Paul Hynes SR7 and SR4 Build Calendar Thread

[Nenon]

It looks like the voltage/current are written on the Jaeger connectors if you zoom in. 

Nice Streacom chassis. Much better looking than the previous models I have seen.

Congratulations! Let us know how it sounds. 

[Nenon]

1 hour ago, Mark (Paul Hynes Design LTD) said:

Hi all Just an update. We are now receiving emails as usual and the website is now viewable again. It seams that any email that was sent to our systems in the time that they were down has been lost or not received, sorry for any inconvenience.

 

I don't know... Does it really matter?

People on this forum have been complaining about not getting any updates for months, and sometimes years on their prepaid orders. Others have reported no replies to their emails at all.

Two days without an email... I highly doubt anyone would notice a difference. The general feeling here is that your email only works two days every once in a while. 

If you are jumping on the forum to let people know your email was down for two days, you might as well try to set some expectations to those who have been waiting so long for updates / replies. Just a friendly suggestion. 

[Nenon]

5 minutes ago, austinpop said:

In corresponding with @Mark (Paul Hynes Design LTD), I just learned that the standard SR-7 (non-custom) line has just been launched by PHD. Mark sent me the product sheet, hot off the presses. This stuff will also be up on the website soon, I'm told. Here's a few snippets:

 

The SR7 power supply is now available alongside the SR4 and SR5 via Paul Hynes
Design Ltd. The SR7 is being manufactured on a build to order basis. This is because the
mains transformers are custom manufactured for us to Paul’s highest specification and
until we know your specification requirements we cannot order in a transformer for your
specification...
 

The SR7 uses the same ultra low noise high performance discrete component voltage
regulator as the highly regarded SR4 and SR5 power supplies. The SR7 mains
transformer is configured as a balanced mains isolation transformer to provide
exceptional mains born common mode interference rejection like the SR4 and SR5 power
supplies. The SR7 is currently only available in fixed output voltage versions designated
SR7S-**F in the silver anodized chassis or SR7B-**F in the black anodized chassis,
where S and B refer to the anodizing colour, ** is the output voltage rating and F denotes
a fixed output voltage rating.

 

...

 

The SR7 is built into the Streacom FC9 chassis
SR7 chassis dimensions – W = 350mm, H = 110mm, D = 310mm
 

The SR7 chassis can accommodate two galvanically isolated supply rails
The following specification options are available :-
SR7-3.3F rating 3.3vdc @ 10A continuous, 40A transient
SR7-05F rating 5vdc @ 10A continuous, 40A transient
SR7-12F rating 12vdc @ 12A continuous, 40A transient
SR7-15F rating 15vdc @ 10A continuous, 40A transient
SR7-19F rating 19vdc @ 10A continuous, 40A transient

 

This looks very promising, even though it obviously excludes some of the custom options like dual regulation (DR) and XL. Mark tells me that they can actually accommodate 2x 10A rails in the FC9 chassis, and the nominal voltage of each rail can be independently specified. That's actually more flexibility than I expected. Assuming they can get these units delivered in a reasonable time frame from order to delivery, this will raise the availability status of SR-7 from unobtainium to not-too-hard-to-obtainium. PHD are shooting for under 12 weeks from order to shipment. Obviously, they need to demonstrate this in action, but from all accounts, this operation is not gated by the availability of one individual, i.e. Paul.

 

From Mark:

 

...Paul, in conjunction with the CMC (Contract Manufacturing Company), has

re-designed the standard SR5 and SR7 power supplies to remove the

requirement for staff technical training as everything is simplified

internally on a modular basis. 

 

Hopefully that makes the operation more scalable. "We'll see what happens."

 

I have no more info than the above. Please contact Mark at [email protected] for pricing, shipping time lines, etc.

 

Excellent news. It would be nice to see their prices too. 

 

[Nenon]

6 hours ago, Mark (Paul Hynes Design LTD) said:

Hello all. Sorry for a delay in answering these questions. I have been collecting information about our recent history that should provide the answers you require. I have attached the statement as a PDF.

PHD Ltd history.pdf 113.45 kB · 38 downloads

 

Thank you for the long explanation.

Can you please describe the "manufacturing facility" and "machine workshop"? Or if that's not feasible, can you please explain what are the things you are doing in-house?

I have a very limited knowledge about the manufacturing process of custom (and now standard) SR7 power supplies, but here is what I have heard so far:

- The latest SR7s have been using Streacom chassis.

- The transformers are outsourced and done by Mr. Terry Monaghan / Canterbury Windings.

- Teflon PCB and silver wire is used. 

- Custom made regulators are used.

 

Your text seems to suggest a significant investment in a "manufacturing facility" and "machine workshop". But what I am curious to understand is the scale of this facility. Are we talking about a few workbenches where people can assemble the boards, install them in the chassis, do some soldering, testing, measuring, and producing some custom metal plates (or make slight changes to an existing chassis)? Or are we talking about a much greater scale facilities where:

- Custom transformers would be made.

