I don't have to imagine anything. They sold hundreds if not thousands of TE devices and they know what's inside in and out. The 25k Mastergrove itself I think sold 80 devices. There are people who buy art and those why buy posters but most just buy chewing gum
Send this to Lewis Rossman, he'll like to rip into manufacturers with those getting butt hurt and making BS copyright claims. Seems I'm already too late, he's already got in on the conversations.
@@ianhaylock7409 Yes I should of checked first, but hay, just watched both of Louis videos on the topic (now spelt correctly) he's a great character and advocate.
Thanks for showing us the video highlights. I actually missed Mark's original RUclips video. So I appreciate that you were able share this with us. Keep up the good work.
I was never aware of Tom Evans before discovering these videos. The absurd price of this product in the first place would make you believe that this amp would be made of quality components. In fact, it looks like a GCSE school project. The amateur obfuscation of some of the components is just a further show of how untrustworthy the manufacturer is. I truly hope all the negative publicity puts Tom Evans' business where it clearly belongs.
This is the Streisand effect in all it's glory. Mark is an amazing technician without a malicious bone in his body. He wasn't trying to shame Tom Evans' products he was just pointing out the obvious.
RUclips's copyright is about content, not hardware. Hardware is copyrighted (anything you create is copyrighted by default) but violating that copyright requires building your own version of the product and selling it. Mark did not do this. That said; here in The Netherlands some photographers have been successfully sued by the designer of a fancy bridge because they were not allowed to sell pictures of that bridge, because of copyright. Kind of like how you're not allowed to record a live concert and sell that recording. Evans' claim is obviously against the video because it shows that this machine is not worth $25k. He is Streisanding himself into bankruptcy because now everybody who owns one of his machines is going to open it up to see what's in there.
@@carly09etand Tom Evans would have to prove in court he suffered loses due to MIM video. .. Perhaps knowing how cheaply the amp is made is certainly not doing TE any favours..
@@stuartd9741 Yes, I am think of why You Tube was so aggressive with its action. As the complaint lacked relevance ie what in the original video was actionable. I watch a reupload, maximising IP claiming and found very very little.
Electronics is where I ended up (professionally) after programming 6502/68K/Z80 in the 80s & 90s. The build "quality" on that amp is something Stevie Wonder would be ashamed of. Mend it Mark is a genius, especially when it comes to audio repairs. I often leave his videos on in the background while I'm working. He even "machines" replacement buttons, knobs & switches to match the originals.
I like Mark's work. The smarty pants manufacturer didn't want you to see what's inside their unit, so you as a citizen will believe there's magic inside and pay "audiophile" prices.
@@1697djh I spent 10 minutes replacing a LED in a christmas decoration for my wife, new LED and resistor, quick and dirty, looks like the Apollo project compared to this.
I’m a big fan of mend it Mark Mark spoke about the video strike which Tom Evans put against him a few days later it was on a fellow RUclipsr name Lewis rossman and he was talking about this video that mend it Mark did that he was scathing against Tom Evans rightly so this is nothing more than a hobby build and apparently there was a second video that LouisRossman did and Tom Evans had to step back because you cannot copyright circuit board and well observed. I didn’t notice that he had the Intel inside logo on the front of his box. It boils down to this. Tom Evans didn’t really want nobody seeing how he made this device Mark had no schematic to look at he had to draw a schematic to understand how the circuit worked and he made it work basically he had to reverse engineer it and really truly the parts are off the shelf parts. I think it’s just crazy that Mend it Mark got a copyright strike & the baned video should come back for people to see.
I love Marks channel too, Louis Rossman made a follow up video to it recently as well, they was realy fun to watch and he runs is a pretty big channel with + 2 milion followers and is concidered a high trust person in the comunity worldwide, so i think that will probably not go unnoticed. (English is not my native language so i apologise if i am butchering the language, i do my best to learn...).
@@KameraShy For sure not! Ha ha! Love that man! I folloved him pretty much since the beginning of the channel and i must say that i realy love the humor and intelligence in the arguments. Not even the farts are fake...
Firstly, do Hi Fi customers look inside their equipment probably not. . But word is out that perhaps the quality could be improved. . Secondly, Some other commenter said that because Mark drew the circuit diagram, that was the part that TE was trying to copyright.. .. I think it's spurious.. .. However, the manufacturer knew Mark would be repairing this amp soo.....🤔
I subscribe to Mark's channel and saw the original video, there is nothing in it which can be considered to infringe any copyright. The manufacturer is simply embarrassed that the poor quality of such an expensive piece of equipment has been exposed. Many congratulations on making it through the video without using the word "extortionate", you might not have said it but we were all thinking it. Lets get straight to the point, if a group of 8th graders had submitted this work as a school project they would have been told to take it away and rethink the design!
I just wish someone would create a Bill of Materials so that we can see how inflated the price is ! I have no idea but I’m guessing a few hundred quid at most?
The guy is just butt hurt that his obscenely priced unit has been shown for the cheapness it really is. The video in question was the very first video I had watched by Mend It Mark.
the crying shame here is that the cashed up suckers who fell for his scam wont know the difference or understand why it is shite. and probably wont care
I love your approach in this video. You illustrate the shabby construction that Mark revealed. You point out the salient details that led to the manufacturer sending this to Mend It Mark - the customer was quoted a ridiculous repair cost AND told by the manufacturer MIM would not be able to repair it. He must have assumed that without a schematic, that would hinder him. Instead of you know, being helpful by supplying a schematic. This reveals mutiple issues with Tom Evans Audio - I would not deal with them knowing they treated someone in this manner.
I totally agree, the way Mark is treated is unbelievable. The build 'quality', I'm having a hard time to call it quality at all, is shockingly horrible. This may work as a prototype, a proof of concept or maybe as a hobby project. But as you've mentioned, the weight of the components requires something way more sturdy, even if transportation or shipping is not considered. The PCB material looks like stuff I have used during my apprenticeship for developing small circuits and why they have hot glued the caps but using plastic stands to hold everything together is something I can't really comprehend.
I originally watched it on mend it marks channel, before it was taken down then Louis Rossman made a video about it being taken down, Tom Evans has just shot himself in both feet by taking it down and should be rewarded in the most suitable by the paying public as they vote with their feet.
these companies do not understand the repercussions and backlash, I had never heard of DCS batteries (and Im Australian) until I watched Louis Rossman and look at the damage that self inflicted nonsense did to their company
Quite right Martin. I think this issue is well worth analysis. Making false claims are an issue, right to repair is a big one. The QC of the item seems to poor. A ticket cost of £25000 for that unit is mad. Tom Evans Audio need calling out for this one, it ain't cool.
I wouldn't touch that with a barge-pole. Completely shoddy production. He also calls himself a genius on his website. I think a better analogy would be cowboy, given what I've seen so far.. and he sells that kit all over the world? Disgraceful. Definitely 'Buyer Beware' material.
Ignoring the copyright problem for a moment, good grief - that design does not feel production ready. Those boards stacked with plastic stand-offs, chunks of hot glue potting, and from a quick glance those boards have question marks. *That's* a £25k pre-amp?
