The problem of Riviera AIC10

[AudioGD]

I tried to collect some pictures of the super popular high end headphone amplifier Riviera aic10, wishing for some engineering insight and professional assessment.

 

 

[kevin gilmore]

well its much better built than the viva piece of crap.

[spritzer]

I agree, I don't see anything terrible here nor anything great for the matter.  I don't see why they are using 5% resistors in this day and age but nothing else really stands out.  Well only that they really like their flag connectors...

[Eskamobob1]

Honestly adore this amp. Its assembled in kind of an annoying way that makes accessing stuff basically impossible without fully removing the heatsink sides, but if anyone wants close ups of anything specific I am more than happy to provide. 

[simmconn]

Picture 2: An “audio grade transformer “ didn’t care to color code the wires properly, such that the assembly tech has to attach hand-written labels to tell them apart. Maybe only the decal is custom made? Nonetheless it shows the production volume of this kit.

Picture 3 and 4: It’s funny they try to use different colored quick disconnect to do dummy-proofing. Did they not know that those quick disconnects are colored differently for a reason? Pink/red for 18GA or smaller, blue for 14/16GA and yellow for 12/10GA.  They used similar wire sizes regardless of the requirement of the quick disconnect, and the yellow one is apparently oversized (loose crimping).
 

So much for a “professionally put together” kit.

[spritzer]

The black wire on the yellow looks to be the smallest  too which is always what one wants for the ground.    Using different color crimps makes no sense at all... I don't even have yellow in stock here.