I just got in on the pre-sale. I've been wanting one of these kits for a long time. Every time I tried they were sold out. Glad to have gotten in on this window of opportunity.
Amp Camp Amp - Complete Kit (PRE-ORDER, SHIPS SEP 15TH) – diyAudio Store
Amp Camp Amp - Complete Kit (PRE-ORDER, SHIPS SEP 15TH) – diyAudio Store
Trying to decide if I should jump on the pre-order or not. I can order two kits sans power supplies as I can order those from digikey for the same price later when the kits actually arrive.
But I'm confused on the spec. Amp Camp Amp - Complete Kit (PRE-ORDER, SHIPS SEP 15TH) – diyAudio Store
Balanced input actually close to doubles the output? or is the chart being confusing and not separating out stereo vs mono clearly? Or what is it meaning by balanced in the supply column?
Even in the wording it says 8wpc and then immediately after 15 balanced... is that per channel or for the mono config? Later in that same paragraph it talks about balanced monoblock being 15w. So again... balanced is really providing that much more power?
Or should I build a Aleph J? is the Aleph J boards in the store the same thing as the J2? or is that another beast entirely?
But I'm confused on the spec. Amp Camp Amp - Complete Kit (PRE-ORDER, SHIPS SEP 15TH) – diyAudio Store
Balanced input actually close to doubles the output? or is the chart being confusing and not separating out stereo vs mono clearly? Or what is it meaning by balanced in the supply column?
Even in the wording it says 8wpc and then immediately after 15 balanced... is that per channel or for the mono config? Later in that same paragraph it talks about balanced monoblock being 15w. So again... balanced is really providing that much more power?
Or should I build a Aleph J? is the Aleph J boards in the store the same thing as the J2? or is that another beast entirely?
Yes, balanced provides double the power. Since you are using both channels together and can swing twice the voltage into the load. And to clarify, it makes a stereo amp into a monoblock, so you 'll need two amps for stereo.
Pre-order now if you want one (or two, balanced, twice the power, etc...) as it will fill up again. Demand for these has been beyond anybody's expectations.
Yes, you should build an Aleph J. Everybody should.
No, it's not a J2.
Pre-order now if you want one (or two, balanced, twice the power, etc...) as it will fill up again. Demand for these has been beyond anybody's expectations.
Yes, you should build an Aleph J. Everybody should.
No, it's not a J2.I hope this is the appropriate place to report a concern I have about the current orders for the AmpCamp. I ordered two units back in May/June. I received an email that advised me that "part" of my order is shipping? Do you know that, with each part of an order crossing the border into Canada, a brokerage fee in incurred? Shipping the order in partial shipments costs your customers unnecessary money! I cannot give you the specifics of this as the email did not state what was being shipped or provide me with a tracking number. Can someone contact me directly? Thanks.
I was also wondering about this as I was checking out. It says "Fedex International and USPS..."
Fedex is notorious for brokerage fees on ground shipments into Canada. Some clarification on the shipping would be nice and if its possible to use different shipping methods to get away from the brokerage fees.
EDIT: For example, ordering two kits is over $900 CAD and depending on the shipping arrangement though could end up in another $200 at the door to receive the package.
Last edited:
I think our friends in the brown trucks have Fedex beat when it comes to rapacious brokerage fees. Even as recently as last week I can remember posting a charge to one of my company’s credit cards for a small shipment of parts wherein the brokerage fee was more than twice the GST due in on a machine repair part. All three of our big production machines are of European manufacture, and spare repair parts can arrive from several globalized distribution warehouses. While most are exempt duties and provincial sales taxes, GST still applies.
Whenever possible for a small shipment shipped from a US supplier, we elect for USPS - will be either delivered by Canpar, or held for pick-up at a local Postal Services outlet, with a CBSA Postal Import Form assessing applicable taxes based on the shipper’s declared value- adjusted to Canadian funds, and with a minor handling fee.
For example, a recent piece in for a friend of mine’s new DAC shipped from the States was valued at $1604.46 Cdn, GST = $80.22, and Customs handling fee of $9.95.
Very important factor is for the shipper to get the product classification code(s) correct.
Whenever possible for a small shipment shipped from a US supplier, we elect for USPS - will be either delivered by Canpar, or held for pick-up at a local Postal Services outlet, with a CBSA Postal Import Form assessing applicable taxes based on the shipper’s declared value- adjusted to Canadian funds, and with a minor handling fee.
