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Hi Robert

Yes this is the same consumer pre amp/ decoder we have talked about before, partly based on the pro encoder/ decoder - without the encoder section, isolated XLR inputs etc. I think it will also be in the rack mount format.

The whole question of external plugpack vs internal transformer is a complicated one. The advantages of the external plugpack are:

1 A bit cheaper as approved plug packs are available to OEM at around $3 - $5

2 Simplifies and makes cheaper CE and safety approvals (costs say $16K in Australia)

3 Typically lowers induced hum into sensitive phono stages

4 Simplifies international Voltage changeovers as most plug packs are universal.

5 Adaquate filtering on the main board will knock out any 100 Mhz and above switching hash - some audiophiles are "dickheads"

Frankly for the pro unit we also ran out of internal space for a Lumpy iron transformer. With the metal case hifi pre amp/ decoder I really am not sure yet as to what direction we will go on this issue- I welcome suggestions for QQ members

What do you think the advantages of a variable crossover are for a pre amp????

Regards

Chucky

Thanks for the detailed respone Chuck. I was not aware of all these safety regulations and the cost involved. Makes sense to go with the external adapter, instead of increasing the price of the unit.

As for the cross over, I am not talking about the pre amp section. I understood that the SM has a fixed crossover of 80Hz. My speakers go to around 45Hz, at the moment I have them set to large and a high level connection to the sw. In the other thread you offered a hard coded crossover other than 80Hz. But if the SM is 80Hz , not a deal breaker for me :) and to be honest, I am not really sure what the best cross over would be in my situation, as I just take the 45Hz from the manufacturer, Have not done any measurements to determine the real low end. If the criss over was variable, people could experiment with it, to suit there own situation.

Anyway, as said, if it is 80Hz, I am ok.
 
Hi Robert and Duncan

The "audiophile" Decoder/ preamp will have QS/ INVOLVE and SQ. I am aiming to have it ready by the end of the year/ early next year.

Please note that with or without an internal power supply you still have to get the EMC and Safety compliance certification (although safety compliance is not manditory) it is just you are more likely to pass with a pre approved wall wart.

Re the low frequency crossover, currently the crossover in the SM is set in software. We will do a variable hardware sub filter for the preamp/ decoder.

Please note our current schedule is something like:

Finalize production on Pro encoder, Y2 stereo system, Y4 surround system,marketing campaign, produce the ammended SQ software, design some automated production jigs for our electrostatic speakers and then the hifi pre amp/ decoder.

Regards

Chucky
 
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Call me crazy but…………………….

Dear Surround purists

Just thought I would fill you guys in on my cunning plan to rule the surround world with an iron fist (thinking about rolling through Poland and crushing France). Yes I am writing this from deep within my underground lair.

THE DOLBY DOMINATION

Those of you that know and indeed “love” us would know that we are in fact old school quadraphile surround nutters and we firmly believe that the surround took a wrong turn in the mid 1980’s when Dolby released their original Prologic 1 system. Commercially it was a master stroke as it offered a simple “band aid” quick fix to the major problems of the 70’s quadraphonic era. These were:

1 Non standardisation of formats – Dolby were really the first LOGO that had become “standard” in the public mind as a result of their domination of the cassette noise reduction market from the mid 1960’s. People had begun to accept if it was Dolby it was the standard – even if it was inferior.

2 Dolby adopted the myth that we could not directionalize bass under 80 Hz. This was great commercially as the major CE’s could spend less on the 4 or 5 main boxes and reduce their visual size

3 Quad only really worked in the one central seat of the room, move left or right and the central vocal went hard left or right. The center channel provided a stable point . The initial Prologic 1 was very dumb and only summated left and right but did not remove hard left or right components – this resulted in a diminished left right stage width. In addition the center sound came from UNDER the TV not from where the actual image should have been. But still it sorta solved an issue, and so the messed up surround era we are in now was born.


From a technical point of view I say it was a complete mess but from a commercial perspective it was a master stroke.

Subsequent to this Dolby released their much improved PL2 that offered improved center channel separation and better rear full bandwidth decode thanks to Tate / Fosgate. Only real problem was that it still suffered badly in comparison to true discrete media in terms of image smear and separation. Along came the digital world with bigger data storage capacity and speeds, next thing you know the DVD’s released movie sound tracks in 5.1 channels of compressed and some uncompressed discrete surround.

