OK, so it should read “How do you homebrew better than the big guys,” (major HIFI companies).
Can you? The answer is of course yes but…
Ignoring some of the lemons that the big guys produce from time to time, what are the most significant problems for producing an AMP that is as good or better than something that you could buy off the shelf?
I read in this group many concerns about amplifier design that, though valid, (and great to mull over) often hide the true issues that make it hard for us produce truly great gear.
I would like your thoughts on what are the major design issues that lead to a great amp.
Here are just a few of mine;
1. PCB Layout; large companies can and do produce many different circuit board layouts and evaluate the performance of each before their production designs. It would be very costly and time consuming for us to take that approach, so we have to except the compromise? However we do learn from their and our own experience and better at it with time.
2. Chassis Layout; include the wire paths in this one. The sortest path is rarely the best, it usually produces the greatest noise and crosstalk in amps. After building and amp and fitting it into the box time should be spent experimenting with different routes for cabling to fine tune the performance of the amp. We do know general rules, keep signal away from supply wires. Also the screening of power supply fluxes and general placement of components is critical. Lets not forget not just earthing but which earth and where to earth! All things that the big guys should well understand by now, but for us, a little more trial and error is needed.
3. Component selection; some components have a large effect on the final quality of the amp and others very little if any. Which components most effect the sound, my number one candidate is the volume pot, it might sound fine in the first couple of years but for how long has the sound been deteriorating before we notice that the pot become noisy? But component matching can be fun.
Back to you, there are no bad opinions, are the intricacies of the schematic as important as the above issues? I feel that there are many great circuits but many more poor layouts out there…
Enjoy the music, take care, regards WALKER
Can you? The answer is of course yes but…
Ignoring some of the lemons that the big guys produce from time to time, what are the most significant problems for producing an AMP that is as good or better than something that you could buy off the shelf?
I read in this group many concerns about amplifier design that, though valid, (and great to mull over) often hide the true issues that make it hard for us produce truly great gear.
I would like your thoughts on what are the major design issues that lead to a great amp.
Here are just a few of mine;
1. PCB Layout; large companies can and do produce many different circuit board layouts and evaluate the performance of each before their production designs. It would be very costly and time consuming for us to take that approach, so we have to except the compromise? However we do learn from their and our own experience and better at it with time.
2. Chassis Layout; include the wire paths in this one. The sortest path is rarely the best, it usually produces the greatest noise and crosstalk in amps. After building and amp and fitting it into the box time should be spent experimenting with different routes for cabling to fine tune the performance of the amp. We do know general rules, keep signal away from supply wires. Also the screening of power supply fluxes and general placement of components is critical. Lets not forget not just earthing but which earth and where to earth! All things that the big guys should well understand by now, but for us, a little more trial and error is needed.
3. Component selection; some components have a large effect on the final quality of the amp and others very little if any. Which components most effect the sound, my number one candidate is the volume pot, it might sound fine in the first couple of years but for how long has the sound been deteriorating before we notice that the pot become noisy? But component matching can be fun.
Back to you, there are no bad opinions, are the intricacies of the schematic as important as the above issues? I feel that there are many great circuits but many more poor layouts out there…
Enjoy the music, take care, regards WALKER
Banned
Joined 2002
Brevity breads ambiguity
Sorry Peter, my statement was open to your interpretation, thanks thylantyr for the clarification. By the way routing signal and supply paths on the PCB is generally a good solution. How often have you seen the big guys wiring, power signal and logic in a ribbon cable? BUT, strangely sometimes it does seem to give excellent results, (art or science???).
I wasn’t suggesting that long wires sound great
1. Heatsinks, try scrap merchants, they don’t need to look good to work, tell them it’s a work of art I rarely pay for them.
2. Chassis, can’t argue there but that’s part of the reason why we DIY isn’t it, not because it’s easier. Also I don’t think that the cost of the chassis effects the sound quality, I’ve heard some great birds nest jobs. Chassis layout and screening, absolutely!
3. Transformer, more than meets the eye So long as it is adequate and filtered well I don’t believe that it effects the sound quality as much as some of the other issues. But cheap they rarely are.
4. PCB layout, wouldn’t it be great if we could build 12 different versions of our babies and evaluate the various layouts, with you on that one!