- Custom teflon PCB boards would be manufactured. 

- Chassis from scratch would be manufactured. 

- Regulators would be produced.

- Silver wire would be manufactured in house.

etc.

 

We all know that Paul Hynes designs the best power supplies for our audio systems. Or at least that's what we all think. I have never had one in my system, but I am believing the hype. But we also all know that PH lost credibility in our community. And that's hard to restore. Perhaps more transparency from you would be the best way to restore faith and credibility. Take a look at Uptone Audio in their sponsored forum here. @Superdad and @JohnSwenson set the bar for transparency with their customers. And we want more companies to do the same. 

[Nenon]

1 hour ago, Mark (Paul Hynes Design LTD) said:

Hello Nenon

The current manufacturing facility is three business units based in the Pier development adjacent to LochboisdaleHarbour. Unit four is the production area, unit 5 is my office and unit 6 is where we have installed the machine workshop. There are currently two full time staff, myself and Stephen, the production manager, and two part time staff Iain and Sandra. We currently have space for one additional full time or two part time employees in our current units and the option to take on further business units in the future until we reach the point of requiring, and being able to finance, a purpose built production facility. The cost of outfitting the premises was generated by SR4 sales. Regarding the scale of the business at present, we would be classed as an SME (small business enterprise) at present. 

What you have heard so far is related to Paul’s custom build designs.

Paul has only licensed us to manufacture the standard build SR4, SR5 and SR7 and the matching DC leads. To maintain the performance of the standard build SR5 and SR7 products requires the use of the custom built mains transformers so we will continue to use these built to Paul’s specification.

Paul will not release a license for use of the enhanced upgrades, currently part of the majority of his custom build specifications, so we will not be offering Teflon boards, custom regulator configurations, etc. According to Paul’s current plan’s, the custom build service is permanently closed to new orders.

In the future, as we expand the business, and reach the point of requiring purpose built premises, we may bring currently outsourced manufacturing operations like module assembly, chassis manufacture and transformer manufacture in house.

From the start of this new manufacturing facility plan, Paul has been keen to emphasise that we need to ensure there are enough staff to produce a smooth operation and allow a service level he did not have time to keep up with as a one man operation. Whilst we are happy to keep people informed to the best of our ability this will not include disclosure of commercially sensitive information as we have all signed non-disclosure agreements to protect Paul’s intellectual property.

 

To be fair to Paul he has historically been wearing all the hats working by himself, without staff to help, other than SR4 production which is a separate project, and he fell foul of a rapid sales expansion coincident with reduced resources and a significant accumulation of circumstances outside of his control. I believe the same thing happened earlier this decade when he suffered a large Hernia operation that grounded him for nearly a year followed by some smaller scale health issues. Crucially he did not throw in the towel but made arrangements to ensure clearance of outstanding orders. I’m sure that now things have settled down here, custom builds will be shipped at an increased rate.

 

 

Thank you again for the detailed explanation. It looks like you are well set up to meet any client demand with potential to expand down the road. That's very good to hear. I have one last question - what regulators are you using in the standard SR4, SR5, and SR7 you are offering? Are you using off the shelf regulators (i.e. commercially available)? Or are you using Paul's custom regulators? 

I kind of assumed you are using custom regulators, but the following made me wonder:

1 hour ago, Mark (Paul Hynes Design LTD) said:

so we will not be offering Teflon boards, custom regulator configurations, etc.

 

And if you are using custom regulators, can you please comment on their availability? Do you have a lot of them in stock or do you order them as you need them? Are they easy to obtain? And so on. Hopefully that's not a disclosure of commercially sensitive information... all we are worried about is the aspect of availability of custom parts, which I believe on some occasions was another one of Paul's excuses. 

[Nenon]

26 minutes ago, austinpop said:

Build #17 is in the house!

 

Exciting news!!! Looking forward to your feedback after some break in time. Enjoy. 

[Nenon]

I believe Terry @Canterbury Windings makes those, and they are regarded as some of the best transformers for digital audio. Toroidy Supreme is right there in the top too. I am sure those toroidals were custom order for your power supply. A nice touch would have been to add your name on the label too :). Canterbury Windings does not mass produce them. The custom made transformers are one of the reasons those custom power supplies take longer. But it usually takes only a month or two for the transformers, not years. 

We are all waiting to hear more about your new toy, @austinpop.

[Nenon]

3 minutes ago, ASRMichael said:

Paulhynesdesignsltd website update. You must be joking!! 

This is a default message when the website is deleted, not something Paul put there.

 

Quote

Anytime you see the message "The Future Home of Something Quite Cool" on a GoDaddy hosted domain, that indicates that you have not added a valid index file to the root directory.  That message is displayed on our default Index page. 

Source: https://www.godaddy.com/community/Using-WordPress/Future-home-of-something-quite-cool/td-p/126846

 

Basically it's a message from cPanel (the CSM - Content Management Software) when there is no index HTML page.