This was a great improvement to accuracy but still had issues of poor cross compatibility with the user having to use menu systems to select the appropriate format, high bandwidth overhead prohibiting transmission on radio, TV, Mp3, Youtube, CD’s, Ipods, records, cassette’s, internet TV etc. In addition most recordings just offered 70% of sound coming from UNDER the TV with the odd ping sound coming from the left/ right and rear (really side) speakers. Clearly this really did not produce a true sound “environment”.

Still it is the Dolby LOGO that actually unites and drives the surround revival.

What next? As most of you will know Dolby have been travelling down the wave field synthesis road with the release of Dolby Atmos. The system requires bundles of channels and goes to around 60 channels for cinemas. The current psychology of all the “sheep” in the industry is that if it does not work with 5.1 channels then you need 7.1…..9.1…..12.2……..22.2…….66…….300 and yes I have heard of 900 channels. All I can say is that upwards of 5.1 channels is not actually being used by the bulk of the population. Wives won’t let you do it!!!!

Dolby have a secondary problem – if Atmos dies the death it deserves then what next? Strikes me they are running out of patents, wonder what that will do to their share price? DTS have acquired SRS for $140 million and are sure to be snapping at their heals.


THE GREAT “RECIEVER” DEBACLE

Ignoring the testosterone filled members of this forum the general population adopt surround via one of the many generic “receivers” now available for between say $400 - $4000. These “receivers” are jam packed with LOGO’’s of all descriptions and most of which the general public have no idea what they are all about. When it comes to selecting a “receiver” most people assume the one with the most LOGO’s is preferable and then you look for the biggest lie of Wattage.

Have you noticed how similar they are all now in terms of form and function? You know, central digital display, mode knob on the left, volume on the right and a bunch of difficult to understand buttons with non descript nomenclature sometime hidden under a panel.

Now can anyone really state that these units are in anyway a real advancement in surround? I just saw the latest DENON ‘receiver” – guess what- its got Atmos!! Whoop de bloody do.

One thing that you will note is that the major consumer electronics manufacturers are absolutely killing themselves competing on basically price and LOGO’s for these beasts. I opened up a Pioneer “receiver” (about 3 years old) costing $600 and WOW!!! Talk about being absolutely full of electronics to accommodate more LOGO’s. I was stunned at how good their production engineering was to produce this unit (if it sells for $600 it costed $200 at most top make). I do not think in low / mid volume we could buy the parts for $1000. It is a credit to their purchasing power and dare I say it cheap labour rates in poverty stricken countries that they can actually still derive a profit with that degree of complication. Not saying Pioneer are bad or villains in any sense as Sony, Denon and the rest of them are the same and are all trying to deliver the maximum amount of technology at a price.

Still no manufacturer has stood away from the pack and asked the question – is their a better way to make it simpler and better?

PUBLIC CONFUSION AND DISSATISFACTION

Aside from the fact that people are told what to buy (fear of being different) we have a situation that most people really do not know how to operate their “receivers” with their multi levelled digital menu driven systems. Most people older than 50 understand knobs not menu’s!

And history repeats we currently have a multitude of incompatible digital formats that are not DOWNWARDS COMPATIBLE to the most fundamental and still most used format STEREO. I have said it many times – the most used format is stereo, just look around……AM/ FM radio, TV, Foxtel, Internet TV, IPod, MP3, YouTube, CD’s, records, cassettes. Yes we have DVD’s, Bluray’s but guess what they have the STEREO down mix track (That I use).

Overall there has been a return to stereo (remember what happened in the late 70’s). As mentioned in a Philips survey they found that in 60% of surround systems they sold the user either did not connect the rear (side) channels or just put them up front.

In addition vey few people choose to play their stereo recordings in 5.1 channel simulated surround as existing decoders basically make a mess of it.

SPEAKERS- BOXES, BOXES AND MORE BOXES

Has anyone ever noticed that TV’s have become thinner? Many are below 10 mm thick. In an attempt to match this flat profile surround manufacturers have come out with semi visually thin small coned speakers on thin rectangular posts (4 feet high). Again they all look like clones of each other. At the more HiFi end speakers still consist of typically a woofer/ midrange and a tweeter all mounted in a vertical line in a wooden box complete with a port and some sort of crossover. The biggest change in the more recent boxes is curves as everyone tried to mimic the look of the B+W “snail”.

