John Melanson (john@audiologic.com)
Tue, 29 Jun 1999 13:32:02 -0600
A few comments about the analogy you chose - audio has been my field for
nearly 30 years.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Richard Sullivan [mailto:richsul@earthlink.net]
> Sent: Tuesday, June 29, 1999 9:43 AM
> To: alt-photo-process-l@sask.usask.ca
> Subject: Product liability Issues
>
>
> First off I am not a lawyer but have consulted with them on this
> issue over
> the years.
>
> Negligence and damages are two necessary elements to be proven in a law
> suit. As to the issue of negligence, how a firm advertises and
> targets its
> product audience is crucial. Also the nature of the product is an issue.
> Bay City Cranes have one audience and Big Wheel Tricycles have another.
>
> For instance, in the audio and Hi-Fi industry you may note that
> there is a
> distinct dividing line between "professional" gear and "consumer" gear.
> Some companies even go so far as to have two distinct divisions with
> different names like Teac (consumer) and Tascam (professional.)
> It is often
> not even a matter of price or quality as some consumer gear can cost
> thousands more than some the professional gear although the professional
> gear is usually more expensive.
>
> One main difference is that pro gear generally is built on a "floating"
> ground and this avoids having your recording studio put the local radio
> station on every recording. Floating grounds are more dangerous. It is
> expected that professional users won't do the same dumb things that
> consumers might do so you are generally protected. Even the connectors on
> the back are different to help keep the units from being in mixed
> company.
> Pro gear has BNC connectors and consumer has RCA.
Not quite true. I have a home theater receiver in front of me. It has a 2
wire cord. I also have a pro power amplifier. It has a grounded (3 prong)
cord. The differences are (among other things) that the pro amp has a much
higher interface drive (several volts as opposed to .1 volt), and balanced
lines, limiting hum. The home system just gets by (often) by using a
floating ground. Otherwise killer ground loops occur. The normal pro audio
interface is an XLR connector, which has 3 wires (balanced signal and
ground/shield). In addition, sometimes pro gear is transformer coupled.
XLR cables are bigger and more expensive than RCA cables. In addition, the
XLR cable is much more robust.
The largest difference between pro/consumer audio is relability, durability,
and specs. The consumer rcvr is speced at 5X80 watts (400 total), but the
115V line is only spec to draw 2.5 Amps! (and remember that 50% efficiency
is good). That kind of specsmanship makes a honda civic into a 1000 hp
brute. A 500 watt pro amp will put out typically 600-700 watt into good
loads 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Pro audio gear is sold to people who must make a living off of it's
function. They will pay for that kind of quality. High end consumer gear
is often sold on snake oil grounds, and in double blinded tests often
performs worst than the cheap gear.
The bigest safety issues have been around MI (musical equipment)
manufacturing, specifically guitar amps, most of which end up in homes.
There was a case ca. 25 years ago where someone was electrocuted playing an
electric guitar standing barefoot next to a swimming pool. The guitar amp
had a "grounding" switch, which was common at that time. The switch had two
on position, and each connected the chassis to one side or the other of the
line through a small capacitor.
>
> This is one of the main reasons the big chemical companies don't sell to
> "consumers." If I buy 100 kilos of potassium chlorate and end up
> accidently
> making La Bomba Grande in my back room, I am going to have a hell
> of a time
> convincing a jury that Mallinkrodt was negligent in selling it to
> me. Some
> 16 year old boy who wants to make his own fireworks and buys some
> potassium
> chlorate is going to give his parents a real nice reason for a
> big law suit.
>
> By the same token if you make and sell photographs you are a professional
> and have less cause. If you are a casual shooter shooting slides on your
> vacation you are a notch below the photographer with a darkroom.
>
> In general (and it's quite a generality) alt-photographers by the
> nature of
> alt-photography have a somewhat higher expectation of expertise that the
> run-of-the-mill amateur photography.
>
> I've sat in the middle and watched the tightening of the restrictions to
> access to chemicals over the last two decades. Some countries are getting
> freakier and freakier over anything chemical being shipped to them. Even
> though there are strict international standards now over what is
> Hazmat and
> what isn't individual customs agents and offices will make there own
> determination. Ferric oxalate trips them up all the time as it is not
> listed as Hazmat but also does not appear in any catalog. It just
> plain is
> not listed and for that reason it freaks them out. It gets weirder with
> pre-packaged kits like Van Dyke and gum. We've had potassium ferricyanide
> held up because they thought it was plain old cyanide.
>
> Sometimes things that are normally harmless like phosphoric acid are
> restricted due to the fact that they corrode aluminum and UPS
> does not want
> its planes dissolving in mid-air. This makes a lot of sense.
>
> 99% goes through without a hitch, it's just fighting for the last one
> percent that get snagged along the way is a pain. If there is a 25 ml
> bottle of 1% ammonium dichromate in a big shipment that is
> causing concern,
> the whole shipment gets held up. There is little that we can do if it is
> held up in French or Nigerian customs. That has to be dealt with by
> recipient who then gets us writing letters explaining the nature of the
> chemicals etc.
>
> Oh and there is the periodic 100 gm bottle that gets snagged because it
> exceeds the weight limit for a certain chemical because the UPS shipping
> clerk does not know the difference between kilograms and grams
>
> It is a multifaceted problem and if things keep going the way
> they have for
> the last two decades, we don't have a lot of time left.
>
> --Dick Sullivan
>
>
>
>
> 505-474-0890 FAX 505-474-2857
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>
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