RNM,
And only a few would even consider your massive amps due to only the stupidly large size of those monsters, that is purely mine are bigger than yours designing efforts. If you can't package a product into something people actually want in a room that is like trying to sell some person who needs a small executive jet a 747 that they can't land at their local airport. There are plenty of mega bucks expensive speakers by big name companies that really aren't any better than speakers that are 1/10 the cost. Just because someone says they have the best product and charge high dollars doesn't make it true. I love me a nice Bentley but hate the RR's, think they look like a big truck coming down the road, so it is all in the eyes of the beholder. Audio isn't automotive, there are plenty of designs of cars that excess doesn't even approach reality, where the hell can you truly drive 200mph on any road, not a race track? I've had cars that can do over 150mph but where you going to do that and not go to jail?
At least in audio we have a goal that many of us want to attain, as true to live music as possible, but that doesn't require you to spend mega bucks on some silly stuff that takes a 5 ton air conditioner to keep the room cool, I can only imagine the heat coming off that class A amp you showed, not practical in the least. So you add an air conditioner and that low background noise level you talked about earlier is taken away with the noise of the air conditioner, reality bites!
And only a few would even consider your massive amps due to only the stupidly large size of those monsters, that is purely mine are bigger than yours designing efforts. If you can't package a product into something people actually want in a room that is like trying to sell some person who needs a small executive jet a 747 that they can't land at their local airport. There are plenty of mega bucks expensive speakers by big name companies that really aren't any better than speakers that are 1/10 the cost. Just because someone says they have the best product and charge high dollars doesn't make it true. I love me a nice Bentley but hate the RR's, think they look like a big truck coming down the road, so it is all in the eyes of the beholder. Audio isn't automotive, there are plenty of designs of cars that excess doesn't even approach reality, where the hell can you truly drive 200mph on any road, not a race track? I've had cars that can do over 150mph but where you going to do that and not go to jail?
At least in audio we have a goal that many of us want to attain, as true to live music as possible, but that doesn't require you to spend mega bucks on some silly stuff that takes a 5 ton air conditioner to keep the room cool, I can only imagine the heat coming off that class A amp you showed, not practical in the least. So you add an air conditioner and that low background noise level you talked about earlier is taken away with the noise of the air conditioner, reality bites!
(in some places, even without the monster amp, one needs to mental massage on how to get rid of the already present hvac)
The first Products under Viglas at Classé like the CP 60 Pre for sure never have been listened by the maker before production. It looked good, measured good, really High End, but the sound was something of its own.
I was very happy, when it went back to the importer after a demonstration to him. So its true, expensive and quality is not in the same footstep.
I don't want to use the term planned obsolescence as I don't think that is what is going on today, but at the same time design engineers are tasked differently today than in the past. Because of cost analysis it would be hard for a designer to include components that were chosen for a twenty or more year lifespan, that would be considered none essential today and would probably get you in trouble with the bean counters. So there is a real battle between what you can design in a typical consumer product and what you can do on a cost no object design where large volume production would not be expected. If you are doing a diy project you can choose the best components with the best life expectancy, you can in effect over build the item for typically not that great a cost differential. But that is not what we can expect from most products designed for the normal consumer that thinks something that last 5 years is a long time to keep anything today. The audiophile market doesn't follow normal marketing parameters, it is a specialty market, it is also a market filled with questionable products where there is more spent on marketing than any other aspect of the design. I'm sure there are designers right here in this conversation that can make excellent designs that would be very well received but they don't have the money to produce those products to sell to the public, those people share their designs here for free, you just have to build it yourself. Their designs are as good or better than most of the products we can purchase from an audiophile company, I could name a bunch of people on this forum that I would expect to design anything as good as anything I could just go out and buy, there are some great minds on this thread.
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Jacco,
Tell that to companies such as Apple who have used cheap capacitors on their motherboards and saved a few pennies only to see massive failures on the early Imac computers or many others who do the same thing. I'm not saying you can't do it, but there are drivers that seem to cause these kinds of problems over and over. We are truly talking pennies here, that is part of the analysis by the bean counters that can ruin a great design to save a tiny percentage of the cost of the finished product.
Tell that to companies such as Apple who have used cheap capacitors on their motherboards and saved a few pennies only to see massive failures on the early Imac computers or many others who do the same thing. I'm not saying you can't do it, but there are drivers that seem to cause these kinds of problems over and over. We are truly talking pennies here, that is part of the analysis by the bean counters that can ruin a great design to save a tiny percentage of the cost of the finished product.