I would argue that the speakers sold 30 – 40 years ago are just as good (or better) than the current batch. Really strikes me that again audio had been rather boring in recent years and things have just not kept up with the developments in Video screens.

Years ago Dave (Overture) and I decided to research the age old question of “why can a poor testing speaker sound good and a good testing speaker sound bad”? We ended up testing a multitude of speaker types and configurations and produced a 78 page test document. We tested and compared all the standard measures of speaker performance- frequency response, THD, IMD, impulse decay response, tone burst, polar response. When we attempted to correlate sonic preference to any parameter we completely failed!

We then sat down and examined the physical characteristics of two interesting cone speakers. One tested magnificently but sounded poor and another that tested poor but sounded great. We noticed two significant differences and constructed test jigs to mimic and switch in instantly these differences whilst trialling preferences on test audiences. Much to our surprise we found two things dominated all the other test parameters. They were:

1 Concentricity- absolute audience preference to a concentric driver configuration.
2 Dipole or bipole configuration or circular polar pattern.

When these 2 are combined the effects are immediate and obvious. Think about it for a moment in nature how often is sound split up into 3 frequency components. Light is like sound red, blue, green when viewed close together at a distance (Raleigh criterion) look like white but close up look like 3 separate colors. The brain spends more time processing and pulling together 3 separate frequency components.

Regarding the dipole or bipole preference- how many sounds emitted in a band only radiate frontally, how many sounds in nature?

Long story – shortened historically audio purists have always raved about the life like qualities of electrostatic speakers and have assumed this was so because of lower THD, flat frequency response, super fast impulse response. Well yes all true but we found the 2 above parameters dominated all other measurements. In fact you can make a cone speaker sound like an electrostatic by obeying the two above listed rules. Yes I am telling you guys some secrets as it is not patentable – all these tricks have been done before but I do not think well understood.

Why is this relevant to electrostatic speakers? Take a look at them they are natural concentric dipoles! Turns out that we had been manufacturing electrostatic speakers since the mid 1990’s and did not understand why they sounded better!

The only problem with electrostatics is that they are super directional, low sensitivity, poor bass, unreliable, hard to make, expensive, huge and unreliable. Apart from those small issues they sound great. We have been working on electrostatic speaker design since the mid 1990’s slowly trying to correct all the downsides whilst making them more cost effective. In some ways this work reached a peak in 2007 when we developed the Nakamichi Dragon Hybrid electrostatic speaker- pity Nakamichi had financial problems and our then stupid management could not come to a sensible arrangement – for those interested go to:

http://www.stereo.net.au/forums/ind...e-and-fortune-nakamichi-dragon-electrostatic/

We then continued work on the technology and managed to greatly reduce panel size whilst maintaining high output.


WHAT THE HELL HAS THIS GOT TO DO WITH SURROUND SOUND?

Turns out it was one of the driving forces that lead me to investigate improved surround sound techniques. Some of the most “surround” experiences I had had was with just a stereo set of electrostatic speakers - often far better than what Dolby/ DTS could provide. In addition when I trialled the various incarnations of Dolby/ DTS over the years I was never impressed and always reverted back to stereo.

All I had to do was to design a better encode decode format/ system and solve the sweet spot/ center channel issue- easy I thought. I was wrong. Turns out Involve encode/ decode took 2 years of investigation and 2 years of hardware/ software development. As for eliminating the center channel and getting rid of the sweet spot- that was a funny process in that I spent 2 years thinking about how to do it and had no idea. Then one day between a peddle bike crash (I have had 23 broken bones bike riding- you would think I would quit) and a phone call from a stupid lawyer the idea hit me in a clear flash.

I figured out that I could use the directional characteristic of the electrostatic speaker (make it even more beamy) and with the use of some additional electronics create a grid of time arrival equalisation zones in a room. The effect of this is that in the majority of the room the time arrival of sound from the left and right speakers are unified – resulting in a central image in all positions of the room- no sweet spot. I can talk a bit about it as it is fully patented.

Only problem is that it required two amplifiers per speaker and looked pig ugly.

To solve the pig ugly problem I engaged Swinburne university in Melbourne Australia and a team of around 8 students to come up with concepts. At the end of the year they really succeeded and we stole there group leader Chris Coller. This then has formed the basis of our new “Y” speaker surround sound system.


