I would like to offer another POV for consideration.
The majority if not all of the participants here are more than capable of building a close analogue of the Clari-T & to them, any value proposition it offers is specious at best. However, what about the rest of the high-end market where this product certainly resides? There is a place for it in that very few actually ever build anything to use yet also want something unique as that suits their needs, and for not a lot of money.
The Clari-T is not a product for the masses, but it is also not bubinga speaker cable lifts, cryo-treated isolation feet, or quantum spinstate AC cabling. It is built upon sound & well understood practice called variously greening, Pooge'ing, modding, hotrodding, etc. In other words, it is definitely not a snake oil product. From the reviews & comments on other forums, it even seems to perform as claimed.
I would also posit that with the purchase of one you would get a near cradle to grave support experience w/ the proprietor going far beyond what one would typically expect. That is a tangible benefit & not one you can easily put a value on. The client might more accurately be considered a patron or sponsor rather than a customer alone and is treated in a much more personal manner.
Further, the owner needs to get paid. No business is an altruistic venture but an enterprise. The web site needs regular funds to stay up, materials must be purchased & overhead, however small must be applied. I doubt anyone is getting rich here. Looking at the time I typically take to complete an audio project, I'd be making about $0.01/hour if I had to sell it competitively. Many of the rest of you the same. We can do these projects and why the asking price of the Clari-T rankles, yet we do not correctly value our time costs. Nor should we, this is enjoyment, and to many the craft is a side benefit. It certainly is to me.
Lastly, I am happy to see businesses like this out there. It is a the sign of a healthy category. The fact that it exists denotes many other side benefits such as lots of suppliers with great parts & technologies to access for our own projects. On the product side, if the category is large enough, others enter & real competition begins. In the end, everyone wins.
I've never met Vinnie nor exchanged correspondence w/ him. Neither do I own any of his products nor do I see myself spending for one anytime soon. There is a simple reason, I am not the customer intended for his products.
speaker
The majority if not all of the participants here are more than capable of building a close analogue of the Clari-T & to them, any value proposition it offers is specious at best. However, what about the rest of the high-end market where this product certainly resides? There is a place for it in that very few actually ever build anything to use yet also want something unique as that suits their needs, and for not a lot of money.
The Clari-T is not a product for the masses, but it is also not bubinga speaker cable lifts, cryo-treated isolation feet, or quantum spinstate AC cabling. It is built upon sound & well understood practice called variously greening, Pooge'ing, modding, hotrodding, etc. In other words, it is definitely not a snake oil product. From the reviews & comments on other forums, it even seems to perform as claimed.
I would also posit that with the purchase of one you would get a near cradle to grave support experience w/ the proprietor going far beyond what one would typically expect. That is a tangible benefit & not one you can easily put a value on. The client might more accurately be considered a patron or sponsor rather than a customer alone and is treated in a much more personal manner.
Further, the owner needs to get paid. No business is an altruistic venture but an enterprise. The web site needs regular funds to stay up, materials must be purchased & overhead, however small must be applied. I doubt anyone is getting rich here. Looking at the time I typically take to complete an audio project, I'd be making about $0.01/hour if I had to sell it competitively. Many of the rest of you the same. We can do these projects and why the asking price of the Clari-T rankles, yet we do not correctly value our time costs. Nor should we, this is enjoyment, and to many the craft is a side benefit. It certainly is to me.
Lastly, I am happy to see businesses like this out there. It is a the sign of a healthy category. The fact that it exists denotes many other side benefits such as lots of suppliers with great parts & technologies to access for our own projects. On the product side, if the category is large enough, others enter & real competition begins. In the end, everyone wins.
I've never met Vinnie nor exchanged correspondence w/ him. Neither do I own any of his products nor do I see myself spending for one anytime soon. There is a simple reason, I am not the customer intended for his products.
speaker
panomaniac said:Yikes! That's it?
A picture is with a 1000 words.