I wasn't considering cost as a major barrier to building DIY better than the big guys but I can't ignore it either. That discussion should be called "Can you build homebrew CHEAPER than buying from the big guys?" My answer to that is yes if you can scrounge
Enjoy the music, take care, regards WALKER
Sorry Peter, my statement was open to your interpretation, thanks thylantyr for the clarification. By the way routing signal and supply paths on the PCB is generally a good solution. How often have you seen the big guys wiring, power signal and logic in a ribbon cable? BUT, strangely sometimes it does seem to give excellent results, (art or science???).
I wasn’t suggesting that long wires sound great
1. Heatsinks, try scrap merchants, they don’t need to look good to work, tell them it’s a work of art
I rarely pay for them.2. Chassis, can’t argue there but that’s part of the reason why we DIY isn’t it, not because it’s easier. Also I don’t think that the cost of the chassis effects the sound quality, I’ve heard some great birds nest jobs. Chassis layout and screening, absolutely!
3. Transformer, more than meets the eye
So long as it is adequate and filtered well I don’t believe that it effects the sound quality as much as some of the other issues. But cheap they rarely are.4. PCB layout, wouldn’t it be great if we could build 12 different versions of our babies and evaluate the various layouts, with you on that one!
I wasn't considering cost as a major barrier to building DIY better than the big guys but I can't ignore it either. That discussion should be called "Can you build homebrew CHEAPER than buying from the big guys?" My answer to that is yes if you can scrounge
Enjoy the music, take care, regards WALKER
You can definitely built cheaper and if you lucky you don't have to spend much time for R&D. The best example are the rectifying diodes in my GC. When building firs unit, by accident I chose MUR860 without even thinking twice if that's the best option. The amp sounded good and trying to improve it I searched for better diodes. I ordered some from Digi Key, I got some from people and as somples. I got even excited recently with MSR860. However, after trying everything I could put my hands on, it appears that MUR860 is the best choice in my setup. And that's what I had in the beginning, not even aware then, how much difference diodes make in a GC PS.
I used to built circuits choosing parts arbitrarily, based on my presumption that this should be fine and will work OK because it's a good or expensive component. But recently my experiencies show that building a great amp or some other piece of gear is not just simply putting parts together (even expensive ones). Proper combination of certain parts, in order to voice the unit is strictly essential for the unit to be better than average, even when the circuit is from well known audio designer And this takes a lot of patience, time and you need a will and motivaton to constantly change parts and listen to the results. It is actually a full time job. Just today I spent whole day choosing capacitor in my speaker's crossover. During countless changes, nothing seemed right, untill finally I put the proper part and no mater what music I was listen to it always sounded right.
The chassiss is as important as parts. Depending on construction and materials used the sound willbe different. I would say chassiss counts for at least 20% of the final sound. And all is about resonances and their proper distribution, not really getting rid off. So if you lucky and have some sort of intuition, you might get it right the first time, but if not, don't blame the circuit for bad sound. And this is actually even more costly in prototyping than differnt PCB layout choices.
Wires are important. I normally use solid core copper wire in my GC. I tried once silver core wire for inside grounding (3 pieces, 2" long). My associate noticed right away that something was weired regarding that amp. No wonder, we had 6 " of different than usually wire inside
I used to built circuits choosing parts arbitrarily, based on my presumption that this should be fine and will work OK because it's a good or expensive component. But recently my experiencies show that building a great amp or some other piece of gear is not just simply putting parts together (even expensive ones). Proper combination of certain parts, in order to voice the unit is strictly essential for the unit to be better than average, even when the circuit is from well known audio designer
And this takes a lot of patience, time and you need a will and motivaton to constantly change parts and listen to the results. It is actually a full time job. Just today I spent whole day choosing capacitor in my speaker's crossover. During countless changes, nothing seemed right, untill finally I put the proper part and no mater what music I was listen to it always sounded right. The chassiss is as important as parts. Depending on construction and materials used the sound willbe different. I would say chassiss counts for at least 20% of the final sound. And all is about resonances and their proper distribution, not really getting rid off. So if you lucky and have some sort of intuition, you might get it right the first time, but if not, don't blame the circuit for bad sound. And this is actually even more costly in prototyping than differnt PCB layout choices.