Hot glue on capacitors isn’t an uncommon technique, lots of manufacturers do that at all levels,of cost. That’s not really the issue. And I guess the “alien technology” is the system design with all the excessive power regulation… but it sure seems like a fairly hobby grade system.
Yes!! One of my Audio-Phile friend swears by it (though he doesn't afford it) as few other Psycho Audiophile reviewers had all the praise for the Crap. So Audio lunatics with Deep Pocket, FOMO and boasting rights will still buy it , despite seeing MOST pathetic workman ship I have EVER seen in an Audio gear which sells for money and not build as a favor
Mark has handled the whole thing so beautifully. His response was *chef's kiss* Also even I could of done a better job on the design and construction of this equipment and I'm a monkey
The problem was that it caused audiophools to reveal themselves - because that UKP25,000 piece of equipment didn't look the part. And many people were shocked at the shoddy construction for what you paid for. If you order a USD$30,000 piece of test gear from Keysight, you can see where the money was spent and it feels like it was well spent. Something like this looks home made and of poor quality. Heck, a $30,000 Cisco piece of gear (generally well known to be overpriced) still feels much better constructed with high quality parts, a strong chassis and a clean circuit board that's well assembled and put together. Tom Evans was basically selling audiophool gear and the video revealed they were taking everyone as suckers.
I could build that for less than five hundred dollars, the only 'expensive' parts are the power supply, 14 one percent resistors and the op amps, everything else is penny for the pound. Even the case is as we say in the industry "rubbish!" its the ultimate audiophile scam, charging 25000 pounds for less than 400 pounds of parts (thats being generous) and probably the same in labour. its a licence to print money
Thank you. I recently discovered Mend It Mark's channel and rapidly became a huge fan. He's incredibly talented, and his demeanor is so conducive to learning. He's just great.
Thanks for doing this. Mark is an absolute gentleman and a serious talent in the world of electronics. Ironic that a guy so generous with his knowledge gets hammered by - well intel inside copyright borrower ?
Imagine buying one of these and being inquisitive you take a sneaky peak inside of your £25000 precum box . Thank you for standing up for mark , mark is just a genuinely good man and he never ever realised that carrying out a repair would lead to a copy write claim Louis Rossman has taken the cause on and is ready to fight
My guess of the copyright breach is that when Mark made the Service Manual, he included the Tom Evans logo. Now technically this should be a breach of a trademark if the logo is registered. Whatever comes of this, Tom Evans has lost a lot of fans and possibly sales.
I agree. I think the fact that you see "Tom Evans Audio" on that "manual" is what took it over the top and made Evans feel justified. Of course he was looking for a reason, based on what was exposed.
@@misterbonzoid5623 They'd be embarrassed to put a picture of something like that in their magazine. Even 60s and 70s electronics magazine projects, with things like stripboard and wirewrap look better.
That design is typical of stuff made in the 1980s for the enthusiast market, before we could get bespoke parts made pretty cheaply. As you say those brittle plastic standoffs are a travesty and the wiring looks like it was done by somebody's unqualified parents one wet weekend just as a favour 'Copyright' can be interpreted here as 'I've been found out and am embarrassed'.
I used to build bespoke electronics in the 80s for UPS applications and no company I worked for would let this type of construction go to a customer as a paid for product. It looks like a hastily built prototype we'd use for proof of concept.
@@TerryClarkAccordioncrazy some of the very good amplifiers and speakers that I sold in the 80s looked a bit ropey inside. I corrected the phase on a few pairs of speakers because the designer's Mum had mixed up the wires. That was before industrial design was as advanced as today and component manufacturers widened their product ranges. Some of the small amplifier manufacturers turned out products that were a bit Heath Robinson. But they were cheap, not £25k! With this manufacturer his huge mistake was to try and charge his valued customer who'd invested a lot of money in the device, a premium amount to repair a pretty basic component failure. For £25k I would expect some amount of platinum plated support from my supplier, with a smile, a free cuppa in bone china and a degree of forelock tugging. Instead they are delivering a knee in the crown jewels and a v sign
When I saw how much the preamp cost I thought this was going to be a joke video. When Mark removed the cover to show the construction I thought Ebay junk. By the end of the video I realized this was for real. This Tom Bloke is probably the guy who built this and has conned many a person and didn't want people finding out how bad these things are. It looks like a prototype to me.
RUclips will have to add an ‘Ashamed’ claim for those who need a reason to request that a video be taken down. I think the blushing ‘Copyright’ claimant just used what was available. I would be interested to watch a real-time video of the claimant assembling an AliExpress AM radio receiver kit. Dear-oh-dear. By the way; the ‘CE’ legend on the claimant’s box of components housing, should have double-spaced lettering. Usually it’s only certain (not all), Chinese items that omit the double-space. Thanks for this video, thank you Mark and let’s be glad that such skill has Mark has exists. I think we’ve all seen, or experienced the opposite.
I worked for Yamaha for almost 20 years. If we'd put out something of this build quality I'd have resigned. Shocking looking at the internals of a £25000 piece of kit
Great video! Subbed! So much wrong with that product imho - plastic standoffs, plastic screws and nuts on heat sinks, towers of insanity that really should have more security to the chassis. It's a piece of junk - yes there are some nice circuit designs to get good quality audio, but it's all over shadowed by the terrible implementation and totally ruined by the actions related to this copyright take down against Mark.
Looks to me like Tom Evans is embarrassed that anyone had the temerity to look inside his very expensive box and realised it had some very amateurish looking engineering and wanted to stop damage to his brand. So in my opinion Tom Evans is not a good company to buy high end electronics from......you don't appear to get good value for money and he bullies people who give an honest appraisal of his products.
Thanks Martin - Wow... that product description you mentioned definitely rhymes with piece of "kit"... I'm glad that you're getting it out there in public, despite their efforts to shut down any knowledge / evidence of how shoddily it's put together (and MASSIVELY overpriced for what it is, imo). Hopefully Mark gets YT to actually do the right thing, and dismiss this spurious / false logic 'claim'... Subscribed to both of your channels - fight the good fight!
Fully agree with all your comments. The quality looks poor and obviously not very well made - certainly not worth the 25K it costs. I have an electronics company and if I produced anything like that, I would be ashamed to sell it.
It's either a quick and dirty prototype or a lash up job to do something yesterday. I go back to the 1970s electronics and pretty much all the magazine projects looked much more professional than that !
"Tom Evans" has made himself and company toxic. And a laughing stock. This video raises a very interesting question. I am in the US and we have various laws regarding consumer protection and contracts. Those laws address by specific phrase "fitness for purpose." But now I wonder if the theory is adjusted relative to the price of a subject object. That amp does look like a DIY project for which $100 US would seem to "fit." Something like a Heathkit we used to assemble ourselves as kids. But certainly not £25,000. I subscribed yesterday after seeing Louis Rossmann's video about the issue. You do NOT want to mess with Louis.