And to think of all the hard work I've been putting into mine.
Nobel pot, Panasonic film input caps, shielded cable, better inductors, regulated PSU, etc.
Phooey, I must be an idiot. Sigh....
I would not feel too bad. Vinnie does a wide variety of mods to the basic amp. It all just starts at $500 and gets better from there. This is probably his entry level mod. I think that he has been very wise and only puts effort and parts where they count. The shunt resistor attenuator is a very good DIY trick. It basically takes the pots quality completely out of the equation and puts the signal through one very good quality resistor. Vinnie has also left the board mainly intact, only replacing key elements that affect the sound the most. I know from painful experience that you can easily displace the SI pads and tracings by trying to remove all of the extraneous connectors.
Just like the 47 chipamp his amp has just the right recipe to produce magic. It is quite likely that your own effort matches it... or could even better it
Unless you hear them side how would you know? Bottom line is if you enjoy your own creation. I think that we are in a real renaissance for audio and DIY. Cool stuff happening.What I really want to know is if he replaced the input coupling cap...
Best,
Paul
In all fairness to Vinnie the pic may not show everything. His amp is suppposed to come with a battery charger built in. Notice the spade connector "floating" in the pic? I'm willing to bet Vinnie mounted it to the top of the case. Still, I agree with MotherOne. Build quality isn't exactly what I'd call top notch. Not that the build quality on my amp was all that great. But I never intended to sell mine to the general public anyway.
The battery IS normally stuffed inside. The cable ties were cut to remove the battery, without consent of the amp's creator, apparently.
I played around with my SI, then popped for Vinnie's because surely a minted electrical engineer, with a great record in breathing new life into components could add value to the overall effort. Sure enough, just as the growing mythos around the ClariT, "just enough in the recipe to weave magic."
I liked it so much I went back to him to produce a unit employing all of the best and none of the junk: Black Gate P/S caps, silver wiring, DaCT attentuator, non-oversampling DAC with reclock circuit tied directly to the amp chip, Cardas fittings, post-attenuator sub-out, and 3 way selector. The whole thing represents a sort of optimal situation. Including the DAC in the box gets rid of 8 connectors, 8 solder joints, and about 6 feet of wiring, and the difference is not subtle, nor is the sound quality of this piece made by someone paid to know what they are doing.
Could I have done this? Yes, given time. But my time is more valuable between work and musical enjoyment. Go to his website and read the testimonials. Nary a junior ranger in sight, gents.
I played around with my SI, then popped for Vinnie's because surely a minted electrical engineer, with a great record in breathing new life into components could add value to the overall effort. Sure enough, just as the growing mythos around the ClariT, "just enough in the recipe to weave magic."
I liked it so much I went back to him to produce a unit employing all of the best and none of the junk: Black Gate P/S caps, silver wiring, DaCT attentuator, non-oversampling DAC with reclock circuit tied directly to the amp chip, Cardas fittings, post-attenuator sub-out, and 3 way selector. The whole thing represents a sort of optimal situation. Including the DAC in the box gets rid of 8 connectors, 8 solder joints, and about 6 feet of wiring, and the difference is not subtle, nor is the sound quality of this piece made by someone paid to know what they are doing.
Could I have done this? Yes, given time. But my time is more valuable between work and musical enjoyment. Go to his website and read the testimonials. Nary a junior ranger in sight, gents.
dmason said:
Well, for me, half the fun is doing it myself. I dare say I may enjoy building gear as much as listening to it. Maybe it's all the solder fumes I've inhaled.
Anyhow, I don't have Vinnie's credentials, nor do I have Peter Daniel's skills at making cases, but my first stab at a amp case for my SI turned out, in my opinion, on par with Vinnies. I'm trying much harder to better my cases as well as build better gear...
Kudos to vinnie for having a product that folks will buy.. That does not, however, mean that I need to be impressed by his job on it's innards
Motherone,
I agree entirely with you about wherein the enjoyment doth ly.
