Author Topic: EEVblog #671 - White Van Speaker Scam Teardown  (Read 69222 times)

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Offline EEVblogTopic starter

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EEVblog #671 - White Van Speaker Scam Teardown
« on: October 07, 2014, 10:06:24 pm »
Dave exposes the global White Van Speaker Scam and tears down a Marc Vincent Surround Sound Receiver, one of the items sold in Australia through this scam.
How crap is it?, watch and find out!
Also a 3D Optics HD-8500 projector that is also sold as part of the scam that involves the absolute cheapest quality parts sold under fake brands at grossly inflated prices from literally the back of a van.

A Current Affair Exposé of the scam in Australia, and the Marc Vincent brand in particular:


The same scam in the UK:


3D Optics HD-8500 datasheet:
http://optimax3d.com/products/8500/

Datasheets:
TDA2030 Power amplifier:
http://www.zymcu.com/datasheet/electronics/TDA2030.pdf

Nuvoton 8051:
http://www2.nuvoton.com/hq/enu/ProductAndSales/ProductLines/MicrocontrollerApplicationIC/8051Microcontroller/80C51Microcontroller12T/Documents/W78E054D_W78E052D_W78E051D.pdf

 

Online mikeselectricstuff

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Re: EEVblog #671 - White Van Speaker Scam Teardown
« Reply #1 on: October 07, 2014, 10:55:31 pm »
The issue with that projector wasn't that the lens was flapping about, but that they'd used plastic fresnel lenses and a standard LCD panel!
It was basically a monitor with a brighter backlight & some bits of plastic
 kinda reminds me of these


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Offline senso

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Re: EEVblog #671 - White Van Speaker Scam Teardown
« Reply #2 on: October 07, 2014, 11:12:18 pm »
By the looks they might really be original caps, from a dumpster, all burned up from soldering irons and torchs, and isn't SK the symbol for Sanken, maybe fake as well..
 

Offline kwallen

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Re: EEVblog #671 - White Van Speaker Scam Teardown
« Reply #3 on: October 07, 2014, 11:26:19 pm »
Is it just me or is the video quality a little weird on this episode?
 

Offline ConKbot

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Re: EEVblog #671 - White Van Speaker Scam Teardown
« Reply #4 on: October 07, 2014, 11:27:22 pm »
combo subwoofer and receiver? seems legit.   :-DD
 

Offline EEVblogTopic starter

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Re: EEVblog #671 - White Van Speaker Scam Teardown
« Reply #5 on: October 07, 2014, 11:27:56 pm »
The issue with that projector wasn't that the lens was flapping about, but that they'd used plastic fresnel lenses and a standard LCD panel!
It was basically a monitor with a brighter backlight & some bits of plastic

Yes, I'm surprised it worked as well as it did.
 

Offline EEVblogTopic starter

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Re: EEVblog #671 - White Van Speaker Scam Teardown
« Reply #6 on: October 07, 2014, 11:28:23 pm »
Is it just me or is the video quality a little weird on this episode?

What's the problem?
 

Offline kwallen

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Re: EEVblog #671 - White Van Speaker Scam Teardown
« Reply #7 on: October 07, 2014, 11:36:42 pm »
Is it just me or is the video quality a little weird on this episode?

What's the problem?

Just the introduction looks a little soft compared with your normal quality. Good tear down none the less.
« Last Edit: October 07, 2014, 11:48:00 pm by kwallen »
 

Offline calexanian

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Re: EEVblog #671 - White Van Speaker Scam Teardown
« Reply #8 on: October 07, 2014, 11:38:10 pm »
Ah yes. The old Van Speakers grift. that has been over here in the U.S. since the 70's. I have a friend who in a less than perfect youth used to be a peddler of this crap. Back then it was stuff that was not import worthy that rather than end up in tokyo bay or destroyed by customs would walk out the door by the longshoremen and into the hands of grifters. They had scripts and all. Buyer Be Ware!! I put it in the same category as all the fake health supplements and what have you. Just don't expect the guy who sold it to you to feel too bad when your house burns down!
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Offline RobertoLG

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Re: EEVblog #671 - White Van Speaker Scam Teardown
« Reply #9 on: October 07, 2014, 11:42:27 pm »
Nice intro/teardown, never saw this kind of scam around here, generaly if it's to cheap it's stolen stuff...
 

Offline janoc

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Re: EEVblog #671 - White Van Speaker Scam Teardown
« Reply #10 on: October 07, 2014, 11:43:04 pm »
Oh these scams are really common in Europe too.

Usually you will either encounter it on motorway service stations or you will get stopped directly on the road by some darker skinned business-like guys in suits running around an older expensive car - like a Mercedes or BMW. They will claim they have ran out of gas (or something similar), but they don't have euros/credit card/whatever, so they will offer to sell you some supposedly golden jewelry, watches or electronics for a bargain price in order to be able to continue their trip. Of course, it is all worthless junk. Also the car tends to "magically" fix itself if police shows up (or someone mentions calling it).

There are gangs of these scammers all over Europe, moving quickly from place to place. They can be actually very aggressive, sometimes literally jumping in front of your car to force you to stop to deal with them. Some will even steal stuff from your car while you are distracted by dealing with one of them. These are usually gypsy/Roma gangs from the Balkans - Bulgarians, Romanians, etc. running these schemes.

Few years ago I got approached by a guy in Denmark who was trying to sell me a "really top quality Hugo Boss" suit in a parking lot like this. I am not sure what was he thinking, people usually don't buy clothing without trying it on ...