Wires are important. I normally use solid core copper wire in my GC. I tried once silver core wire for inside grounding (3 pieces, 2" long). My associate noticed right away that something was weired regarding that amp. No wonder, we had 6 " of different than usually wire inside
Hi!
Up to a certain tradeoff-point between performance and costs I think that it is perfectly possible to build as-well or better equipment DIY than those from companies...
With amps I see the big advantages for firms for example in matching parts and (like stated above) in chassis construction, while the advantages for DIY guys is the possibility to "endlessly" test and substitute parts, in order to reach the "ultimate" performance...
While I also think high of our honored member N. Pass, I don't really belive that shelling out 22.000 € for a X1000 is entirely justified, regardless of the planning and construction costs, and the large number of matched transistor devices inside...
When I take a look at my P3A, I see material for 160 €, which is more than most of my friends are willing to pay for a commercial amplifier (why should say, if they can get a whole home theater set, amp and 5.1 speaker set for 150 € at a big outlet
), but I would say that it outperforms most amps up to 1000 - 2000 €. But better than the mentioned X1000 it is of course not...
Bye,
Arndt
Up to a certain tradeoff-point between performance and costs I think that it is perfectly possible to build as-well or better equipment DIY than those from companies...
With amps I see the big advantages for firms for example in matching parts and (like stated above) in chassis construction, while the advantages for DIY guys is the possibility to "endlessly" test and substitute parts, in order to reach the "ultimate" performance...
While I also think high of our honored member N. Pass, I don't really belive that shelling out 22.000 € for a X1000 is entirely justified, regardless of the planning and construction costs, and the large number of matched transistor devices inside...
When I take a look at my P3A, I see material for 160 €, which is more than most of my friends are willing to pay for a commercial amplifier (why should say, if they can get a whole home theater set, amp and 5.1 speaker set for 150 € at a big outlet
), but I would say that it outperforms most amps up to 1000 - 2000 €. But better than the mentioned X1000 it is of course not... Bye,
Arndt
Sometimes we can make it cheaper that a commercial product, sometimes we can't.
You can buy a dvd player for 100 €, but you can't make it yourself for that price.
Here we're talking mass market and large quantities.
When you talk about high-end, most of the times you can make it much cheaper.
In high-end, many products are seriously over-priced.
But as long as there are people buying it...
Have you seen the latest top-of-the-range Naim preamp?
I think it's Nac52.
The separate (optional) PSU they sell for the preamp has an 800VA toroid! 
You can buy a dvd player for 100 €, but you can't make it yourself for that price.
Here we're talking mass market and large quantities.
When you talk about high-end, most of the times you can make it much cheaper.
In high-end, many products are seriously over-priced.
But as long as there are people buying it...
Have you seen the latest top-of-the-range Naim preamp?
I think it's Nac52.
The separate (optional) PSU they sell for the preamp has an 800VA toroid!
figure this -- the high end audio store is working on a 40% margin -- and it's justified by the slow inventory turns AND the risk of obsolescence, but knockdown 40% and you are probably getting at the invoiced amount to the store.
now look at the design of the amp or preamp cabinet -- not just the chasis -- the designers earn anywhere from $40 to $200/hour for the rough drawings to the CAD/CAM files used in final manufacture -- in my case of homebuilt stuff, as I have mentioned before -- I recycle chasis from used HP equipment, particularly power supplies, frequency counters, electronic switches -- doesn't look pretty, but you can buy an HP5328a counter for under $50 yet it would cost over $200 for the same 19" cabinet. If you don't want the power supply, just buy an old CISCO 2U cabinet.
My guess is that DIY'rs aren't doing multiple layer boards and trying to squeeze the last mil out of a trace separation -- this is good. The expense for DIY'rs is that proto-boards are expensive unless you cut them yourself.
components -- DIY'rs probably purchase better stuff.
risk -- some DIY'rs are more ready to experiment.
tweaks -- this is how many, if not all DIY'rs get started -- remember the term POOGE from Audio Amateur -- the "Progressive Optimization OF Generic Equipment"
now look at the design of the amp or preamp cabinet -- not just the chasis -- the designers earn anywhere from $40 to $200/hour for the rough drawings to the CAD/CAM files used in final manufacture -- in my case of homebuilt stuff, as I have mentioned before -- I recycle chasis from used HP equipment, particularly power supplies, frequency counters, electronic switches -- doesn't look pretty, but you can buy an HP5328a counter for under $50 yet it would cost over $200 for the same 19" cabinet. If you don't want the power supply, just buy an old CISCO 2U cabinet.