BUT, I wanted to see what would happen, NOW. I really like the Tripath sonic and have been into it for awhile now, having started with Carver Pro ZR amps when no one had heard of Tripath, the reco' came on the lines of cost effectiveness, for pro audio use. As to the all-in-one, I merely decided to cut to the chase on this one. Think of my decision as a self indulgent spasm. That should help.
As to the prior argurments, like I said, go to his site, read the testimonials, nary a yuppie, nor junior ranger on the list. Some interesting anecdotes, to say the least. There's the market, and it's real. And, it's growing.
I agree entirely with you about wherein the enjoyment doth ly.
BUT, I wanted to see what would happen, NOW. I really like the Tripath sonic and have been into it for awhile now, having started with Carver Pro ZR amps when no one had heard of Tripath, the reco' came on the lines of cost effectiveness, for pro audio use. As to the all-in-one, I merely decided to cut to the chase on this one. Think of my decision as a self indulgent spasm. That should help.
As to the prior argurments, like I said, go to his site, read the testimonials, nary a yuppie, nor junior ranger on the list. Some interesting anecdotes, to say the least. There's the market, and it's real. And, it's growing.
dmason said:
Unfortunately for me, most of my spasms involve parts purchases or PCB purchases to start more projects, even though I have many others to finish.
dmason said:
I've read his site and many of his posts. I have no idea how a "Junior Ranger" (????) or yuppies fit into this. Basically what it boils down to for me is that the guy is just properly implementing what SI has in their datahseet.
What I truely don't understand is why he doesn't just design a PCB or team up with someone like 41hz.com and just get the things built from scratch as a nice board. He could take it from a hobbyist thing to something truely professional. Oh well, I'm sure with time he, or someone else, will probably do it. Obviously, if he doesn't do it soon, folks like SI who actually manufacture the things will take that market away from him fairly quickly.
I guess the Tripath/Sonic Impact is the new gainclone
motherone said:What I truely don't understand is why he doesn't just design a PCB or team up with someone like 41hz.com and just get the things built from scratch as a nice board. He could take it from a hobbyist thing to something truely professional. Oh well, I'm sure with time he, or someone else, will probably do it. Obviously, if he doesn't do it soon, folks like SI who actually manufacture the things will take that market away from him fairly quickly.
I guess the Tripath/Sonic Impact is the new gainclone
Precisely. I think the 41Hz AMP3 kits will take off once everyone gets over soldering surface mount components! I too think the SI PCB can be improved, maybe SI will change the layout in a future realease. Until then, I ordered two AMP3 kits to work on after somehow frying one of my SI's
(can't biamp with only one amp). If the sonics are as good I'll be more than happy with the results.
motherone said:
What I truely don't understand is why he doesn't just design a PCB or team up with someone like 41hz.com and just get the things built from scratch as a nice board. He could take it from a hobbyist thing to something truely professional. Oh well, I'm sure with time he, or someone else, will probably do it. Obviously, if he doesn't do it soon, folks like SI who actually manufacture the things will take that market away from him fairly quickly.
I guess the Tripath/Sonic Impact is the new gainclone
My guess is that we are just seeing the birth of this thing...
I looked at the 41mz site a couple of months ago and then emailed them. I suggested that a kit with a lot of SMD soldering would not go too far. I thought that what we needed was a nice DIY board with heavy tracings, all of the signal path parts as through-hole type, and with the chip and SMD parts presoldered. Next someone should follow with a really well engineered amp for the non-DIYers: a "ground up" engineered board with battery management and the ability to keep the board always powered on. My modded SI takes 20 minutes to get frisky and 30 minutes to bloom. It is actually very much like a tube amp in the way it blooms. I am looking into adding a wall-wart 12v supply and a different switching scheme so that my board will be on even while the SLA charges.
My two cents... discounted for inflation.
Paul
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