A CUNNING PLAN

We are a small audio technology company located in the arse end of the world attempting to take on the major audio companies. Sounds an impossible task but I believe we have some advantages.

Frankly the audio/ surround world has been very boring for say 35 years with the last really significant change being the advent of the CD. Aside from that it really has been more bells and whistles and the Dolby lead surround sound side show. Even though the receiver surround systems are getting ever more complexed and elaborate I do not think we are hearing much improvement.

I have great confidence in the superiority of Involve encode/ decode and in particular given Involve encodes is indistinguishable from plain old stereo we have the potential of becoming an enhanced (hidden surround) stereo format. We can then offer full (as good in my opinion to discrete) surround that can be transmitted in all stereo media as the decode is not audio quality dependant. Meaning it works just as well on IPod/ radio/ YouTube as for a CD.

The general public really does not understand surround sound and rather than go for more and more elaborate menu systems we have gone for simple knobs and choosing to always connect to the stereo or stereo down mix output of your DVD or source. Basically we are set and forget so that any cretin (even me) can instinctively operate the system as easily as an older style stereo.

More than anything else- forget performance as Joe Public has no knowledge it is LOOKS and small size that will force a change. We have found that women and wives in particular are in fact attracted to the looks of our system!!!!!!! Men do not decide what to buy it is the wives in reality.

Our speaker panels are 5 mm thick and semi transparent creating a conversational piece – a bit like the $500 Dyson fans competing against $30 conventional bladed fans. In addition, we are REALLY LOUD creating some shock value. Yes I can babble on about sonic quality and superior technical performance but it is LOOKS that will separate us from the “me to” pack.

So whilst I am personally an absolute neurotic audio purist, I am ignoring all that in our forthcoming marketing campaign and the message will be more to factors the public can understand – simplicity, quality and LOOKS!!!

I am telling you guys some “secrets” as the QQ forum has been great for us and we really appreciate all the comments and help. In addition all super villains like to pre describe their evil intentions!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJ882QYzr-M
 
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I reconnected with an old friend who was into slightly upscale audio 30 years a go and asked if he had a surround system or had tried one. He said he had one for a while but was constantly adjusting, trying NEO, etc., and went back to stereo. Seems that illustrates your point.

Also, I too found electrostats to be a very surround-like experience as well, good to read research into why.
 
Hi Gang

I would be really interested in the views of you guys into the future and present direction of "commercial" surround sound. I waffled on for long enough in my rant!

Regards

Chucky
 
Hello Everyone,

My name's Chris, I'm the one that was stolen from Swinburne Uni to come work with Involve and can say I'm having a blast! I can't wait to work on the Preamp as this would be my dream piece of kit.

I'd just like to clarify one thing Chucky said in his earlier post about the new systems.
Please note the system does not include a subwoofer as Total Perspective takes care of image centering all around the room.
There's a typo where "subwoofer" should be replaced with "centre speaker". The system will definitely include a subwoofer.

Hi All

Long time no see.

I have good news and some bad news

First the bad. I lied about the price of the Pro encoder/ Decoder as I have been corrected by our legal people about the cost of the included life time licence to publish music/ dvd etc with the Involve format. All up it is $4995.

As a make up compensation to QQ forum members we are releasing the first 2 batched (20 and 50) as a package with our new Y4 surround sound electrostatic system for the same price of $4995 all included!

So you get

1 The Pro encoder/ decoder
2 Lifetime publishing licence
3 Y4 surround sound system featuring 4 (Total Perspective) electrostatic bookshelf speakers, remote control, HDMI, wireless connection for front- rear, 10 X 70 Watt amplification (130 W peak) and our believe it or not dual 5 inch subwoofer- it is no toy and is flat and LOUD to 40 Hz- no one can believe it! The rrp for the Y4 system is $3250.

See the attached pictures, it is available in white/ black or silver at the moment. Please note the system does not include a subwoofer as Total Perspective takes care of image centering all around the room. See https://www.quadraphonicquad.com/forums/showthread.php?18329-Involve-Total-Perspective-interview

As we are updating our website if you want to be one of the first please email us and we will guide you through the deal.
Dispatch will be late September/ early October

MORE GOOD NEWS
I have listened to your suggestion for a metal cased Surround Master that includes individual channel level controls. Well folks we are on to it and it will include, HDMI, BlueTooth, pre amp, MM and MC inputs, remote control. We hope it will sell for between $1000 to $1500. I will keep you guys informed.

