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NwAvGuy: The Audio Genius Who Vanished

posted by mrcoolbp on Wednesday March 26 2014, @01:32AM   Printer-friendly
from the or-so-I've-heard dept.

Angry Jesus writes:

There is a lot of snake oil in the audiophile world. A few years ago the pseudonymous NwAvGuy decided to do something about it. Not content to just criticize the hucksters, he designed a $130 headphone amp that competes with $1000 models. NwAvGuy released the design under the Creative Commons CC BY-ND license (attribution, no derivatives) and freely collaborated on revising it with multiple manufacturers looking to build and sell the amp. All he wanted was credit and to see that no one would take his design and degrade it with inferior modifications.

Then he disappeared. "In July 2012, NwAvGuy went silent. E-mails weren't returned, and blog posting ceased. 'He had gone quiet before -- for a month or so,' says Boudreau. But no one has heard a peep from NwAvGuy in more than a year and a half."

Since then some of the parts used in the last revision have been discontinued and one of the best values in high fidelity audio can't be manufactured anymore because NwAvGuy is no longer around to approve any changes.

 
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  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Subsentient on Wednesday March 26 2014, @01:38AM

    by Subsentient (1111) on Wednesday March 26 2014, @01:38AM (#21348) Homepage

    I'd be surprised -- but not by much -- to hear that businesses hired someone.

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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by buswolley on Wednesday March 26 2014, @03:52AM

    by buswolley (848) on Wednesday March 26 2014, @03:52AM (#21386)

    Is this the same guy that released a bunch of stomp box designs too?

    --
    subicular junctures

  • (Score: 1) by mwvdlee on Wednesday March 26 2014, @05:35AM

    by mwvdlee (169) on Wednesday March 26 2014, @05:35AM (#21408)

    But such a company would benefit from making the hire as public as possible; why hasn't anybody done so?

    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by jimshatt on Wednesday March 26 2014, @06:18AM

      by jimshatt (978) on Wednesday March 26 2014, @06:18AM (#21419)
      You know that "hit" has other meanings than top 40 pop songs?

  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by zocalo on Wednesday March 26 2014, @07:06AM

    by zocalo (302) on Wednesday March 26 2014, @07:06AM (#21433)
    This is clearly an experienced AV hardware designer, so it's entirely possible he has simply passed away due to old age, disease or some fairly benign reason for going silent for so long. Perhaps it's time for one or more people from hos community to fork the latest design and pick-up where things left off with the intention to re-merge the fork should NwAvGuy resurface.
    --
    UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 26 2014, @08:09AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 26 2014, @08:09AM (#21446)

      If he died 3 years ago, who renewed his domain 9 months ago?

      • (Score: 4, Informative) by zocalo on Wednesday March 26 2014, @09:38AM

        by zocalo (302) on Wednesday March 26 2014, @09:38AM (#21486)
        Assuming he is actually dead (or incapacitated, he could have had a stroke/serious accident too) and not just lost interest in the project, then I can think of three possible reasons; whoever is managing his estate did it for some reason, it's on auto-renew and the paperwork hasn't caught up enough yet to bounce the transaction, or just a simple clerical error.
        --
        UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 26 2014, @01:17PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 26 2014, @01:17PM (#21605)

          Sure, there are probably an infinite # of possibilities, but occam's razor and all.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 26 2014, @01:08PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 26 2014, @01:08PM (#21602)

      Perhaps you missed where it was mentioned that the design was released under a *no derivatives* license - which explicitly prohibits forking, or in fact any modifications whatsoever not specifically approved by the original creator.

      • (Score: 1) by Acabatag on Wednesday March 26 2014, @03:21PM

        by Acabatag (2885) on Wednesday March 26 2014, @03:21PM (#21687)

        Forking it might then be a good way to resolve the question of where they have gone. Fork it, publicly, and see if anybody delurks.

        • (Score: 3, Interesting) by stderr on Wednesday March 26 2014, @04:05PM

          by stderr (11) on Wednesday March 26 2014, @04:05PM (#21722) Journal

          Fork it, publicly, and see if anybody delurks.

          If you had a "no derivatives" clause in your license, would you "delurk" right after someone forked your project or would you wait until the forked version was used by a lot of people (meaning more money for you)?

          Why don't you fork the project and see what happens?

          --
          alias sudo="echo make it yourself #" # ... and get off my lawn!