Generally the more expensive something is the higher the expectation of quality and being "fit for purpose". For example, a cheap pair of shoes would not be expected to last that long comparatively speaking, but an expensive pair would be expected to last longer due to having the expectation of quality due to the higher price. So, if an expensive pair of shoes develops a fault (like the sole separates from the upper) after a short amount of time, they would not be fit for purpose.
@@MartinPiper6502 My wife's a beautician and I occasionally go to trade shows with her. There are a remarkable number of expensive gadgets on sale (many of them are I think UV or IR LEDs in a tin box with a timer ... £200) which to my eye seem to do little or nothing. Something you'd really love to have a quiet 10 minutes with with a screwdriver. I've often wondered how close it is to fraud.
A correction if I may: I assembled quite a few HeathKits in the 60s and 70s; the implication that they were of poor design and poor construction is undeserved and inappropriate. They worked well and were reasonably priced. There was a 'wholesomeness' about the company and its products that this Tom Evans product clearly lacks.
I wonder if the copyright strike was because Mark made a detailed drawing of the amp, including the components the manufacturer had filed off the text showing what component it was. I'm an electronics engineer myself, but I'm not sure how hard it is to find out what such anonymized components really are (never had the need to).
The copyright for the detailed drawing of the amp belongs to Mark, he drew it. :) A design, which is functional, is not copyrightable, a functional design is patentable but that has nothing to do with copyright. A patent design is publicly viewable in any patent application.
The build quality of the internals looked like something I did over lockdown when I was playing with breadboards, arduinos and pcb boards. I am complete amateur and it looked pretty much alike, except I used brass stands instead of nylon ones for my robot on wheels. Speaking of - anyone wants to buy an IR controlled, arduino-based robot on wheels? I'll sell it for 25 grand.
Yes, it is quite serious, but we are talking about a company which has gone great lengths to cover up the fact that they have implemented the same example application circuitry in the specifications sheet which came with the component itself and still was not ashamed to ask a outrageous price for it.
A CE mark by itself doesn't mean much unless you know which product category it's claimed to meet. It could be certified as a doorstop or a paperweight.
The CE mark just says that the manufacturer assures that the product conforms to EU standards. You can just check all the rules, measure radio emissions and so on and put the mark on if you want. Or you skip that and you risk being liable. But a CE mark isn't fake, it's maybe a lie.
It should be emphasised this was not a legal claim, it was a claim using RUclips's somewhat flawed internal systems. If it was a legal claim, taken to court in the UK (where both the Tom Evans and Mike do their business), it would have got precisely nowhere as nothing in that video could remotely fall under UK copyright law.
Seen more channels who shadow Marks video, so even now it can be viewed. About this black box, ashamed for building quality. For that money you rather buy a Krell second hand. And even Krell doesnt sand off the components to hide the cheap opamps. For that money they should have designed a discrete opamp. Well the video is still around on the net. Love Marks channel he is to the point with a touch of nice humor.😊😊
I just watched Marks video and then saw your video. So I guess Mark got his ban lifted. The video really showed the credibility of Mark's knowledge. When I saw the circuit boards, I realised there was no kryptonite inside and that it was a scam.
You could even find fx a Tandberg TR 2080 and most likely get a better sound for a lot less, not to mention a reference tuner unit and a powerful amplifier. This thing looks like it was made in a hurry and never should cost that much. How many people would like to have that power supply and cables exposed? I'll bet that my wife would through it out in the trash right away. But credit to Mark. He' a really nice guy with a great humor and a lot of know how.
Well said Martin, it looks like a prototype unit built from parts from RS components just like I would of done back in the 80's for the company I worked for (Microwave Modules) in Aintree Liverpool, we also had a lot of problems with tantalum capacitors going short circuit and causing lots of units to be returned under warranty. I would have liked to have seen inside the mains power supply, I bet that would of also been massively over engineered aswell, keep up the good work Martin, regards Dave. 😀😀
So Tom Evans sends a shoddily built bit of over-priced audiofool kit to a RUclips repair channel and then moans when said RUclips channel feature their product. It's like a restaurant inviting a food critic to eat and then complaining when they publish a review. 🤣🤣
Was the block diagram made by Mark or was it from Tom Evans? While you can't copyright an electronic circuit you *can* copyright a drawing of it, so if Mark reverse engineered it it's fine but if it comes from the manufacturer it'll be covered by copyright; they probably still don't have a case under fair use, but that may be the angle they're taking.
Could have easily created a "motherboard" with sockets on to slot the "daughter" boards into with a lock mechanism. You would not need all those wires then going from board to board.
I think Mark did a really excellent job, and did also handle the repair on camera with great respect to the manufacturer if only he held back his giggle during disassembly and assembly. 😂😂
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It's truly heartwarming watching a community come together to stand up for Mark
Yes, plus it exposes Evan's turd products.
why not GAZA?
@@wojciech-nq5gqdo you really think being a d¡(K head in the comments section will earn sympathy for the people of Gaza?
@@wojciech-nq5gq Because Gaza isn't an overpriced and badly made piece of audio equipment
@@morph-the-cat I don't see it being badly made. After all a splash of $3 worth paint on the canvas selling for $300k isn't creating the shitstorm. Buying a Chinese made CNC enclosure to satisfy your shopkeeper taste would almost certainly be much much cheaper than sourcing tupperware plastic enclosure from domestic supplier. It is a racing car meant to perform and not to please ignorant simpletons with it's looks
I own the patent for "Poorly Assembled Electronics Shoved in a Box", and I will now go after Tom Evans Audio for clearly infringing on my IP!
Let's face it they used a PCB. I repaired a motor driven for a high value glass record deck that used the splattered bug approach to taking an AC PSU and ensuring the motor went the right way with appropriate capacitor. Reading a circuit in 3d is a little challenging for an amatuer like me but I cracked it for 50p.
😂😂😂
I think I must owe you something for using your patent on many occasions.😂
Great
😂😅❤
As a result of watching this video, I have just subscribed to "MendItMark" 👍 😁
me too :)
It is a realy good channel anyway in my humble opinion.
Your so lucky as you have a whole library of his work to watch for the first time ! I'm on my third or fourth time round !
@@andymouse Indeed, I made a start tonight 👍😁
@@kyorin6526 :)
In trying to make the video go away Tom Evans has succeeded in highlighting their shoddy workmanship and severe markup in something that uses already well known circuit designs.
I've been considering making one that's a fraction of the cost with much better performance.
The "Streisand Effect" in full force :)
@@MartinPiper6502 I seem to remember there was an audiophile/engineer who did just that, Said he could build a superior amplifier for a lot less cost and did just that. Eventually became a high end audio company. Can not remember who the chap was.
Yes, half of Louis rossmann’s first video on this is about how attempts to silence this sort of public scrutiny does the complete opposite
@@garfieldsmith332was it by any chance Tom Evans?