Hoping to hear from you

Chucky
 
I'm a PC guy, so I rip everything onto an HTPC and play it back via JRiver Media Center. I'm able to rip any format (I have a PS3 dedicated to ripping SACDs along and a Blu Ray drive with appropriate software), so media isn't particularly important, as long as surround titles continue to come out. I guess my fantasy on the music/media side is that the record companies start using the space available on Blu Ray and present us with the "Big Box Set" all on one little disk (ie hi-rez stereo, surround, maybe a concert from the period & even video). Of course we'll have to buy six other versions first before we get to that one, but I can dream, right?

I actually think surround might take off on a larger scale if someone was able to come up with a simple Netflix/iTunes model for surround titles that could easily be integrated into an existing home 5.1 system. (Paging Mr. Young)

In terms of hardware/software, I have no idea if the Surround Master could be ported entirely to software, however, in my dream world it can be and you guys hook up with JRiver to present a Surround Master edition of their Media Center software. If that were the case, I could eliminate a switchbox and play my favorite "synthetic" surround music alongside the actual 5.1 releases (I like to build queues on the fly). Another fantasy has you guys coming out with a DAC that integrates the SM into it...

I'd love to see Oppo's next generation player come out with a 5.1 USB DAC (the 105 is stereo only).

The last dream is that I'd be able to afford any of this if it came to fruition, since my daughter is starting college this fall... :)
 
Haaaarrrrrr...

1) All what I needed was a metal case balanced SM, with XLR in and out, and a remote preamp with separate channels (ok, the last is good).
Can't we even get xlr/balanced in/out as a special order, with a supplement of course ? (I could pay a good additional amount for that...it could replace the MM/MC for me, don't know if it could interest anything else here...)
My speakers are all active, only with xlr in (pro gear). Adapters degrades the sound, I was hoping not using them anymore...:(

2) External plugpak PLEASE !!! It's cheaper for you, for us, and we can replace it for a better linear PSU if we want (for those who think it's useful)

3) No need for a variable crossover for me. 80Hz is fine. Maybe it would be sonically better at 70...or 85, but who really cares ? I believe the cost of a good crossover with multiple frequencies would not be cheap, and would not necessarily add audible gains...

I think the ideal solution for everyone would be a customizable preamp/decoder, but would it possible easily for you to do that ?

Hi Robert

Yes this is the same consumer pre amp/ decoder we have talked about before, partly based on the pro encoder/ decoder - without the encoder section, isolated XLR inputs etc. I think it will also be in the rack mount format.

The whole question of external plugpack vs internal transformer is a complicated one. The advantages of the external plugpack are:

1 A bit cheaper as approved plug packs are available to OEM at around $3 - $5

2 Simplifies and makes cheaper CE and safety approvals (costs say $16K in Australia)

3 Typically lowers induced hum into sensitive phono stages

4 Simplifies international Voltage changeovers as most plug packs are universal.

5 Adaquate filtering on the main board will knock out any 100 Mhz and above switching hash - some audiophiles are "dickheads"

Frankly for the pro unit we also ran out of internal space for a Lumpy iron transformer. With the metal case hifi pre amp/ decoder I really am not sure yet as to what direction we will go on this issue- I welcome suggestions for QQ members

What do you think the advantages of a variable crossover are for a pre amp????

Regards

Chucky
 
Hi Yucca

Hmmmmm

Good feedback, I will keep your views in mind. We were considering an option panel- XLR or MM and MC preamp.

Keep the faith we will do the job!

Regards

Chucky
 
Hi All

STOP PRESS!!!!

DO NOT BUY ANY SURROUND MASTERS FROM US! (except the SQ model). We will be running an Indiegogo crowd funding campaign in the next month to raise funds for the first production run of our coming Y2 and Y4 electrostatic stereo and surround bookshelf systems. As part of that campaign we will be giving rewards to people who back the campaign with Surround Masters (plain old standard unit- not the SQ as this is a QQ forum special). These units will be slightly discounted in price and so you will get them cheaper via indiegogo. Oh after the campaign please buy from us again!