For example, a recent piece in for a friend of mine’s new DAC shipped from the States was valued at $1604.46 Cdn, GST = $80.22, and Customs handling fee of $9.95.
Very important factor is for the shipper to get the product classification code(s) correct.
Great to hear. We honestly really hope this batch doesn't sell out. We want to stop doing these pre-orders and just have regular stock sitting in the store, but trying not to overshoot with buying too many parts (some of which have 3 month lead times) has been tough. We're solving that by stocking up on the bits with long lead times and finding more reliable and faster suppliers. We're on it!
I will reword the table so it's clearer that 1 balanced channel consumes 2 channels.
Yes, the chassis which ships from Italy would likely have been sent to you directly.
Right now 40% of our orders are international. What I can tell you is that we absolutely have been listening to our international customers giving us feedback about high shipping costs (from our US shipping partner), and I have personally been working non-stop on finding us a new US shipping partner who can take care of our international customers really well. We're close to switching to this new partner, but not there yet. So, much cheaper international shipping from the US is on the horizon (it's already cheap from Italy) and we are REALLY excited for what we are going to be able to offer in the future. I'd like to extend a special thanks to all the international customers who have supported us to date - your business has made this possible and we are going to do everything we can to look after you in the future.
Additionally, I am trying to work out the logistics of the new warehouse being able to do shipments "DDP" (Delivered Duty Paid), which would mean you pay duty when you make your purchase, so there is no inspection fee (this is my current understanding) and no inspection hold-ups. So that's where we're heading with trying to help our international customers.
In regards to your CA customs issue, please contact the store helpdesk at contact@diyaudiostore.com. We'll help in any way we can. Yes, if you are in Canada, the parts kit and PSU will come from the US, and the chassis will come from Italy, and they will be separate shipments.
If we shipped the chassis to the US by sea (as we did), historically it takes ~6 months (ordering, production, sea shipping, customs) and adds quite a lot to the price anyway. Hifi2000 has amazingly cheap, fast FedEx shipping internationally which for the most part makes that model of re-shipping redundant, but yes if your country has a customs department that charges an extra inspection fee per-shipment, you may have to pay two inspection fees. It's hard to comment because we ship to almost every country in the world, and international customs/duty/taxes are constantly changing. What I can say is that this new model of having Hifi2000 working very closely with us (we have a custom-made shared shipping interface and shared helpdesk) and being able to rapidly produce new designs and get them to customers within weeks or months instead of "quarters", is really paving the way for great things ahead in terms of what we can offer to DIYers from the store.
So, sorry for the "growing pains", and please continue to give us constructive feedback. We are listening.
I also hear that UPS is notorious for CA brokerage fees (CA customers often only want us to send using USPS), so it kind of sounds like CA in general is a tough nut to crack in terms of duties. Not sure what we can do other than "contact your local politician", but I believe a lot of CA customers request USPS.
That's our store combining the rates from the US warehouse and the Italian warehouse into one simple payment for you. If you think it could be better worded, let me know.
Last edited:
Maybe just a note on the checkout explaining combined shipping from different warehouses and an explanation on the order pages that items are coming from different warehouses. Until you explained it I didn't know the enclosure was coming from Italy. And yes going through the checkout process individually the FedEx shipping does seem reasonable and I assume being from Italy it would be an air ship method that is not subject to brokerage fees.
USPS is definitely the best coming into Canada for ground shipments. However, Fedex/UPS don't charge brokerage on express/air shipments. Most lightweight electronics stuff I get shipped from the states I get through FedEx/UPS but with express methods and its usually not any more expensive than USPS for light packages.
If possible, collecting taxes on your end simplifies the shipping end of it greatly (no extra fees from shipping company for doing that collection for you). However I have no idea the implications of that from a US business end.
Last time I checked it was impossible to alter a Shopify checkout page (which is why we have those silly "$1,000,000 shipping" messages sometimes to pass information back about impossible situations (if you want to see one of those, try ordering a Chassis with an EU address)). However Shopify is moving pretty quickly and I have seen a few apps now that do manage to alter the checkout page so I'll look into it.
What I can do for sure, if update that shipping description text to mention where the packages are shipping from. I'll do that now.
An air ship method (or indeed any shipping method) that is not subject to fees... hmm. Wishful thinking for a Canadian. You might be talking about DDP, which I've seen some very big merchants now doing (like Amazon), but very rarely from a smaller business. In those cases there would be quite a bit of text about what your expected duties would be and all that jazz. Very cool, and something we'll work towards because as I've said, we really do care about our international customers (I'm an Aussie myself).