My guess is that DIY'rs aren't doing multiple layer boards and trying to squeeze the last mil out of a trace separation -- this is good. The expense for DIY'rs is that proto-boards are expensive unless you cut them yourself.
components -- DIY'rs probably purchase better stuff.
risk -- some DIY'rs are more ready to experiment.
tweaks -- this is how many, if not all DIY'rs get started -- remember the term POOGE from Audio Amateur -- the "Progressive Optimization OF Generic Equipment"
Here is an example.
Here is an example. One of the more popular or at least fairly well known DIY amps is G.Randy Slone's "OPTI-MOS". The design is good enough that will soon be going into production at ZUS Electronics.
From curiousity, I set the schematic up in a SPICE program to compare to other designs. I compared it to a couple of other published designs. At least as far as "the numbers" go, there are very few in the same ballpark. I have not built this particular design but have built a couple of others of his and the actual results are pretty close to the predicted results even when a comparative klutz like myself does it.
Rod Ellliot's designs are not so extemist but the woirst that can be said is that they perform as well as in not better than the better mass market units one finds at Circuit City.
PS: one aspect of the Slone design's I found is that choice of components is non-critical. At least in a SPICE model, you can swap to transistors of roughly the same specs without significant changes by-the-numbers performance. There is is only one capacitor, the input DC blocker that is truly in the signal path. This is bad news of a sort for obsesive tweakers since short of making some kind of drastic and unreasonable substitution you are unlikely seriously degrade the performance and even less likely to improve it.
What all this means (I think) is that you can build a DIY amp that is better than 90% of what "on-the-self" and for the other 10% you are in the relm of inaudible/insignificant differences.
HOWEVER, from my perspective the real advantage of DIY is that you can taylor the amp to your specific needs such as external dimentions and appearance, or specific functionality such as including an active XO PCB for a bi-amp system. etc.
Here is an example. One of the more popular or at least fairly well known DIY amps is G.Randy Slone's "OPTI-MOS". The design is good enough that will soon be going into production at ZUS Electronics.
From curiousity, I set the schematic up in a SPICE program to compare to other designs. I compared it to a couple of other published designs. At least as far as "the numbers" go, there are very few in the same ballpark. I have not built this particular design but have built a couple of others of his and the actual results are pretty close to the predicted results even when a comparative klutz like myself does it.
Rod Ellliot's designs are not so extemist but the woirst that can be said is that they perform as well as in not better than the better mass market units one finds at Circuit City.
PS: one aspect of the Slone design's I found is that choice of components is non-critical. At least in a SPICE model, you can swap to transistors of roughly the same specs without significant changes by-the-numbers performance. There is is only one capacitor, the input DC blocker that is truly in the signal path. This is bad news of a sort for obsesive tweakers since short of making some kind of drastic and unreasonable substitution you are unlikely seriously degrade the performance and even less likely to improve it.
What all this means (I think) is that you can build a DIY amp that is better than 90% of what "on-the-self" and for the other 10% you are in the relm of inaudible/insignificant differences.
HOWEVER, from my perspective the real advantage of DIY is that you can taylor the amp to your specific needs such as external dimentions and appearance, or specific functionality such as including an active XO PCB for a bi-amp system. etc.
To confuse matters even more. Richard Clark, the car audio
celebrity has an on-going amplifier challenge where he
will give you $10k if you can hear the sonics of two
amplifiers being compared. This is done on his "test
bench" and there are certain rules, but essentially
he "zeros" out both amplifiers being tested to make
them "flat" and you audition both amplifiers not
knowing which one is which.
You can compare any two amplifiers, car or home audio, solid
state or tube as long as both amplifiers are operating at the same
power level. This test has been ongoing for years
and nobody has passed it yet, in other words, people
can't tell the difference between amplifiers when you "zero"
them out, an amplifier is just used to amplify a signal,
there is no magic hidden in the circuit topologies.
This topic has been discussed 1000 times on various
forums over the years, you can probably do an archive
search to find the details of the test.
If this interests you, this is his forum
http://www.carsound.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=forum;f=1
My preferences for amplifiers is simple.