For all those who have in the last year or two purchased a SM via this forum we will offer a substantial discounts on any future product you purchase from us! Please understand people who crowd fund expect some real bargains and we really do need the cash flow to move to the next stage of our plan off world domination.

Meanwhile I would like to invite you all to attend a public demonstration of our new range of technologies (we will have a video guy there to do crowd interviews for our campaign)

There will be showing/demonstration of the Y4 sound system and all the Involve Audio technology at Dawson's home in Dromana on Saturday the 16th August from 10:30AM to 2:30 PM. This demo is to video the response of professional sound engineers and others for use in our Indigogo campaign and other marketing efforts. If you have anyone you would like to attend please let me know. We want people to attend who are surround experienced with a good reputation.

The address is 7 Clifftop Crt, Dromana, Melbourne Australia. Light refreshments will be served

I must know who is coming so we control; numbers so please let me know if you invite someone and confirm their attendance.

Hey Rustyandi- its about time you paid us a visit!!!!

No excuses QQ members we are just a around 10,000 klm down the road.

Regards

Chucky
 
Please keep us updated on this. I may wish to purchase some additional units. Any idea what sort of bargains we are looking at yet?
 
Dear Quad extremists

We hope to start a crowd funding campaign on "indiegogo" next week and I will keep you guys informed on the progress. For a sneek unfinished preview of our first of several video presentations please go to:

https://vimeo.com/103311235
password:involve

There you can actually see what handsome fellas we really are- I am the rather large Dutch knuckledragger before the new pirate version of Dave "Overture".

We still have a few days before launch and I will be pleased to hear any comments or ideas

Regards

Chucky
 
Hi Chucky, thanks for sharing the video. Looks quite nice. A short introduction to the company, with more detailed videos coming up. Nice to put a face to the names, although we have seen pirate Dave earlier, in one of his other disguises :)

One remark. It could be my pc speakers or that I am not a native English speaker, but sometimes it was a bit hard to follow the conversation. Perhaps the music should be mixed at a slightly lower level.

edit: one other thing, in the video the website is mentioned but when we go there now, there is no mention at all of Y4. Will you put any info up before the campaign starts? Would be good, otherwise people might loose interest quickly.
 
Hi All

Thanks Robert for your suggestion re the background sound being too loud. Our website is in the process of being updated (actually a USA website) and it has all the Y2 and Y4 stuff.

We conducted an interesting experiment a few days ago with the "dummy head" recording technique. We set up our dummy head outside our factory in the car park. We are "fortunately" located within a mile from a small airport so it was a good opportunity to record some overhead sounds. For a sample of one of the recordings please go to the following dropbox:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/oc8fwpcbb5pd4pr/R09_0008.WAV?dl=0

and download the file. A plane flys overhead after about 1 minute. We found using our Y4 system (that has inbuilt SM and electrostatic speakers) that on all 4 listeners we had a strong impression of height - remember dummy head is only supposed to work with headphones. We also found we were correctly "decoding" front to back and left to right.

I found when listening to the recording on cheap headphones that no height was detected, switching to a good quality Audio Technica set the height was clearly evident.

I would be interested if any of you guys that have a SM could try the same file on your conventional speaker (or unconventional) systems and see if you detect height.

It would be great to get some feedback as it is interesting getting full 3D from a stereo source!

Regards

Chucky
 
Hello Chucky,
always interesting to see your further developments. But I have only one ask as owner of the Involve decoder with QS and SQ. Because it is a very small cabinet, which is hard to find in the HiFi rack, I would like to modify the decoder in a usual cabinet similar to the other sets. Instead the little slide controls I would prefer keys to switch on/of or QS/SQ. I know an Dipl. Ing. who could do it. But I would at first like to know, if one can open the plastic cabinet without damage the circuiits etc. Because I own the Invole decoder with satisfaction, I don't like to buy a further decoder in such a usual cabinet, which you may offer in some fuuire for $ 1000 to 1500. The modify of the Involve would cost some less money.

Dietrich
 
Hi Dietrich

Providing you get someone appropriately skilled - go for it. May I suggest you do not use a solder sucker (unless its a good one), use the technique where you blob the 6 pins of the mini switch - pore in the heat and gently pull out the switch. Ensure you do not strip the plate through holes or pull tracks off. After the switch is removed use the solder sucker or solder wick to clear the holes.

Regards

chucky
 
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