I have been looking at live sound gear lately, and it seems that the vast majority of gear has moved toward circuit types and construction methods that are non-repairable. Surface mount pcb’s, class-d amps, DSP boards, switching supplies, speakers that can’t be reconed, and so forth. When this stuff goes out of warranty and breaks, off to the land fill it goes. On the flipside, there is lots of used gear out there that was made before the disposable era took hold. Alot of that older gear has robust construction using lots of commonly available components and through-hole pcb’s making it practical to replace failed components. On the other hand, old gear is old and someone will have to do those repairs when the stuff breaks. And old electrolytic caps can poop out at any time.
Seems like a bad idea, but can’t afford boutique or vintage. I dunno, every manufacturer is under the never blinking eye of constant consumer review now, if it really cant be fixed, they better be making it to last forever, huh?
Its all bullshit. If people were serious about saving the planet, they would be trying to stop the disposable electronics, the new cellphone every year… There wouldnt be platform upgrades on computers at the rate they are… FFS stop bloating the OS and software just to give a reason to move to DDR7 and DirectX 19…
A model T can get up and running how many years later? These new POS cars need expensive computers, that you must order…
Definately DONT look into RARE METALS and how they need to acid bathe rocks over and over to extract them… itll make fracking look tame… save the planet, eat less burgers… cow farts… keep buying trash… we wont tell you where the trash comes from or how its made… news canceled at 11…
Lolol… just upgrade bro…
But… but… what’s going to save the planet is another enormous consumer frenzy, not using less you silly billy you!
we could do worse than ban vehicle prodtcion, most plastic production and disposable electronics for the next 5 years at the minimum.
even music wise, I seem to enjoy guitar ancestors (like the taar) and hand beaten basic percussion more and more now. no fx. no amplifcation. no monetray or fame concerns. its a self calibration and brain / spirit excercise.
yes its more fun as a group. but live, open sky, bon fire, loin cloths and psychs.
i play now for myself, but sometimes still record songs / albums, a remnant of my old self. i dream of strange remote places and starting a new community. i am afraid of these gutter scum in power, and their complete disregard for their own species or their planet.
stuck in a loop at present, where i have to live unemployed in a (once familiar but now alien ) urban environment so i can see my kids everyday. but now i am thinking, how many more cowardly excuses can a loser come up with yeah ?
I guess the machine does have its perks. Someone has to gather the supplies… someone has to make the med’s for example… I just wish lady justice was truly blind and someone actually adhered to the monopoly laws.
Yup, if endless dodgy mergers or acquisitions weren’t approved maybe we could move on to corporate cartel behaviour.
The gear that I have that is repairable isn’t repaired, so what does that mean? I’ve got a partially dismantled '76 50 watt Marshall, a Mesa Formula preamp that works for about 10 minutes once a year, a Presonus MP20 preamp I modded the transformers and op amps on decades ago that has a dead channel, hmm… looking around… the non-repairable stuff isn’t what is causing me anguish.
We were at a zenith in component design/reliability prior to COVID19, manufacturing had become very reliable IMO compared to board-design construction in the 90’s.
Send me the Marshall and end your misery. 
Is that a JMP 2204?
The EU proposed a bill that all consumer electronics become repairable and even updateable. They also want a universal port, so yay for USB C. And many companies like Apple dont like this.
I would love if this become reality, especially for easy battery replacement. Its a damn shame to throw away such a marvel of technology just after 2-3 years because of a done battery.
What would have even be better is if they can decide on standardised battery form factors. For instance a standard 3000 mAh, 5000mAh. So basically these batteries can be interoperable with all phones accross all brands.
Another thing I hope can happen is to make it easier for Android Phone users to install other ROMs. At the moment its rather complicated to install Lineage for instance.
But that is just propbably just a pipe dream
Francois, yea future proofing and better standardization goes against the consumption subscription model that manufacturers have moved toward. I think it would take alot of noise and maybe even mass boycotting to get manufacturers to turn that around, neither of which are likely to happen.
I watched an episode recently of the Guitologist on youtube where he attempted to repair a little Vox amp that is a class-d design and surface mount constructed. This is a very experienced amp tech having a very hard time with an attempted repair on something that is essentially the modern day equivalent of a champ amp, where a champ will be indefinitely repairable.
I thought the top comment to that video was well on point:
A Japanese company selling a British trademark made in China, sold in the USA with zero support. Isn’t progress an amazing thing.
And nowadays, big manufacturers are producing guitar amps and pa gear of that sort of design and construction that costs in the thousands. And when one of those chips fails the things will go to the land fill, by the many thousands, where old school designed and constructed gear will be around indefinitely.
The right to repair movement is good to see, I’ve watched a few of Louis Rossman’s recordings of hearing in the USA and the slimy excuses coming from lobbyists is something else.
Snooks, can you point me to one of those videos?
Of course, here’s a full one…
Here’s focus on a lobbyist…
He’s put a few of them up there, “louis rossman right to repair hearing” seems to catch some.
Interesting testimony in that first video from Louis Rossman https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHpXJzjin7k&t=107m4s
I see that his testimony is covered in the second video (shorter).
I received my degree in electronics back in the 70’s. Worked on a lot of electronics gear, mostly computers, over the years.
Over the years the boxes themselves have gotten smaller and cheaper, but the labor costs to repair them have gone up. In a lot of cases, by the time you’re done repairing one of these devices, (that includes all costs, not just labor) you’re pretty close to what a new one would cost.
The devices that are economically feasible to repair are generally devices where you can just swap out a main circuit board. If you have a device that you have to tear down and troubleshoot to the component level, that can get kind of expensive. Especially since their aren’t a lot of people around anymore who can troubleshoot and repair electronics down to the component level.