From our experience, in general, worldwide, smaller packages tend to slip through customs easier without attracting their attention. That's especially true for the US, where a figure of $200 seems to be the bar under which they almost never look at something. In the case of Australia, we have a $1,000 tax free threshold so it's actually an advantage to have the two smaller shipments from the US and IT because it keeps the per-shipment cost down. So what you've described as a pain for CA, is a win for AU, but I guess the moral of the story is that every country is different and it pays to know how to game your own particular country's situation.
And yet, Brownslane above, did... these things are often entirely arbitrary.
I didn't say sans all fees on air/express shipments. But brokerage is included with those methods with FedEx/UPS. There is still taxes and the associated fees. Only way around those with any shipping company is for the seller to do the tax collection and preclearance themselves.
It's the brokerage fees that are killer and avoidable with air/express.
I didn't say it was a pain to do multiple shipments, I just didn't realize the FedEx shipment was coming from Italy. I was worried it would be from the states and a ground method which it is not. The way you are doing it makes perfect sense. Though the USPS price seems high for the rest of the kit. I used to experience that with adafruit as well, really high usps prices and not sure why.
It's the brokerage fees that are killer and avoidable with air/express.
I didn't say it was a pain to do multiple shipments, I just didn't realize the FedEx shipment was coming from Italy. I was worried it would be from the states and a ground method which it is not. The way you are doing it makes perfect sense. Though the USPS price seems high for the rest of the kit. I used to experience that with adafruit as well, really high usps prices and not sure why.
thanks - i've been a bit sloppy with my question. the speakers are rated at 85dB/2,83V, not 83 watt of course. Impedance is 8 ohm. Sorry for that.
Assuming you are from Denmark, the design is from your area:
Troels Gravesen / Discovery 15
Assuming you are from Denmark, the design is from your area:
Troels Gravesen / Discovery 15
Ok, that makes more sense. It depends on listening area and listeninge preferences of course, so hard to make absolute statements on. For comparison i've used and F6 to power a pair of Dynaudio X16s (86 db/2.83V, 4 ohm) with no lack of power for my uses, but that was in a smallish living room (and i don't listen very loudly).
You could always go dual mono for extra power + add a nice preamp with gain. As mentioned, hard to say absolutely, but my experience with lowish sensitivity speakers tells me it tends to be less of an issue than i used to think (or rather, i need fewer watts than i expect)
You could always go dual mono for extra power + add a nice preamp with gain. As mentioned, hard to say absolutely, but my experience with lowish sensitivity speakers tells me it tends to be less of an issue than i used to think (or rather, i need fewer watts than i expect
)I guess this is not 100% the right thread for this but the questions comes up when I think about building an ACA:
Is there a short explanation of how gain and output power (w) relate? For example the ACA is rated at 8W (8ohm) and a gain of 14db. The F6 is rated at 25W (8ohm) and also a gain of 14. If they have the same gain i guess the input will be amplified by the same amount. I know the power rating means that the amp can drive speakers with less sensitivity and / or play louder. I'm just a bit confused how the power rating and gain rating interact.... can someone point me in the right direction?
Is there a short explanation of how gain and output power (w) relate? For example the ACA is rated at 8W (8ohm) and a gain of 14db. The F6 is rated at 25W (8ohm) and also a gain of 14. If they have the same gain i guess the input will be amplified by the same amount. I know the power rating means that the amp can drive speakers with less sensitivity and / or play louder. I'm just a bit confused how the power rating and gain rating interact.... can someone point me in the right direction?
The available output 'power' depends on the voltage the amplifier can swing into a given load. So that is one specification on its own.
The voltage gain of the amplifier tells us what input voltage would be needed to fully drive the amplifier to clipping, which is the figure our first test above determines.
The gain can be any value set by the designer and that gain will determine the input sensitivity of the amplifier.
So you could have a 100wrms into 8 ohm amplifier with a gain of 30db and another amplifier of identical output that is a just a unity gain buffer. Both have the same output capability, but both have very different input sensitivity's.
The voltage gain of the amplifier tells us what input voltage would be needed to fully drive the amplifier to clipping, which is the figure our first test above determines.
The gain can be any value set by the designer and that gain will determine the input sensitivity of the amplifier.
So you could have a 100wrms into 8 ohm amplifier with a gain of 30db and another amplifier of identical output that is a just a unity gain buffer. Both have the same output capability, but both have very different input sensitivity's.