I did not say or suggest that. Gullibility knows no economic boundaries, nor is it defined by such a thing.
There are many people with large disposable incomes I know well, and perhaps I can be included in that description, dependent on your point of reference. I am originally from New England and I know many well heeled and monied "Yankees" that would not even think about such a purchase, even at half price, or 70 thousand dollars, give or take a few bucks!
Lamm says "Quite simply... the world's best audio electronics"
Interesting.
Kept poking around the website.
Even with their 8th of a million dollar amplifiers, it is hard to avoid that they seem completely incapable of designing anything resembling a decent website. Never mind that logo. Both look like they've been designed by a 6 year old.
Ahh someone is paying attention; the "Products" page is known as "New Page 4" these days.
Oh my. Well it seems that I get angry at this sort of thing at 2am. Time to sleep.
But in all seriousness, the prices are ridiculous, even for those who can easily afford it. There are so many amplifiers I have seen around here that look better and would be a lot easier to live with than this. In fact, if I had that money to burn on a tube amp, I can think of half a dozen people on these forums who I would prefer to commision an amp from.
Interesting.
Kept poking around the website.
Even with their 8th of a million dollar amplifiers, it is hard to avoid that they seem completely incapable of designing anything resembling a decent website. Never mind that logo. Both look like they've been designed by a 6 year old.
Ahh someone is paying attention; the "Products" page is known as "New Page 4" these days.
Oh my. Well it seems that I get angry at this sort of thing at 2am. Time to sleep.
But in all seriousness, the prices are ridiculous, even for those who can easily afford it. There are so many amplifiers I have seen around here that look better and would be a lot easier to live with than this. In fact, if I had that money to burn on a tube amp, I can think of half a dozen people on these forums who I would prefer to commision an amp from.
Who can argue with that? All the high end amps i've owned have been very disappointing. But what about the pride of ownership of a limited edition?
Again, these amps are not even remotely supposed to represent value.
Aside from the absurd pricing.
I note some strange features in the ML3 photos. The amplifier chassis has two big boxes on top, as if it had two OTs. One of them could be a capacitor bank I guess or filament xfmr, but it's not obvious from the underside photo. Then, how come 8 triodes for the driver stage? The 6N30P dual triode has a 400V heater to filament rating, so I assume some sort of cascode to get the 180 V grid signal for the GM70. A differential cascode would get it up to 4 triodes. But 8? Big mystery here yet. The switchable local feedback must involve a driver stage with considerable gain, but a cascode usually has a lot of gain already.
Then in the power supply I see what looks like a 2000KV oil cap. Normal range of 1500V for the GM70, so fine. But the umbilical connector looks like a little Lemo connector, hardly rated for 1500V. Or even rated for the filament current either. On the amp chassis circuit board I see 4 rectifiers. Surprising they would let 60 Hz AC into the amp chassis. Especially with all the apparent DC filtering for the filament. So maybe the filament xfmr is in one of the boxes.
Looking at the GM70 curves, looks like around 2500 Ohm Rp. So the OT must be around 6500 Ohm to get the 3.1 Ohm output Z on the 8 Ohm output unless some CFB winding present. This 6500 Ohm looks like about right for 32 Watts. I think a CFB winding would end up giving a lot lower output Z, so not likely used. Maybe some local driver feedback is involved. Then, one wonders if 32 Watts at 6500 Ohms is a problem for the xfmr winder to get the stated bandwidth.
I see an IC and transistor on the circuit board, so probably some sort of bias servo. The big heatsinked TO-3s look like high current LM --- regulators.
I note some strange features in the ML3 photos. The amplifier chassis has two big boxes on top, as if it had two OTs. One of them could be a capacitor bank I guess or filament xfmr, but it's not obvious from the underside photo. Then, how come 8 triodes for the driver stage? The 6N30P dual triode has a 400V heater to filament rating, so I assume some sort of cascode to get the 180 V grid signal for the GM70. A differential cascode would get it up to 4 triodes. But 8? Big mystery here yet. The switchable local feedback must involve a driver stage with considerable gain, but a cascode usually has a lot of gain already.
Then in the power supply I see what looks like a 2000KV oil cap. Normal range of 1500V for the GM70, so fine. But the umbilical connector looks like a little Lemo connector, hardly rated for 1500V. Or even rated for the filament current either. On the amp chassis circuit board I see 4 rectifiers. Surprising they would let 60 Hz AC into the amp chassis. Especially with all the apparent DC filtering for the filament. So maybe the filament xfmr is in one of the boxes.
Looking at the GM70 curves, looks like around 2500 Ohm Rp. So the OT must be around 6500 Ohm to get the 3.1 Ohm output Z on the 8 Ohm output unless some CFB winding present. This 6500 Ohm looks like about right for 32 Watts. I think a CFB winding would end up giving a lot lower output Z, so not likely used. Maybe some local driver feedback is involved. Then, one wonders if 32 Watts at 6500 Ohms is a problem for the xfmr winder to get the stated bandwidth.
I see an IC and transistor on the circuit board, so probably some sort of bias servo. The big heatsinked TO-3s look like high current LM --- regulators.
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Well, I looked at the pics... they do very nice work, no argument... and they probably do good design and engineering as well. Still, I know what parts costs, even in small quantities... and I know how many hours it takes to build similar gear. Even if you go off the deep end on parts costs at $15K and $4K for labor, where's the value to justify the other $120K??
This is a true obscenity is high-end audio. It's not a luxury anything, it's a tube amplifier, period. It's just impossible to have any respect for a company or individuals that come up with this type of pricing model. It's just not high-end audio, it's high-end rape.
Regards, KM
This is a true obscenity is high-end audio. It's not a luxury anything, it's a tube amplifier, period. It's just impossible to have any respect for a company or individuals that come up with this type of pricing model. It's just not high-end audio, it's high-end rape.
Regards, KM
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