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Zou Yuan Yuan

This is Zou Yuan Yuan, managing director of Dussun Electronics Co. Ltd. That's pronounced da-sun, as in "Da sun, boss, da sun!"

He's standing in front of an array of test equipment that stands behind his office desk. It would make John Atkinson green with envy.

Why does the company's managing director have test equipment in his office? "When I left school [as an EE], I went to work for Red Lantern [a large Chinese electronics manufacturer, founded in 1960], designing test equipment. After a year or so, I joined the amplification design team."

Designing test…

Hand-Matched

"We only do final assembly," Zou said. "I can't afford a larger staff, given Shanghai salaries, so we purchase the component parts from all over—the resistors are European, the circuit boards are the best, and we buy chassis parts from David Zheng at EKTG."

Here an employee is hand-matching individual FETs.

D9

The D9 is Dussun's multichannel integrated amplifier. Actually, the only amps Dussun makes are integrateds.

The D9 is a huge beast. Wonder if Zou knows it's the name of a heavy metal piece of earth moving equipment? Bet he does.

Innards Again

The inside view of a Dussun X-500 power conditioner.

I Can Sink For Miles

Heatsinks waiting to be attached to their output devices—or is it the other way around?

Did I Say Miles?

Modules awaiting attachment to the chassis. "It looks like kits."

"My first integrated was a kit—I built it in middle school."

"Did you build it because you were into music or because you were into electronics?"

"Pretty much the same as now," Zou said. "First I built, then I listened, then I adjusted, then I listened some more."

"And so on?"

"And so on."

Quality Control

First you build, then you measure.

What's Mu?

Wow, what are those?

"That's our µ3i phono section," said Zou.

Only, it wasn't. I walked around to the back and discovered it was the outboard DC power supply for the µ3i.

Mu Too

This is the µ3i with its top off. MC, MM, and lots of flexibility.

"How much does it cost in the US?"

"Oh, we don't sell it in the US. There's no market for analog there."

Ouch!

TrumpBloopers is a compendium of trumpet disasters. The threat of moments like this is what made my friend Larry's performance togs such a sweat stained mess that his wife wouldn't even touch them to throw them out.

Via The Rest Is Noise.