To level-set expectations, I used to help build bespoke vacuum tube phono pre-amps at an audiophile company. For the equivalent of about $10k USD in today's dollars, you got a custom folded , anodized aluminum chassis with pressed, metal stand-offs, solid milled aluminum bezel and knobs along with a beautiful custom monolithic circuit board. All tubes were burned in and matched. If you looked inside, you would see sublime elegance. Go to any audiophile trade show an you will see similar craftsmanship. The preamp Mark worked on looked like a prototype.
not to mention lots of vintage commercial amps and pre amps that sound amazing and a cheap as chips now.
@@ljones2087 Indeed, a 70s flag ship Marantz or Sansui, Yamaha or Pioneer is something to behold. And back then, they solved almost every audio problem. Those things were build like a tank with cutting edge designs, craftmanship and finish. This thing is not one of them. Looks like a DIY project or a first of a kind prototype. He sanded down the op amps to hide these are just normal components.
I watched the video. It looked like cheaply built piece of junk.
All well and good but no better performance than what could be made for £50.
You should see Tom's linear A amplifier inside!! Heavy boards on tiny plastic pillars!!
Thanks for supporting Mend it Mark. I share your sense of injustice. If Tom Evans had done the right thing by repairing the unit in the first place (and I suggest at £25000 there should be a lifetime guarantee!) there wouldn't be an issue.
Especially since it would have cost him a few 100 pounds to make.
@@JonnyMac351@JonnyMac351 True, £100 or so. But he wanted £6000 for the repair, which is what kicked this whole thing off. Bloke is just a greedy fucker and got what he deserved.
@@JonnyMac351 Quoted £6000 to repair a broken tantulum capacitor. Seems a little excessive.
@@paulscottrobson It sure is the whole thing is overpriced
@JonnyMac351, it's a rip off
That unit that Mend it Mark posted showed shoddy workmanship that Aliexpress would be ashamed of!
looks like it was bought off of AliExpress lol
@@ljones2087 Haha, actually the cheap audio gear from there is often remarkably sturdy and well finished!!
A classic example of streisand effect. Tom Evans is getting what he deserves, and then some.
Absolutely ridiculous though, that people can still abuse the youtube copyright so blatantly, and get away with it!
I fully agree with you (as probably do most others). Showing the inside of a device is not copyrightable, nor is PCBs, nor are reverse engineered schematics. If Mark was using the reverse engineering to sell an identical unit for cheaper, sure, but that's not what happens.
I think Mark made a wiring diagram that looked so cool that Tom Evans thought it was theirs. What they did was probably hand drawn on graph paper. At least when you look at what kind of school project the product itself is.
RUclips is such as P.O.S. that it's trivial to abuse the ©️ system. They don't give a flip about anything but ridiculous amounts of commercial monetization and completely randomly applying draconian censorship.
Bang on the money with the Streisand effect. From what I hear, many of the Audiophile forums are on fire about it. What should have been a good laugh between the professional repairers and the hobbyists and then forgotten has turned around and sunk his "£25,000 flagship product" and probably his business and reputation. What an idiot.
Exactly! You can reverse engineer everything you want and you can show it to the world either. Copyright infringement is only the case when you start producing copies of an original product (media, music, art, books). Products and ideas aren't under copyright, they can be patented (not always). When something is patented, you are also allowed to reverse engineer it and show the world how it's made. Even the original patents aren't secret, you can look up any patent you like. But, you are not allowed to use the patented stuff in your own commercial product.
Yes, the most famous is the clone PC market, where the clones used the published Intel reference design ( which IBM used as well) and only used the IBM public docments of the BIOS entry and exits, along with a description of what the code had to do, and wrote code to do that same function, and thus the massive PC marketplace, with IBM now just a small bit player in it, and buying PC and clones from others as well, along with BIOS written by others as well.
Anyway, those modules are pretty much all almost exact copies of application notes, plenty of prior art, plus the application notes are all released by the manufacturer to be used, either as s, or with minor, often documented, changed. you might find that actually those modules are very likely copies of other designs, I would guess Douglas Self as the original inventor, as he did make so many novel new designs over his lifetime, and his site probably still has a good number still in copyright and trade protection as well, unless you licensed them from him, which he is very willing to do.
I had never heard of Tom Evans or mend it Mark before this controversy-
But after this controversy, I will (A) never ever consider a Tom Evans product, (B) have already watched several Mend-it Mark videos
Same.
Mend it Mark is amazing. He has a brilliant approach to repairs and restoration.
@5:59 - I didn't notice this, before, but he even used nylon hardware on the power transistors. Nylon stretches. Heat makes nylon brittle and eventually breaks. When either of these happen, those transistors are going to lose their cooling. When I see work like this, it makes me say "That's where they ran out of money", but how do you go over budget, on a $25K phono preamp? As a retired EE, I'd be ashamed of this, too. Scrubbing your component numbers, is also a jerk move.
@@Willam_J the nylon has already started to discolour as well. Indicating potential mechanical and electrical problems.
I work in the Electronics industry and found the boards looked poorly made especially the heat sinks and fixings, I'd be ashamed for something so expensive to be so poorly made, as someone else said it looks like a prototype, which I get why you might start simple and easy. I understand R&D factors in cost but I cannot see this units R&D would take to much cost. Our company has reversed engineered boards under licence to manufacture a newer design to comply with new laws and the prototypes looked better than this and cost less.
That's OK, only 6k pounds and he'll sort that right out 🤣
@@M-o-r-l-a-d-e-r I go back to the 1970s and it reminded me of those magazine projects where you would often be expected to make your own PCBs using acid to dissolve a layer of metal, and drill the holes. Though most of the projects then looked much more professional.
I just checked out the website....this peice of junk is £25K so thats $30K+...absolute skocking build qualitythose paper shims made me cry. Not even a bespoke case, off the shelf rubbish.
That expensive "product" looks like a science fair project.
Or a prototype. The price is in line with a one-off.
Most of the Science Fair projects I have seen over the years have much better layout and construction compared to this thing.
Not a science fair project, but either a one off or something a keen hobbyist makes for himself (the electronics that is.
The casing is a bit meh.
But all in all certainly not worth 25k, we all agree on that!😆
Vid eo is over on r mble.
I used to make at least cleaner and better looking SS Amps back in School days itself. And ANY Design Marvel of Tom could be totally factored out as his choice of components nearly match the Chip/OpAmp manufacturers Application note. And I give a DAMN about Hand matched components - go for 1%, 0.1% or 0.01% tolerance components , which should NOT increase the BOM cost by even 50 quids
Utter junk. The manufacturer should be ashamed of themselves - for the spurious copyright claim, for the laughable construction, and for having the gall to charge so much.
He should, but I think his god is the old mantra "there is a sucker born every minute".
He is ashamed, that's why he filed a bogus copyright claim.
I’m pretty new to Mark AND already a massive fan. Watching him diagnose and fix old amps - turning new parts on his lathe! He’s unstoppable!
Respect to The Mark!!
And thanks for highlighting this shoddy treatment.
We know who will prevail!
