I have not heard a gainclone amp, so I am only going by what I read online about these wonderful diy amps. So, forgive my ignorance if this touches a raw nerve with my soldering iron loving brothers, I am just curious.
If the sound quality is as mind blowing that it would rival kit costing $1000s (as everyone says), why are commercial hifi powerhouse manufacturers not making these amps?
There is all the evidence to suggest that (kit makers such as Brian and Peter) have the best components, good designs, great pcbs and excellent low noise PSUs. The science behind such amps seems to be there (even if I dont understand 90% of it)..
I know a couple of the hi-end manufacturers - bel-cantos, Mark Levinson etc - made 1-2 amps but thats it! There was 2 amps by Cambridge Audio (a1 mk3 and a430?) but they sounded bad apparently...
So, I have to ask...
- How come this has not become a million/billion/gazzzillion dollar audiophile industry?
- Why are the usual 'snake-oil' merchants not all over this like a rash?
- What is keeping chip-amps hidden from the mass audiophile market and buried deep in the forums of us flux loving diyers?
- Are there copyright issues?
- Why are there no serious reviews of Gainclone vs "mr major hifi amp"? (6moon excluded)
Surely there seems to be gap in the market? no?
Any thoughts?
If the sound quality is as mind blowing that it would rival kit costing $1000s (as everyone says), why are commercial hifi powerhouse manufacturers not making these amps?
There is all the evidence to suggest that (kit makers such as Brian and Peter) have the best components, good designs, great pcbs and excellent low noise PSUs. The science behind such amps seems to be there (even if I dont understand 90% of it)..
I know a couple of the hi-end manufacturers - bel-cantos, Mark Levinson etc - made 1-2 amps but thats it! There was 2 amps by Cambridge Audio (a1 mk3 and a430?) but they sounded bad apparently...
So, I have to ask...
- How come this has not become a million/billion/gazzzillion dollar audiophile industry?
- Why are the usual 'snake-oil' merchants not all over this like a rash?
- What is keeping chip-amps hidden from the mass audiophile market and buried deep in the forums of us flux loving diyers?
- Are there copyright issues?
- Why are there no serious reviews of Gainclone vs "mr major hifi amp"? (6moon excluded)
Surely there seems to be gap in the market? no?
Any thoughts?
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I have been debating on building one but I had the above questions.
Also I have a query about resale value, whats your experience been? - it is not THAT cheap to build a good (looking+sounding) gainclone amp once you factor in the cost of:
- good quality kit and components
- shielded toroidal transformers (two if its dual mono?)
- Knobs, switches, RCA plugs, speaker plugs
- Good internal wires
- decent quality Aluminium faced Case
- Heatsinks
Also I have a query about resale value, whats your experience been? - it is not THAT cheap to build a good (looking+sounding) gainclone amp once you factor in the cost of:
- good quality kit and components
- shielded toroidal transformers (two if its dual mono?)
- Knobs, switches, RCA plugs, speaker plugs
- Good internal wires
- decent quality Aluminium faced Case
- Heatsinks
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It's called a gainCLONE... it is a clone of a commercial amp... or at least it started out that way.
I think this is the original ... called GainCard. 6moons audio reviews: 47 Laboratory Model 4706 GainCard
I think this is the original ... called GainCard. 6moons audio reviews: 47 Laboratory Model 4706 GainCard
we are not talking about AV.. Surely a HIFI amp doesnt need any of those things. To a greater degree most HIFI amps made today often dont have these.
You can look through all of the service manuals for all of the amps from all of those manufacturers to find out yourself, but that's a lot of work to just get an answer for something like this.
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