Well, you have companies like Bryston who are designing with a 20 year warranty in mind- and the performance is flawless. I suppose that's what John would sneeringly refer to as "mid fi" because it's engineered rationally, with no consideration for storytelling, mystery magic, and bling.
Are you talking audio, cars, computers, or various junk here ?
Net present value of several passive/active parts is lower than e.g. 3 decades ago.
Average price of power transistors is a joke nowadays, electrolytic caps have become better and relatively cheaper.
Even real value cost of toroidal transformers is at least 10% less.
(I cook better than I talk, but doing digits is my main freak show)
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Depends where, Steven. Locally an A77 not refreshed goes for €350-€450, deeonding on the state and codition it's in and the wear and tear of heads. That's aout $380-500.
Newer versions, like PR99, go for about €700-900 ($780-1,0009.
A professionsl refresh of an A77 will set you back anytihng from €150-250, including the caos.
In Germany, about the same but for roughly 35-39% more. About the same for its meanest German competitor, ASC series 5000 (reels up to 7") and series 6000 (reels up to 10.5", digital counter). They have detachable and interchangable 2 and 4 track hea blocks, and brand new ones are still available from Bogen (original manufacturer). Take look at e-bay.de.
I definitely found dried out Roedersteins in red plastic caps. The bottom was sealed with something that looked like wax.
I thnik you'd be surprised at how easy it SOMETIMES is to make that out. Now always, not with every amp, but in 9/10 cases, I will get it right with old Marantz series amps (the 1978-1980 series). I have heard a lot of them, I own some of them, and if it sounds hard and brittle, a bit sort of shallow (lacking the deep "oomph" typical of tympany), chances are 100:1 your filter caps need changing.
Right now, I couldn't get it right with some other amp, except by pure fluke. But I suspect that after hearing 50 or so same amps, I (and I'll bet many others here as well) would be able to tell with 40 year old virgin gear.
Not likely. In the late 70ies, many if not most German products were oiled for life. The trick is fiding out how long "life" is, in my case obviously longer than 38 years and I suspect once more that. I refer to my TT's DD motor, the EDS 500.
Then again, the sewing machine my mom bought in March 1964, from Italy by Necchi (serious manufacturers, and a serious price) was accompanied by a lifelong warranty (i.e. as long as she, the original purchaser), was alive, which was for 51 years, and a printed schematic clearly indicatiing places and marked with "Do No Oil" stickers.
Hmmmmm. Still, though.... where is audio industry's best assault on the SOTA ? The equivalent of the Bentley, the Bugatti, the Concord, B1B, Patek, .... all fields have such except audio. Reliability isnt That hard to achieve, either. HP instruments last decades.
I also have found designers here to be doing some fantastic efforts.
DADOD, Bonsai, and Ostripper to name a few doing some very fine work.
So what is the hold-up?
THx-RNMarsh
I also have found designers here to be doing some fantastic efforts.
DADOD, Bonsai, and Ostripper to name a few doing some very fine work.
So what is the hold-up?
THx-RNMarsh
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I found a KLH model 21 FM radio and replaced the power supply caps. It sounded quite a bit better.
If you can hear it in a little mono radio, better equipment might also have an improvement.
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Bentley: In what respect is that SOTA? Except for BHP the phaeton its based on is a better car for half the money.
Bugatti:Another VW. Yes its fast but its also expensive and costly to run. Sorry if you need the engineer to come out and fit new tyres and use a special key to let you go full speed thats rubbish. Oh and VW lost huge sums on every one sold.
Concorde: fast, late, couldn't take off if full! Only 9 made as not cost effective unless given away.
B1B:couldn't fly if wet
Patek: casio FW-91 tells time more accurately.
So plenty of cost no object white elephants there , but nothing that to me says state of the art unless the requirement was to spend lots of money.
Check out Mola Mola.
Bugatti:Another VW. Yes its fast but its also expensive and costly to run. Sorry if you need the engineer to come out and fit new tyres and use a special key to let you go full speed thats rubbish. Oh and VW lost huge sums on every one sold.
Concorde: fast, late, couldn't take off if full! Only 9 made as not cost effective unless given away.
B1B:couldn't fly if wet
Patek: casio FW-91 tells time more accurately.
So plenty of cost no object white elephants there , but nothing that to me says state of the art unless the requirement was to spend lots of money.
Check out Mola Mola.
Possibly ones as yourself, designing stuff that is assembled in nations where low-cost underaged are used in a range of sot-a areas, Mr. Marsh ?
(Folks with a $1M or more wallet size constitute about 0.2% of the globe's population. Those with $30M or more to fool around with, is at some 0.03%. If monster monaurals are intended for the 1% happy few, I'd be worried sick)
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