🦅
I did my electronics apprenticeship in the early 80’s courtesy of the MOD. The quality of work shown here is something we’d make in our second year. By the time we finished we were producing high quality circuit boards, with good components in appropriate boxes. Everything we did was designed to be crashed and not kill a crew, but quality didn’t mean expensive. It just meant the correct part for the job. Plastic stand offs have their place, but they’re likely going to suffer from heat and vibration issues and can be easily broken with mishandling. The rest is just low quality workmanship.
Leave professionals like you . A DIY Electroncis / Ham like me used to solder way better in class 8th grade!!! And only apprenticeship I got under my Dad was being gifted with a cheap 25Watt iron and few tips! and I was on my own getting inspiration from cleanliness in soldering of National/Akai VCR of 1990's .
And the Standoffs and PCB Quality !! Jeees!!!
@ we all started somewhere. The difference for us was that we did this every day and we were watched and monitored by apprentice masters who wouldn’t allow sub par work to fly.
They do make more rugged standoffs for a few cents more, even ones made of exotic materials that reduce thermal and leakage current... This guy went with the cheapest possible solution that isn't even fit for a hobby prototype.
plastic stand offs are iffy to support just one board let alone four stacked on top of each other, and that poor method to join the two boards together is just appalling.
The real loser here is the customer and anyone else who owns one of these pos. I'd be embarrassed to admit throwing that kind of cash away.
I a world of Audophools buying $100,000 tonearms, $800,000 4 way speakers, $600,000 250w power amps, and other things are way, way, way more overpriced... this is same-ol same-ol sucker bait. As the late, great George Carlin said "If you nail 2 pieces of wood together that never have been nailed together before, some sucker will buy it."
MIM was asked to fix it, and he did in his usual stylish and thorough way. The "Genius" should have thought a bit longer about a copyright strike because there was none.
Mend it Mark smashed it out of the ballpark, and instead of Tom Evans Audio appreciating what he did for its customer, he lashed out at MIM. It shows you what kind of person Tom Evans is - not my cup of tea.
He certainly believes there is. Part of it, is that Mark revealed to the world what goes into a Welsh made Preamp.. any manufacturer who grinds the numbers off the IC's they use, is hell bent on protecting their company and will stop at nothing in the process.
It's a word of caution to anyone showing electronics repairs....
Tom Evans needs to have a lay down
Evans sends it to Mark because customer refused his 6,000 euro repair price. The message from the manufacturer is snarky in saying "you won't be able to fix it" as if he was sticking his tongue out at the same time. Of course it would have been easier if Evans hadn't sanded the numbers off the ICs. Hats off to Mark! I really look forward to his videos.
You'd imagine an honest person would mend a £25,000 pre-amp for free. 6,000 euro is criminal.
Maybe the ICs are allegedly copywrited/patented hence why the numbers are sanded off.
..
That would ironic.
Yeah. The sales brochure mentioned that it was like alien technology inside. Then Mark opens it and shows opamps and power supplies. No alien tech there.
I didn't know that was what the bugger wanted to charge for repair. And it ended up with one tantalum capacitor fried and I wonder what nonsense and outright lies TE would've claimed he'd fixed.
Imagine being a "dealer" for Tom Evans, and you receive one of these from the manufacturer, and it comes with a rattle. To investigate, you take the cover off, and find these towers of janky towers of cards with hand-drilled cooling holes, connected by poorly dressed and cold soldered wires inside!
Also note that none of the signal wires are shielded in the slightest, in a case that is highly susceptible to RF/EMI interference. Even the cheapest of no-name generic products get this right.
@@donmoore7785 he can't even drill a row of holes in a straight line. Also why reduce the mass and surface area of the heatsinks by drilling them when there's no fan? Then go and paint them black....
Imagine no more... we all got to see it instead! 😂
If I were dealer, I’d stop immediately!
I don't have to imagine anything. They sold hundreds if not thousands of TE devices and they know what's inside in and out. The 25k Mastergrove itself I think sold 80 devices. There are people who buy art and those why buy posters but most just buy chewing gum
If that came from Aliexpress I would be sending it back for a full $55 refund and 1 star rating.
$55, did you buy two?
@@rdrhouse nah shipping is 30, because of that massive PSU.
Send this to Lewis Rossman, he'll like to rip into manufacturers with those getting butt hurt and making BS copyright claims.
Seems I'm already too late, he's already got in on the conversations.
He's already done a video on this, and offered to take on Tom for Mark.
@@ianhaylock7409 Yes I should of checked first, but hay, just watched both of Louis videos on the topic (now spelt correctly) he's a great character and advocate.
Yes he already knows.
Louis is all over this shady practice..
that product looks like a high school electronics project
Thanks for showing us the video highlights. I actually missed Mark's original RUclips video. So I appreciate that you were able share this with us.
Keep up the good work.
I was never aware of Tom Evans before discovering these videos. The absurd price of this product in the first place would make you believe that this amp would be made of quality components. In fact, it looks like a GCSE school project. The amateur obfuscation of some of the components is just a further show of how untrustworthy the manufacturer is. I truly hope all the negative publicity puts Tom Evans' business where it clearly belongs.
This is the Streisand effect in all it's glory. Mark is an amazing technician without a malicious bone in his body. He wasn't trying to shame Tom Evans' products he was just pointing out the obvious.
RUclips's copyright is about content, not hardware. Hardware is copyrighted (anything you create is copyrighted by default) but violating that copyright requires building your own version of the product and selling it. Mark did not do this.
That said; here in The Netherlands some photographers have been successfully sued by the designer of a fancy bridge because they were not allowed to sell pictures of that bridge, because of copyright. Kind of like how you're not allowed to record a live concert and sell that recording.
Evans' claim is obviously against the video because it shows that this machine is not worth $25k.
He is Streisanding himself into bankruptcy because now everybody who owns one of his machines is going to open it up to see what's in there.
One area which could infringe copyright is Marks documentation BUT the infringement is legal unless he sells it (and causes a loss to Tom Evans)
That's actually common with architecture.
@@carly09etand Tom Evans would have to prove in court he suffered loses due to MIM video.
..
Perhaps knowing how cheaply the amp is made is certainly not doing TE any favours..
@@stuartd9741 Yes, I am think of why You Tube was so aggressive with its action. As the complaint lacked relevance ie what in the original video was actionable. I watch a reupload, maximising IP claiming and found very very little.
@@stuartd9741 Yep, but the cost to fight it, BUT the bluff that usually works.
Electronics is where I ended up (professionally) after programming 6502/68K/Z80 in the 80s & 90s. The build "quality" on that amp is something Stevie Wonder would be ashamed of.
Mend it Mark is a genius, especially when it comes to audio repairs. I often leave his videos on in the background while I'm working. He even "machines" replacement buttons, knobs & switches to match the originals.
Also, you were way more polite about the build quality than I would've been. Excellent restraint, Martin.
I like Mark's work. The smarty pants manufacturer didn't want you to see what's inside their unit, so you as a citizen will believe there's magic inside and pay "audiophile" prices.
I call those lunatics Audio-Piles ... and I am not misspelling .... looks for a disease
The smarty pants manufacturer sent the unit to Mark.
Yes, by it owner request, and that same owner was advised that it couldn't be fixed by a third party, several times.