 

Offline Eliminateur

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Re: EEVblog #671 - White Van Speaker Scam Teardown
« Reply #11 on: October 08, 2014, 12:43:12 am »
That's not a proper projection system lamp, that's a "garden" "commercial building" HID lamp, in fact you can see the big ass ballasts in front lol (That Dave doesn't even gloss over).
Proper projectors either use a small dichroic HID lamp that comes as a module or some other esoteric systems when you go ultra high end(Lasers and shit).

Also, Nuvoton is a big brand name, they manufacture big core logic that's currently used on servers(Dell and HP ones at least, current generation, and that's top dollar), the SoC has the system video card, a full embedded processor core, MII ethernet ports, usb KVM control logic, ram interface, etc etc and all of that makes the out of band management system
 

Offline Smokey

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Re: EEVblog #671 - White Van Speaker Scam Teardown
« Reply #12 on: October 08, 2014, 12:45:25 am »
HAH!  You just shamed the hell out of someone in your building who tossed that stuff in the dumpster.  I hope they don't watch the blog :)
 

Offline N2IXK

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Re: EEVblog #671 - White Van Speaker Scam Teardown
« Reply #13 on: October 08, 2014, 12:48:04 am »
The "Marc Vincent" thing may be trying to play on confusion with "Mark Levinson", an actual high-end audio brand:

http://www.marklevinson.com/

Love the valves!  Have seen a few bits of fake valve gear (guitar effects pedals) before, but they at least had the heaters wired up so the otherwise useless valves would at least light up.



« Last Edit: October 08, 2014, 02:00:39 am by N2IXK »
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Offline Sparkey_500

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Re: EEVblog #671 - White Van Speaker Scam Teardown
« Reply #14 on: October 08, 2014, 01:41:54 am »
Spell checking your work is hard. "One hout"
 

Offline poot36

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Re: EEVblog #671 - White Van Speaker Scam Teardown
« Reply #15 on: October 08, 2014, 02:12:40 am »
It would have been interesting to see if the valves (tubes) were real or not.  I noticed the thin grid wires in one of the tubes and I do not think that they would go to the trouble to replicate this.  I suspect that they were recycled as well.
 

Offline kwallen

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Re: EEVblog #671 - White Van Speaker Scam Teardown
« Reply #16 on: October 08, 2014, 02:20:59 am »
It would have been interesting to see if the valves (tubes) were real or not.  I noticed the thin grid wires in one of the tubes and I do not think that they would go to the trouble to replicate this.  I suspect that they were recycled as well.



The getter deposit does look suspiciously real too, maybe they're dud tubes?
 

Offline Rutger

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Re: EEVblog #671 - White Van Speaker Scam Teardown
« Reply #17 on: October 08, 2014, 02:51:14 am »
Found the youtube video on the projector;



Its funny. ^-^
 

Offline LoyalServant

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Re: EEVblog #671 - White Van Speaker Scam Teardown
« Reply #18 on: October 08, 2014, 03:13:39 am »
That looks like one of those DIY projectors made from an LCD monitor.
Yeah... it works but it's shit.. just like you say.

The amp with the valves is just classic.
It looked like the intention may have been to power up the filaments on that?
I guess blue valves look cooler than red-ish ones?

Oh well.
 

Offline N2IXK

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Re: EEVblog #671 - White Van Speaker Scam Teardown
« Reply #19 on: October 08, 2014, 03:15:14 am »
The valves look like genuine PRC stuff, likely military surplus.

The 6N1 is equivalent to the 6AQ8/ECC85. A dual triode valve that actually might be a good low level audio amplifier.

Datasheet here, for anyone who can read Chinese:

http://www.mif.pg.gda.pl/homepages/frank/sheets/095/6/6N1.pdf

Would have been interested to see if they were duds or perfectly usable valves being wasted as eye candy.  Betting Dave doesn't have a tube tester among all that test gear, though...

Not sure what the traces on the valve PCB were all about. I thought they might have been intending to heat the filaments as well, but the pinout is all wrong.
« Last Edit: October 08, 2014, 03:22:32 am by N2IXK »
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Offline EEVblogTopic starter

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Re: EEVblog #671 - White Van Speaker Scam Teardown
« Reply #20 on: October 08, 2014, 04:11:36 am »
Found the youtube video on the projector;

Its funny. ^-^

Damn, those guys aren't even remotely good at selling the scam!
 

Offline EEVblogTopic starter

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Re: EEVblog #671 - White Van Speaker Scam Teardown
« Reply #21 on: October 08, 2014, 04:12:35 am »
Would have been interested to see if they were duds or perfectly usable valves being wasted as eye candy.  Betting Dave doesn't have a tube tester among all that test gear, though...

Nope!
Bet your bottom dollar they are faulty.
 

Offline SeanB

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Re: EEVblog #671 - White Van Speaker Scam Teardown
« Reply #22 on: October 08, 2014, 04:40:23 am »
If they were not they are now after the pins are bent. The seals will have cracked, so in another few months the tube will be white as air gets in.
 

Offline David_AVD

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Re: EEVblog #671 - White Van Speaker Scam Teardown
« Reply #23 on: October 08, 2014, 04:58:31 am »
We had a customer bring in a similar sub/receiver piece of crap for repair a while back. (he also got speakers and a projector)

I looked up the brand and saw all the white van stories associated with it.  Gave the customer the bad news. He never did come back and collect it.

Sounded very embarrassed on the phone and said he hoped his wife didn't find out how much money he'd wasted.   :-DD
 

Offline Bored@Work

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Re: EEVblog #671 - White Van Speaker Scam Teardown
« Reply #24 on: October 08, 2014, 05:18:42 am »
Is it just me or is the video quality a little weird on this episode?

What's the problem?

IMHO unusually often out of focus.
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