Lots of power
Inaudible distortion (less than 1% THD)
Low impedance drive capability
Low noise
Operates in audio band
I don't car what class, what topology, tube, solid state,
bipolar input, jfet input, mosfet output, bipolar output,
just gimme an amplifier with those requirements and it's
all good for me.
celebrity has an on-going amplifier challenge where he
will give you $10k if you can hear the sonics of two
amplifiers being compared. This is done on his "test
bench" and there are certain rules, but essentially
he "zeros" out both amplifiers being tested to make
them "flat" and you audition both amplifiers not
knowing which one is which.
You can compare any two amplifiers, car or home audio, solid
state or tube as long as both amplifiers are operating at the same
power level. This test has been ongoing for years
and nobody has passed it yet, in other words, people
can't tell the difference between amplifiers when you "zero"
them out, an amplifier is just used to amplify a signal,
there is no magic hidden in the circuit topologies.
This topic has been discussed 1000 times on various
forums over the years, you can probably do an archive
search to find the details of the test.
If this interests you, this is his forum
http://www.carsound.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=forum;f=1
My preferences for amplifiers is simple.
Lots of power
Inaudible distortion (less than 1% THD)
Low impedance drive capability
Low noise
Operates in audio band
I don't car what class, what topology, tube, solid state,
bipolar input, jfet input, mosfet output, bipolar output,
just gimme an amplifier with those requirements and it's
all good for me.
Regarding the amp comparrisson mentioned above, I believe that one rule is that neither cqn be driven to clipping. The problem is that in real life a lot of amps get driven to that point, at least on peaks. Rod Elliot has written that he believe this is one of if not the primary source of difference people claim to hear -- i.e., how the amp behaves when clipping. In the range just below where you see clipping on a scope, didtortion rises above normal sometimes drasticly, so I'll opin that very likely that "sub-clipping" range is also a factor.
Tube amps are held to clip more gracefully and this is supossedly where some of their merits lie.
The brute force approac is to build monster amps and listen at reasonable levels, never getting close to clipping.
Tube amps are held to clip more gracefully and this is supossedly where some of their merits lie.
The brute force approac is to build monster amps and listen at reasonable levels, never getting close to clipping.
>Is it possible to homebrew better than the big guys?<
Depends on which "big guy" you are thinking of, and what your engineering and suibjective goals are, is it not? Given talent and a willingness to study and work, I am sure that it is possible for a DIY'er to homebrew better than many commercial designs. But when it comes to challenging the more innovative commercial designs - based on what I have seen from the DIY sector in Japan and various internet-based DIY communites - this happens once in a blue moon. Nevertheless, sometimes, someone will appear on the DIY scene who is very good. And if that person is extremely capable - he will most likely soon be head-hunted by a commercial audio or electronics manufacturer, or at the very least receive offers for consultancy jobs.
BTW, I am speaking of DIY'ers who design their own circuits and board layouts - implementing someone else's schematic or pcb layout is not a meaningful measure of design abilities, IMO.
>How do you homebrew better than the big guys.<
Study hard, work even harder, and always do your own thinking and analyses - question everything, don't take anything for granted, and be willing to take risks and innovate.
hth, jonathan carr
Depends on which "big guy" you are thinking of, and what your engineering and suibjective goals are, is it not? Given talent and a willingness to study and work, I am sure that it is possible for a DIY'er to homebrew better than many commercial designs. But when it comes to challenging the more innovative commercial designs - based on what I have seen from the DIY sector in Japan and various internet-based DIY communites - this happens once in a blue moon. Nevertheless, sometimes, someone will appear on the DIY scene who is very good. And if that person is extremely capable - he will most likely soon be head-hunted by a commercial audio or electronics manufacturer, or at the very least receive offers for consultancy jobs.
BTW, I am speaking of DIY'ers who design their own circuits and board layouts - implementing someone else's schematic or pcb layout is not a meaningful measure of design abilities, IMO.
>How do you homebrew better than the big guys.<
Study hard, work even harder, and always do your own thinking and analyses - question everything, don't take anything for granted, and be willing to take risks and innovate.
hth, jonathan carr
walker said:
My opinions on this:
1. Make sure you have adequate power output / current drive capability. (Many commercial amps would be fine except they run out of headroom because compromises are made with the very cost-sensitive PSU components).