Having seen the inside and build quality of Naim, this is an embarrassment to British HiFi
@@1697djh I spent 10 minutes replacing a LED in a christmas decoration for my wife, new LED and resistor, quick and dirty, looks like the Apollo project compared to this.
I’m a big fan of mend it Mark Mark spoke about the video strike which Tom Evans put against him a few days later it was on a fellow RUclipsr name Lewis rossman and he was talking about this video that mend it Mark did that he was scathing against Tom Evans rightly so this is nothing more than a hobby build and apparently there was a second video that LouisRossman did and Tom Evans had to step back because you cannot copyright circuit board and well observed. I didn’t notice that he had the Intel inside logo on the front of his box. It boils down to this. Tom Evans didn’t really want nobody seeing how he made this device Mark had no schematic to look at he had to draw a schematic to understand how the circuit worked and he made it work basically he had to reverse engineer it and really truly the parts are off the shelf parts. I think it’s just crazy that Mend it Mark got a copyright strike & the baned video should come back for people to see.
I love Marks channel too, Louis Rossman made a follow up video to it recently as well, they was realy fun to watch and he runs is a pretty big channel with + 2 milion followers and is concidered a high trust person in the comunity worldwide, so i think that will probably not go unnoticed. (English is not my native language so i apologise if i am butchering the language, i do my best to learn...).
@@sheep1ewe You do NOT want to be on the opposing side of Louis Rossmann.
@@KameraShy For sure not! Ha ha! Love that man! I folloved him pretty much since the beginning of the channel and i must say that i realy love the humor and intelligence in the arguments. Not even the farts are fake...
Firstly,
do Hi Fi customers look inside their equipment probably not.
.
But word is out that perhaps the quality could be improved.
.
Secondly,
Some other commenter said that because Mark drew the circuit diagram, that was the part that TE was trying to copyright..
..
I think it's spurious..
..
However, the manufacturer knew Mark would be repairing this amp soo.....🤔
I subscribe to Mark's channel and saw the original video, there is nothing in it which can be considered to infringe any copyright. The manufacturer is simply embarrassed that the poor quality of such an expensive piece of equipment has been exposed. Many congratulations on making it through the video without using the word "extortionate", you might not have said it but we were all thinking it. Lets get straight to the point, if a group of 8th graders had submitted this work as a school project they would have been told to take it away and rethink the design!
Nailed it !!!!
$25,000 POS has been exposed to the internet
And his Linear A Amplifier - that makes the preamp look quite sturdy...
I just wish someone would create a Bill of Materials so that we can see how inflated the price is !
I have no idea but I’m guessing a few hundred quid at most?
He could've got away with £500 for the pre amp including the power supply.
The guy is just butt hurt that his obscenely priced unit has been shown for the cheapness it really is.
The video in question was the very first video I had watched by Mend It Mark.
the crying shame here is that the cashed up suckers who fell for his scam wont know the difference or understand why it is shite. and probably wont care
Shows how embarrassed Tom Evans was when the true context of his build was displayed.
I love your approach in this video. You illustrate the shabby construction that Mark revealed. You point out the salient details that led to the manufacturer sending this to Mend It Mark - the customer was quoted a ridiculous repair cost AND told by the manufacturer MIM would not be able to repair it. He must have assumed that without a schematic, that would hinder him. Instead of you know, being helpful by supplying a schematic. This reveals mutiple issues with Tom Evans Audio - I would not deal with them knowing they treated someone in this manner.
I totally agree, the way Mark is treated is unbelievable.
The build 'quality', I'm having a hard time to call it quality at all, is shockingly horrible. This may work as a prototype, a proof of concept or maybe as a hobby project. But as you've mentioned, the weight of the components requires something way more sturdy, even if transportation or shipping is not considered. The PCB material looks like stuff I have used during my apprenticeship for developing small circuits and why they have hot glued the caps but using plastic stands to hold everything together is something I can't really comprehend.
I originally watched it on mend it marks channel, before it was taken down then Louis Rossman made a video about it being taken down, Tom Evans has just shot himself in both feet by taking it down and should be rewarded in the most suitable by the paying public as they vote with their feet.
these companies do not understand the repercussions and backlash, I had never heard of DCS batteries (and Im Australian) until I watched Louis Rossman and look at the damage that self inflicted nonsense did to their company
Ditto 👍
Quite right Martin. I think this issue is well worth analysis. Making false claims are an issue, right to repair is a big one.
The QC of the item seems to poor. A ticket cost of £25000 for that unit is mad. Tom Evans Audio need calling out for this one, it ain't cool.
Mark didn’t denigrate the product at all , it spoke for itself.
Mark's videos are the best meditation medicine you can buy. Except they're free. And he's funny and warm.
I would consider this product as scam.
Audiophile snake oil or 💩
I wouldn't touch that with a barge-pole. Completely shoddy production. He also calls himself a genius on his website. I think a better analogy would be cowboy, given what I've seen so far.. and he sells that kit all over the world? Disgraceful. Definitely 'Buyer Beware' material.
has to be a genius. he actually convinced someone to BUY one.
always beware the self labelled "genii"...
Charlatan is probably more accurate.
@@mbilden I think both apply in this instance.
Thankfully he's Welsh...
He didn't even put specifications on his products.
This is so funny because the way of publishing the Tom Evans video reminds me of the 'Barbara Streisand Effect' they popping up everywhere! 🙂
Ignoring the copyright problem for a moment, good grief - that design does not feel production ready.
Those boards stacked with plastic stand-offs, chunks of hot glue potting, and from a quick glance those boards have question marks.
*That's* a £25k pre-amp?
Audiofools will pay anything
@@villehursti It's super high quality, those bits of paper packing are special oxygen free hi fi paper!
Nothing but snake oil.
Hot glue on capacitors isn’t an uncommon technique, lots of manufacturers do that at all levels,of cost. That’s not really the issue. And I guess the “alien technology” is the system design with all the excessive power regulation… but it sure seems like a fairly hobby grade system.
Yes!! One of my Audio-Phile friend swears by it (though he doesn't afford it) as few other Psycho Audiophile reviewers had all the praise for the Crap. So Audio lunatics with Deep Pocket, FOMO and boasting rights will still buy it , despite seeing MOST pathetic workman ship I have EVER seen in an Audio gear which sells for money and not build as a favor
Nobody would think that a video on fixing a VW Golf's breaks would be a copyright infringement, right? The same goes for Mend It Mark's video.
Mark has handled the whole thing so beautifully.
His response was *chef's kiss*
Also even I could of done a better job on the design and construction of this equipment and I'm a monkey
His response was a lesson in how to own someone, whilst being funny and serious at the same time.
Some companies just don't understand what the "reputation" actually is.
What's crazy is didn't Mark say the circuit design was just the sample design on the data sheets? Which makes this even more ridiculous.
