#16 Re: AMB linestage rebuild
Posted: Fri Jan 28, 2022 4:34 pm
I spent ages pondering that this afternoon - whether to do it a la Quad. The dilemma came down to how the buttons would be labelled (and I don't want to leave them unlabelled as I'd then get the same old questions about which source was which). The 'outer' front panel is powdercoated black from Schaeffer, and as far as I know, they cannot print onto that surface.
With the buttons in their current location below the inner perspex, there can be backlit etched lettering above each one and an LED indicating which is active - readable in low-light conditions. The effect I'm going for is kinda like those old FM tuners that had the backlit dial all along the top. Certainly if I moved the display and stacked the buttons, it would more closely resemble the FM4, but I didn't want to clone the design, just use it as a starting point. I looked at the more recent Quad stuff (QC24) and asked myself what the designers would have done had the engineers told them the buttons needed to be located elsewhere, and tried to come up with an answer.
I'll ponder further though, and all ideas are welcome.
EDIT - I suppose I could have the source names stacked on the left side of the perspex, so:
disc
server
av
aux
corresponding to the vertical button stack, then an indicator LED to the left of each word to indicate which one was active.
That might be better. Easier to implement too, as the pcb won't have to share space with the perspex.
WRT the size of the volume knob, that style doesn't come any larger than 40mm diameter.
What do we think?