Not everybody processes caffeine the same rate. Some much faster than others. For those, coffee is beneficial. Others who get caffeine buzz / jittery / heart palpitations / anxiety... etc, it's better not to consume much coffee because of the slow processing of caffeine by their digestive system.
You just want to argue, or maybe attempt to trigger me in some way.
Or, perhaps you're one of those "elite audiophiles" that insist that they're right about things.
I know the type - most likely found on internet forums, rarely in person.
Well, myself being older (67), and been in the professional audio/video servicing business for over 45 years, I don't fall for such nonsense or your feeble accusations towards me.
And if you really believe something some reviewer states about an overpriced product, that's mildly amusing at best.
Try that crap with someone else - I don't buy it.
Is it OK to have pride of ownership? Or is that call for ridicule? Just curious because I really love a 60 year old pair of Eico amps I have had for about 10 years or so. I could probably sell them and buy something 1/4 of the price to satisfy your disdain for how expensive these are going for these days. I like the way they look, I like their rarity, and I love they way they sound. Am I an idiot? If I am, I am one happy idiot.
You are wrong on so many levels...
I am not an "ellite audiophile", I am a (very) small manufacturer of some audio products, also a dealer of some brands, so I do know which prices are reasonable or not. You obviously don't. My age is not so far from yours, so I have seen, heard, repaired, designed and build enough tube pre/amps to know that EAR 834P is a very good product with a very reasonable price. And I do not believe in any subjective review until I hear the damn thing myself.
You didn't answer my questions/remarks. So far, we have seen only your bitter disgust of EAR, nothing else.
So am I.
So am I, also 67.
I started in a TV repair shop at age 16, 51 years ago. After 2 years there and 2 more running the service department at an Olson's Electronics store, I got a job at Motorola. During that 41 year career I spent 10 years in the cal lab fixing test equipment, mostly HP. Until I left Florida I did amplifier repair, mostly for friends and previous customers. Here I have only fixed computers.
Even before I worked in the TV shop, I had been building guitar amps and selling them, often for cheap, like $5, but I was a kid. My friends and I learned how to dumpster dive behind the big electronics importers an Miami, usually Pearce Simpson (CB radios) and Julliette (low budget radio and HiFi). We could make working units out of several dead ones, and sell them at school. I also built PC's and a few guitar amps for sale during the 80's and 90's.
Some coworkers an I usually had some side gig going on during my career at Motorola. Many involved audio amps, both HiFi and guitar. We also did SS-50 bus computer boards, satellite TV and other video devices. Over a 41 year career I have been involved in design, development, assembly, and sales of many electronic devices. Some were so successful that we had to go to a contract manufacturing house to get the boards made.
Tubelab started out as 5 people who wanted to make complete amplifiers and sell them. I had started building complete amps and selling them, and could not keep up, so several friends planned to set up a small assembly line. The decline of the pager caused by the unplanned boom in the cell phone market caused the Motorola plant where I was working to shut down, and 5 people turned into 2. So complete amps turned into amp kits. The closing of more plants turned that into one, and complete amps and amp kits became just PC boards. I expected Tubelab to die quickly, but it is now over 15 years old.
The point I am trying to make, is much the same as others have stated, setting the retail price for a low volume consumer product at 10 X the actual parts price, or more, is NOT out of line, and anyone who strongly argues otherwise has NOT actually done it, and stayed in business for long.
A basic Tubelab SSE, 4 tube Simple Single Ended amp would have sold for around $1000 in 2007, right when the economy crashed. The most I ever sold an amp for was $2000. The guy liked it so much he bought a second one tweaked for headphone use.
I certainly feel that it is okay. Pride of ownership has multiple aspects. Appreciation of craftsmanship. Appreciation of the industrial (visual) design. Recognition of whatever work it took for you to afford it. Satisfaction that it provides from how well you feel it performs it's function.
I know that I'm not going to let anyone corner me with any false social responsibilty argument over my beloved home music system. Modest, as it may be.
*It's a steal only if $2,000 is less than what the buyer would have payed. 🙁
*You have overpriced it (out of greed, or otherwise) should no one be willing to pay you $2,000. 😕
*If someone will to pay you $2,000, then it's a fair transaction, so long as you have not misrepresented it in anyway.
Considering that the parts alone are worth more than $1000-, and you spent countless hours thinking over and then building it, and then testing it, I think you can ask for more, a lot more.
Of course there will always be some wise old techs that'll tell you they can buy something like that from Walmart for $100- and that is the price they expect you to ask for.