The problem was that it caused audiophools to reveal themselves - because that UKP25,000 piece of equipment didn't look the part. And many people were shocked at the shoddy construction for what you paid for. If you order a USD$30,000 piece of test gear from Keysight, you can see where the money was spent and it feels like it was well spent. Something like this looks home made and of poor quality. Heck, a $30,000 Cisco piece of gear (generally well known to be overpriced) still feels much better constructed with high quality parts, a strong chassis and a clean circuit board that's well assembled and put together. Tom Evans was basically selling audiophool gear and the video revealed they were taking everyone as suckers.
You'd think for £25k you'd get something properly built. It might just be me, but wouldn't you want to shield a preamp from outside signals ?
I could build that for less than five hundred dollars, the only 'expensive' parts are the power supply, 14 one percent resistors and the op amps, everything else is penny for the pound. Even the case is as we say in the industry "rubbish!" its the ultimate audiophile scam, charging 25000 pounds for less than 400 pounds of parts (thats being generous) and probably the same in labour. its a licence to print money
Full video on Louis Rossmann I believe
Oh, Yes, twice as well! Ha ha! Love that man!
Thank you. I recently discovered Mend It Mark's channel and rapidly became a huge fan. He's incredibly talented, and his demeanor is so conducive to learning. He's just great.
So we have Piper, Rossmann, Big Clive and hundreds more supporting Mark.
This is great.
I'll get the popcorn on.....
I've seen a phono preamp costing over $80,000.00 US. This is just nuts.
That looked like a build it yourself kit someone might get for Christmas.
Surprised no to see perf board considering the general build quality.
Thanks for doing this. Mark is an absolute gentleman and a serious talent in the world of electronics. Ironic that a guy so generous with his knowledge gets hammered by - well intel inside copyright borrower ?
Imagine buying one of these and being inquisitive you take a sneaky peak inside of your £25000 precum box .
Thank you for standing up for mark , mark is just a genuinely good man and he never ever realised that carrying out a repair would lead to a copy write claim
Louis Rossman has taken the cause on and is ready to fight
My guess of the copyright breach is that when Mark made the Service Manual, he included the Tom Evans logo. Now technically this should be a breach of a trademark if the logo is registered. Whatever comes of this, Tom Evans has lost a lot of fans and possibly sales.
I agree. I think the fact that you see "Tom Evans Audio" on that "manual" is what took it over the top and made Evans feel justified. Of course he was looking for a reason, based on what was exposed.
It looks like a badly made Elektor hobby project from the 80s
Don't bring Elektor into this. Their prototypes were beautiful and we could follow their examples.
@@misterbonzoid5623 They'd be embarrassed to put a picture of something like that in their magazine. Even 60s and 70s electronics magazine projects, with things like stripboard and wirewrap look better.
Oh how I remember building the Elektor Filmnet decoder from the 90's. Don't ask me why I remember it OK... just don't! 😉
The Box looks like an oversized 3DO player from the 90s
this reminds me of homer simpsons family car prototype. love your work and your delivery.
That design is typical of stuff made in the 1980s for the enthusiast market, before we could get bespoke parts made pretty cheaply. As you say those brittle plastic standoffs are a travesty and the wiring looks like it was done by somebody's unqualified parents one wet weekend just as a favour
'Copyright' can be interpreted here as 'I've been found out and am embarrassed'.
I used to build bespoke electronics in the 80s for UPS applications and no company I worked for would let this type of construction go to a customer as a paid for product. It looks like a hastily built prototype we'd use for proof of concept.
@@TerryClarkAccordioncrazy some of the very good amplifiers and speakers that I sold in the 80s looked a bit ropey inside. I corrected the phase on a few pairs of speakers because the designer's Mum had mixed up the wires. That was before industrial design was as advanced as today and component manufacturers widened their product ranges. Some of the small amplifier manufacturers turned out products that were a bit Heath Robinson. But they were cheap, not £25k!
With this manufacturer his huge mistake was to try and charge his valued customer who'd invested a lot of money in the device, a premium amount to repair a pretty basic component failure. For £25k I would expect some amount of platinum plated support from my supplier, with a smile, a free cuppa in bone china and a degree of forelock tugging. Instead they are delivering a knee in the crown jewels and a v sign
Louis just re-uploaded Mark's entire video.
When I saw how much the preamp cost I thought this was going to be a joke video. When Mark removed the cover to show the construction I thought Ebay junk. By the end of the video I realized this was for real. This Tom Bloke is probably the guy who built this and has conned many a person and didn't want people finding out how bad these things are. It looks like a prototype to me.
RUclips will have to add an ‘Ashamed’ claim for those who need a reason to request that a video be taken down. I think the blushing ‘Copyright’ claimant just used what was available. I would be interested to watch a real-time video of the claimant assembling an AliExpress AM radio receiver kit. Dear-oh-dear. By the way; the ‘CE’ legend on the claimant’s box of components housing, should have double-spaced lettering. Usually it’s only certain (not all), Chinese items that omit the double-space. Thanks for this video, thank you Mark and let’s be glad that such skill has Mark has exists. I think we’ve all seen, or experienced the opposite.
All customers who purchased this product should cancel contract and request a refund...
25 thousand pounds for this ??!! Tom Evans is taking the piss.
I worked for Yamaha for almost 20 years. If we'd put out something of this build quality I'd have resigned. Shocking looking at the internals of a £25000 piece of kit
Great video! Subbed! So much wrong with that product imho - plastic standoffs, plastic screws and nuts on heat sinks, towers of insanity that really should have more security to the chassis. It's a piece of junk - yes there are some nice circuit designs to get good quality audio, but it's all over shadowed by the terrible implementation and totally ruined by the actions related to this copyright take down against Mark.
Looks to me like Tom Evans is embarrassed that anyone had the temerity to look inside his very expensive box and realised it had some very amateurish looking engineering and wanted to stop damage to his brand. So in my opinion Tom Evans is not a good company to buy high end electronics from......you don't appear to get good value for money and he bullies people who give an honest appraisal of his products.
Amateurish is a good word for it..
Mark is awesome. I watch his whole videos it's very interesting watching his trouble shooting techniques.
Thanks Martin - Wow... that product description you mentioned definitely rhymes with piece of "kit"... I'm glad that you're getting it out there in public, despite their efforts to shut down any knowledge / evidence of how shoddily it's put together (and MASSIVELY overpriced for what it is, imo).
Hopefully Mark gets YT to actually do the right thing, and dismiss this spurious / false logic 'claim'... Subscribed to both of your channels - fight the good fight!
You are not wrong 30:000 euros for this Amp ? Not in 30000 years .. I was astounded when he opened it!
Fully agree with all your comments. The quality looks poor and obviously not very well made - certainly not worth the 25K it costs. I have an electronics company and if I produced anything like that, I would be ashamed to sell it.
It's either a quick and dirty prototype or a lash up job to do something yesterday. I go back to the 1970s electronics and pretty much all the magazine projects looked much more professional than that !
"Tom Evans" has made himself and company toxic. And a laughing stock.
This video raises a very interesting question. I am in the US and we have various laws regarding consumer protection and contracts. Those laws address by specific phrase "fitness for purpose." But now I wonder if the theory is adjusted relative to the price of a subject object. That amp does look like a DIY project for which $100 US would seem to "fit." Something like a Heathkit we used to assemble ourselves as kids. But certainly not £25,000.