2. Get the grounding right. The easiest way to do this is to consider that, for every current flowing down a wire or track, a return current is coming back somewhere to complete the loop. (This is usually a ground wire). The current flow produces a voltage across the wire's finite resistance, hence 'ground' potential varies along its length. So, make sure current return paths are separated so that ground voltage errors aren't coupled from one part of the circuit to another.
3. Fix inductively-introduced problems. Current flowing round a loop creates a magnetic field depending on the magnitude of the current and the area of the loop. Such a magnetic field will induce voltage errors in other loops (such as a signal line and its corresponding ground return connection) depending on the area of the loop and its orientation relative to the source. So keep the wires/tracks which take outflowing currents close to those which take the return currents, and keep them away from (or orient them differently to) small-signal wires and tracks. This is particularly important with split-rail PSUs - sometimes the current path will be between the + rail and the speaker, and sometimes between the - rail and speaker.
4. Fix capacitively-introduced problems. A conductor with a large alternating voltage on it will introduce a small voltage on neigbouring conductors (depending on the size, spacing and impedance of the input). This is only really likely to happen in a power amp if you fail to ground the metalwork properly, or route the input wires near the high-voltage stuff.
5. Most commercial amps are constrained to a particular physical form factor, with inputs and outputs on the back panel, and a knob on the front, just so it looks marketable. You don't have to stick to this, so don't if it makes the layout easier.
6. The single most important component selection in terms of quality is probably the volume pot.
Cheers
IH
I wouldn't say that you can do better than the top hi-end components but you can do as well or better at the mid hi - end level and at considerably less outlay.
I am always surprised that at the low end of audio you can get so much for so little nowadays.A few hundred euro for CD , tape , radio , amp and speakers- try diying that!
And I still cannot believe that an amp or pre-amp can retail for 20.000 or 30.000 euros even if it's state of the art. It probably only has about 500 euros worth of generally available parts (at manuf prices not diy catalogue prices) and perhaps a chassis that may cost another 500 euro maximum (for big two chassis monoblocks etc) to produce in quantities.
So the rest is overhead ,"research & dev." , rents , salaries, holidays and a big Jaguar for the manufacturer.
It's a little bit like haute couture - if you( I mean your other 1/2s) get a dress personally made for you by Mr. so and so designer you are going to pay tens of thousands of euro but if having the skills you copy the same dress at home it will cost you not even 100 euro.
I am always surprised that at the low end of audio you can get so much for so little nowadays.A few hundred euro for CD , tape , radio , amp and speakers- try diying that!
And I still cannot believe that an amp or pre-amp can retail for 20.000 or 30.000 euros even if it's state of the art. It probably only has about 500 euros worth of generally available parts (at manuf prices not diy catalogue prices) and perhaps a chassis that may cost another 500 euro maximum (for big two chassis monoblocks etc) to produce in quantities.
So the rest is overhead ,"research & dev." , rents , salaries, holidays and a big Jaguar for the manufacturer.
It's a little bit like haute couture - if you( I mean your other 1/2s) get a dress personally made for you by Mr. so and so designer you are going to pay tens of thousands of euro but if having the skills you copy the same dress at home it will cost you not even 100 euro.
Protos: I have a commercial preamp (Connoisseur 4.0) which retails for somewhere in the general vicinity of 20,000 USD, and my cost for the electrical parts alone is far, far greater than 500 Euros. The chassis, associated metal work and cabinetry are likewise _very_ much higher than 500 Euros. Perhaps manufacturing costs in Japan are more expensive than in other countries, but I think that you grossly overestimate the profit margin for an audio electronic manufacturer (at least in my case).
>a big Jaguar for the manufacturer.<
Completely out of the question. If I had that kind of spare cash - and that is a very big if - undoubtedly I would invest it on a new development project. Only the development cycle of a new amplifier will typically eat up around 150,000 USD, and when gearing up for the production of a new design, parts need to be purchased in serious quantities - in my case I find that I need to allocate at least 100,000 USD for each production run . Much of this sum needs to be paid to the supplier at the time of ordering, and the delivery of the parts is usually delayed by 8~12 weeks. Then the production means another delay, and shipping, promotion and sales each incur additional delays. In many cases, I won't start to see a return on that 100,000 USD investment until perhaps 6 months have passed. And then I need to start paying back or recouping the 150,000USD debt that I ran up during the development cycle.
