So, are Artec delays...

[DWBH]

... really analog?

[ayayay!]

Dang.  I had my buddy bring his over the other night and I forgot to open it up!!!

No matter though, I hated it.  You turn it on and it colors the tone horribly.   

I don't see any DSP there. 

[Boogdish]

I don't see why they wouldn't be.  I don't have access to a datasheet for that proprietary chip on the right of the second picture, so I don't really know what's going on with it, but it very well might be a BBD chip.  Or it might not be.

[ayayay!]

Whoops!  Didn't see that! 

Curse you scrollbar!!!!!!

So then I'm undecided. 

[The Tone God]

All we see in those shots are a few opamps, voltage regulator, compander, and something that is either memory or a microcontroller. I would guess its a custom microcontroller. There is nothing in those pics that tell how the delay is being achieved so it could still be analog BBDs with the clock replaced with a microcontroller which makes sense in keeping costs down. Shots of the other board's side is needed to determine if it is analog or not.

Edit: Checking their website they seem to push that the timer is done with an ASIC chip so what I suggest above maybe true.

http://www.artecsound.com/effect/adl-2.htm

Andrew

[DWBH]

I just asked out of curiosity, I wasn't insinuating or anything.
Those aren't my shots

[Mark Hammer]

The site says: "Analog time control ASIC chip (Not a BBD chip)".  It would not surprise me in the least if this chipset was the equivalent of a PT2395 and a 512k DRAM.  Given that the HT8955 and the PT2395 max out at addressing only 256k of DRAM, IF the smaller chip was a 512k DRAM and the max delay was only 440ms (as the site says) then that suggests a much faster clocking rate which ought to yield, in theory, a higher quality delay sound.  The inclusion of a compander is nice, but seeing it alongside TL062 chips is confusing.  They save on current, but at the cost of greater noise.  Since they will most likely be used for the input and output/mixer stage, rather than "inside" the compression/expansion loop, the hiss they add will detract from the good the compander does.

[lowstar]

the two i looked into (i did not take any pics) had an smd princeton chip in them (i think the pt2399), the bigger one also a compander like in the pics from this thread.

cheers,
lowstar