I subscribed yesterday after seeing Louis Rossmann's video about the issue. You do NOT want to mess with Louis.
Generally the more expensive something is the higher the expectation of quality and being "fit for purpose". For example, a cheap pair of shoes would not be expected to last that long comparatively speaking, but an expensive pair would be expected to last longer due to having the expectation of quality due to the higher price. So, if an expensive pair of shoes develops a fault (like the sole separates from the upper) after a short amount of time, they would not be fit for purpose.
@@MartinPiper6502 My wife's a beautician and I occasionally go to trade shows with her. There are a remarkable number of expensive gadgets on sale (many of them are I think UV or IR LEDs in a tin box with a timer ... £200) which to my eye seem to do little or nothing. Something you'd really love to have a quiet 10 minutes with with a screwdriver. I've often wondered how close it is to fraud.
A correction if I may: I assembled quite a few HeathKits in the 60s and 70s; the implication that they were of poor design and poor construction is undeserved and inappropriate. They worked well and were reasonably priced. There was a 'wholesomeness' about the company and its products that this Tom Evans product clearly lacks.
@@asquared8399 I’d forgotten Heathkit … they were awesome.
Rebranded Amstrad?
Ah Tom Evans. At least everyone now knows your name 😅😅
I wonder if the copyright strike was because Mark made a detailed drawing of the amp, including the components the manufacturer had filed off the text showing what component it was. I'm an electronics engineer myself, but I'm not sure how hard it is to find out what such anonymized components really are (never had the need to).
The copyright for the detailed drawing of the amp belongs to Mark, he drew it. :) A design, which is functional, is not copyrightable, a functional design is patentable but that has nothing to do with copyright. A patent design is publicly viewable in any patent application.
Interestingly it looks like the incorrect CE symbol has been used. Perhaps it was actually made in China! 😂
"China Export"
My cheap Chinese phono preamp is far better constructed than that thing.
The build quality of the internals looked like something I did over lockdown when I was playing with breadboards, arduinos and pcb boards. I am complete amateur and it looked pretty much alike, except I used brass stands instead of nylon ones for my robot on wheels.
Speaking of - anyone wants to buy an IR controlled, arduino-based robot on wheels? I'll sell it for 25 grand.
Oh my God, it’s been a while since I’ve seen such a clear Barbara Streisand effect!
Isn’t putting an incorrect CE mark tantermount to fraud?
Yes, it is quite serious, but we are talking about a company which has gone great lengths to cover up the fact that they have implemented the same example application circuitry in the specifications sheet which came with the component itself and still was not ashamed to ask a outrageous price for it.
A CE mark by itself doesn't mean much unless you know which product category it's claimed to meet. It could be certified as a doorstop or a paperweight.
Letters are too close together, it is actually a china export mark, and also next to it, rip-off Intel inside logo...
The CE mark just says that the manufacturer assures that the product conforms to EU standards. You can just check all the rules, measure radio emissions and so on and put the mark on if you want. Or you skip that and you risk being liable. But a CE mark isn't fake, it's maybe a lie.
It should be emphasised this was not a legal claim, it was a claim using RUclips's somewhat flawed internal systems. If it was a legal claim, taken to court in the UK (where both the Tom Evans and Mike do their business), it would have got precisely nowhere as nothing in that video could remotely fall under UK copyright law.
Seen more channels who shadow Marks video, so even now it can be viewed. About this black box, ashamed for building quality. For that money you rather buy a Krell second hand.
And even Krell doesnt sand off the components to hide the cheap opamps. For that money they should have designed a discrete opamp. Well the video is still around on the net.
Love Marks channel he is to the point with a touch of nice humor.😊😊
I just watched Marks video and then saw your video. So I guess Mark got his ban lifted. The video really showed the credibility of Mark's knowledge. When I saw the circuit boards, I realised there was no kryptonite inside and that it was a scam.
Mark's video has been re-uploaded by many channels :)
You could even find fx a Tandberg TR 2080 and most likely get a better sound for a lot less, not to mention a reference tuner unit and a powerful amplifier.
This thing looks like it was made in a hurry and never should cost that much.
How many people would like to have that power supply and cables exposed? I'll bet that my wife would through it out in the trash right away.
But credit to Mark. He' a really nice guy with a great humor and a lot of know how.
Filing a complaint against the truth is proof that the complainant has a lot to hide.
We'll remember that.
ToTm Evans has become a memorable name
I love that all us electronics designers are coming out of the woodwork and giving our 2p worth in the comments!
Check out Louis Rossmann Martin.He has thrown his hat into the ring to challenge Tom Evans and his duff preamp.
Well said Martin, it looks like a prototype unit built from parts from RS components just like I would of done back in the 80's for the company I worked for (Microwave Modules) in Aintree Liverpool, we also had a lot of problems with tantalum capacitors going short circuit and causing lots of units to be returned under warranty. I would have liked to have seen inside the mains power supply, I bet that would of also been massively over engineered aswell, keep up the good work Martin, regards Dave. 😀😀
I watched this vid when Mark first uploaded it, Mark dindn't disparage it.
I can't beleive that Tom Evans has done this. Just a daft thing to do.
Thank you! A united community of electronics enthusiasts is a massive force to reckon with! Tom should know better!
As a beginner project: great job. As a high end mega expensive piece of audiophile kit: great joke.
So Tom Evans sends a shoddily built bit of over-priced audiofool kit to a RUclips repair channel and then moans when said RUclips channel feature their product. It's like a restaurant inviting a food critic to eat and then complaining when they publish a review. 🤣🤣
Was the block diagram made by Mark or was it from Tom Evans? While you can't copyright an electronic circuit you *can* copyright a drawing of it, so if Mark reverse engineered it it's fine but if it comes from the manufacturer it'll be covered by copyright; they probably still don't have a case under fair use, but that may be the angle they're taking.
I think it was made by Mark.
Mark reverse engineered the preamp to create his own service manual.
No documentation was supplied to Mark, or available to him. He created it all by himself just be examining the circuit boards.
Audiofool got ripped off. It happens.
Hard to sympathise, isn't it?
Could have easily created a "motherboard" with sockets on to slot the "daughter" boards into with a lock mechanism. You would not need all those wires then going from board to board.
You just pushed the price upto 35k 😂😂
Sockets create the issue of possible poor contacts with age.
@@donmoore7785 Preferable to the dogs dinner of fragile wires and nylon pillars.
You're right, but that would mean Evans would actually need to design a board, and by the looks of it he has no idea how to do that.
That looks like something we built in my community college. People that have purchased this brand must be angry to be ripped off
At my community college we would have been graded a "D." I built better looking electronics when I was 12.
Its great to see everyone standing up for Mend it Mark. Tom Evans are going to regret their bullying.
I think Mark did a really excellent job, and did also handle the repair on camera with great respect to the manufacturer if only he held back his giggle during disassembly and assembly. 😂😂