>if you get a dress personally made for you by Mr. so and so designer you are going to pay tens of thousands of euro but if having the skills you copy the same dress at home it will cost you not even 100 euro.<
In my opinion, it takes years of diligent study, thinking and work to pick up the skills required to design audio products that multiple markets regard as being among the world's very best. Meanwhile, you need to eat and get the rent paid, so it is easier if you can manage to pick up an advanced technical foundation during high-school and university, rather than after you become a (supposedly) self-sufficient adult.
Besides, I think (or hope) that a designer with talent, dedication and pride will never stop pushing himself or learning, so the skill level required to match or surpass his creations is definitely a moving (climbing) target. For every new design, I make it a point to come up with a new idea, and preferably tricky enough so that I need to sweat hard at every stage - from calculation/schematic design through manufacturing consistency and the performance and reliability of the production units.
hth, jonathan carr
>a big Jaguar for the manufacturer.<
Completely out of the question. If I had that kind of spare cash - and that is a very big if - undoubtedly I would invest it on a new development project. Only the development cycle of a new amplifier will typically eat up around 150,000 USD, and when gearing up for the production of a new design, parts need to be purchased in serious quantities - in my case I find that I need to allocate at least 100,000 USD for each production run . Much of this sum needs to be paid to the supplier at the time of ordering, and the delivery of the parts is usually delayed by 8~12 weeks. Then the production means another delay, and shipping, promotion and sales each incur additional delays. In many cases, I won't start to see a return on that 100,000 USD investment until perhaps 6 months have passed. And then I need to start paying back or recouping the 150,000USD debt that I ran up during the development cycle.
>if you get a dress personally made for you by Mr. so and so designer you are going to pay tens of thousands of euro but if having the skills you copy the same dress at home it will cost you not even 100 euro.<
In my opinion, it takes years of diligent study, thinking and work to pick up the skills required to design audio products that multiple markets regard as being among the world's very best. Meanwhile, you need to eat and get the rent paid, so it is easier if you can manage to pick up an advanced technical foundation during high-school and university, rather than after you become a (supposedly) self-sufficient adult.
Besides, I think (or hope) that a designer with talent, dedication and pride will never stop pushing himself or learning, so the skill level required to match or surpass his creations is definitely a moving (climbing) target. For every new design, I make it a point to come up with a new idea, and preferably tricky enough so that I need to sweat hard at every stage - from calculation/schematic design through manufacturing consistency and the performance and reliability of the production units.
hth, jonathan carr
jcarr,
I do not mean to disrespect what you are doing and I think that if there is a market for a niche performance product at ?????0000 USD then go ahead and sell it - that's what free economy is all about. In the end if a competitor can come up with the same sounding product at 5,000 USD then it's also to everyones benefit.
As to parts cost I don't doubt what you are saying about your particular costs , especially the chassis part which I have seen in a photo. However I doubt this is the case for most hi-end manufacturers where most of the time it's just a thick square aluminium box construction with some heat sinks. As to the parts inside I still have serious doubts about how many dollars worth of electronics you can stuff ina box seeing that most are costed in cents worth.Even with Vishays ,BG's etc it's just not going to add up to more than 1000 euro (unless you silver plate everything)
The rest of your post just proves that what we are paying for is the time , rent , interest , packaging , research of the producer which is of course acceptable in all economic systems but which the DIY er does not need to spend on.
I do not mean to disrespect what you are doing and I think that if there is a market for a niche performance product at ?????0000 USD then go ahead and sell it - that's what free economy is all about. In the end if a competitor can come up with the same sounding product at 5,000 USD then it's also to everyones benefit.
As to parts cost I don't doubt what you are saying about your particular costs , especially the chassis part which I have seen in a photo. However I doubt this is the case for most hi-end manufacturers where most of the time it's just a thick square aluminium box construction with some heat sinks. As to the parts inside I still have serious doubts about how many dollars worth of electronics you can stuff ina box seeing that most are costed in cents worth.Even with Vishays ,BG's etc it's just not going to add up to more than 1000 euro (unless you silver plate everything)
The rest of your post just proves that what we are paying for is the time , rent , interest , packaging , research of the producer which is of course acceptable in all economic systems but which the DIY er does not need to spend on.
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