#148

What my nightmares are made of

1 Like
#149

i’m no engineer but that looks more like a bomb than a delay module

4 Likes
#150

Mm. It certainly is a spectacularly unattractive module. :confused: But I’ve been pretty impressed by the noises it makes, and so I’m hoping I can get over that.

#151

It’s not that it’s unattractive, but it has so many possible points of failure that it makes me cry.

2 Likes
#152

Ohmygoodness. Someone send Strymon a bag of thonkiconn jacks ASAP! :sweat_smile:

2 Likes
#153

I held off on Magneto for exactly this reason; my main skiff only barely fit the Batumi, and my other bits are in a Frap Plus. Right now, Clouds and a physical tape delay (Klemt Echolette) through the ALM SBG are doing fine enough work.

#154

I just wish the jacks were all along the bottom, rather than distributed around the edges of the module.

2 Likes
#155

As I don’t have the module in my hands, it is difficult for me to understand exactly what’s problematic with its construction.

Would you care to explain ? I’m very much interested about these considerations.

:man_technologist: :man_scientist:

#156

The Frapp Tools Case is pretty shallow, so my primary concern is whether there’s enough depth in the case for this module.

#157

There would be no problems if this was a pedal, with a metal enclosure. But this is a module with an open back, and is meant to be moved from the studio case to the live case, and then back to the studio case, etc… For example, those exposed thin flat cables are a recipe for disaster, if you ask me. They might not fail today, but maybe tomorrow…

#158

The bulkiness and overall strange modular integration is why I’m probably not going to pick up a Magneto, despite loving my El Capistan. It’s very clear they don’t fully understand the format because I find the choice of CV integration a bit odd on that module, and with a lot of things lacking. (no CV control over any of the sound-shaping parameters, a large chunk of the outputs dedicated to clock outputs from each head…why would I want that?) Also the lack of independent dual-channel operation like the DLD means for 28hp I’m always stuck with just one delay which doesn’t fit the bill for my smallish system. And lastly, I think it sounds great, but I’m already hearing a lot of the same sounds from it - maybe it’s just early days and people haven’t unearthed it’s full potential, but I can definitely see it’s sexiness wearing off on me rather quickly.

#159

Not going to jump to conclusions on performance or reliability yet because Strymon has a very strong track record on the pedal front (IMO anyways), but dang that thing looks like a house of cards. I do agree with others that indicate that this thing kind of goes against some general design principals in eurorack - you are pretty much guaranteed to have cables crossing the main interface at all times and I see a toroidal transformer (?) on the back for I guess some crazy power filtering/conditioning. I’ve not seen the need for that before - my case PSU is pretty well filtered but maybe they see the need for more.

1 Like
#160

Regarding the transformer, there was a comment from one of the engineers:

The Sharc processor used in the Magneto requires a lot of current at a low voltage (3.3V/1.2V core). Rather than drawing all of this current from a single supply, we use a custom multitiap flyback transformer to split the power draw between the +12V and -12V supplies. The primary for our flyback converter is the 24V potential formed by stacking the +/-12V supplies. The secondaries are +3.3V, +15V, -15V. The +/-15V are subsequently filtered and linearly-regulated to provide +/- 12V rails for our analog circuitry.

In addition to distributing the power draw, this scheme has a couple benefits for the audio performance.

  1. The output windings of the the transformer are galvanically isolated from each other and from the primary. This allows us to carefully manage analog and digital grounds, preventing the digital portion of this design from bleeding into our low noise analog circuitry. Isolation from the Eurorack power supply ground also provides immunity from system noise.

  2. Because we generate our own analog rails, we are also immune from noise on the +/-12V Eurorack supplies.

It does sound like things were thought through

3 Likes
#161

Well color me impressed.

#162

This is indeed well thought through, and much more efficient at high current than a linear regulator (“clean” but inefficient) and far cleaner than a switchmode (“dirty” but highly efficient). Transformers are really fantastic when you spec them properly, with concern for core saturation and the like.

The concern about ground separation is good, although to be honest with the TS jacks you’re probably going to get ground on the analogue side connected right across to the digital again (or back to the rack power rails) through other modules, so I’m not entirely sure that that’s buying you a whole lot there, but from the “our module shouldn’t inject more noise itself” perspective, it’s spot on.

#163

Indeed! With all the sloppy designs you can find in eurorack (for example some reference voltage directly to the busboard instead of doing that internally and hence are prone to picking up and amplifying any noise in the system) it’s great to see that they did a very thorough work to make sure the powering of the module works well. At least from what I understand it seems like they did a proper job.

Regarding the choice of jacks… well, I’d want to first test and see how they feel. These type of connectors are very uncommon in Eurorack, but I have to admit that I’m only mildly enthusiastic about the Thonkiconn/Kobiconn jacks everybody uses. They work ok, are easy to assemble, have a small footprint and can be mounted vertically on the PCB, which is why everybody uses them, but the patching feel is not super-great.

1 Like
#164

to me, most of strymon’s stuff is in a similar category as chase bliss audio: obnoxiously over designed and totally rule because of it

#165

It does seem like they went to a fair bit of trouble to use the jacks they did, I imagine they would not have done so for little benefit!

#166

Dredging an old thread (maybe it should be merged with Strymon Magneto) but I’m wondering if anyone ever tried putting Magneto into a Frap Tools Plus case?

41mm module depth in 43mm case depth, possible?

#167

Yes; it’s tight but it does fit.

1 Like