Tell them they're dreamin' and should spend their time more productively and in a positive way.
Thank you. The 2000$ ask is hardly more than the sum of the parts. As far as true value/price, I'm open to offers... 😀
B+, and VA/PI heater, 12V for the rest, 10H 500mA choke, OPTs, and chokes for the VA/PI stages...
I did sell an amp for $2000, and it didn't even have a chassis. The buyer was extremely happy, and wound up buying another amp for almost as much. Both sides of this deal walked away happy, so where's the injustice?
My brother is a well off PHD, dean of a med school, Porsche in the garage.....He lives in a fancy gated community with a golf course in the back yard........I'm over at his place on Thanksgiving Day about 15 years ago playing Frisbee on the golf course with my brothers and their kids when a neighbor that I have never met walks up to my brother bragging about a fancy stereo that he just brought back from Hong Kong that costs him $5000.
He invites us over for some wine and a listen, I have said nothing so far. We walk past the new BMW and Dodge Viper to get into the house. Once inside I see a nicely crafted tube amp with a pair of 300B's, a pair of 6SN7's, and a 5U4 sticking out of the top. It's hooked up to some real expensive looking speakers........I tell him that I could make him a better one for half that much.
He didn't say much, but I told him that I would drop off one of my amps at my brother's house for him to borrow the next time I was there. It's a 4 hour drive so I didn't visit too often. Less than a week later I get a call from my brother. It's seems that the neighbor (or his wife) wants a small amp for the bedroom. When can I bring one? The next weekend I take my newly built Lexan TSE for a ride to Tampa. The neighbor says it's ugly, but he still wants to hear it. I hook it up to some speakers and CD player in the bedroom and leave.
A few days later, he want's to talk. I drive back to Tampa to fetch my amp. It's not in the bedroom where I left it, it has chased his Hong Kong masterpiece off it's perch in the living room. He wants one just like mine, but not in an ugly plastic box. He has a friend who makes high end kitchens and bathrooms who will build a box. HE OFFERS $2000 for an amp without a chassis. I let him keep mine and take it apart as needed for the cabinet guy, and I'll swap the guts once the cabinet is done.
A few months later he want's another one for headphones. This time he actually came to my house with headphones, CD's, records, and a big box full of tubes. After two days of tweaking, he left with an amp, and I had another chunk of cash....and a Mullard 5AR4 that he left for me to appreciate. It's still in the box he left it in.
About 2 years later his teenage kid had wrecked the Viper, and he was bankrupt because of real estate speculation. He abandoned the house one weekend, and my brother never saw any of them again.
I sold, or gave away maybe two dozen complete amps since then. About 10 of those were ultra low buck guitar amps based on the Fender Champ. Most were either given away, or sold for the parts value, and most went to my daughter's friends who played with her in the high school marching band.
My brother is a well off PHD, dean of a med school, Porsche in the garage.....He lives in a fancy gated community with a golf course in the back yard........I'm over at his place on Thanksgiving Day about 15 years ago playing Frisbee on the golf course with my brothers and their kids when a neighbor that I have never met walks up to my brother bragging about a fancy stereo that he just brought back from Hong Kong that costs him $5000.
He invites us over for some wine and a listen, I have said nothing so far. We walk past the new BMW and Dodge Viper to get into the house. Once inside I see a nicely crafted tube amp with a pair of 300B's, a pair of 6SN7's, and a 5U4 sticking out of the top. It's hooked up to some real expensive looking speakers........I tell him that I could make him a better one for half that much.
He didn't say much, but I told him that I would drop off one of my amps at my brother's house for him to borrow the next time I was there. It's a 4 hour drive so I didn't visit too often. Less than a week later I get a call from my brother. It's seems that the neighbor (or his wife) wants a small amp for the bedroom. When can I bring one? The next weekend I take my newly built Lexan TSE for a ride to Tampa. The neighbor says it's ugly, but he still wants to hear it. I hook it up to some speakers and CD player in the bedroom and leave.
A few days later, he want's to talk. I drive back to Tampa to fetch my amp. It's not in the bedroom where I left it, it has chased his Hong Kong masterpiece off it's perch in the living room. He wants one just like mine, but not in an ugly plastic box. He has a friend who makes high end kitchens and bathrooms who will build a box. HE OFFERS $2000 for an amp without a chassis. I let him keep mine and take it apart as needed for the cabinet guy, and I'll swap the guts once the cabinet is done.
A few months later he want's another one for headphones. This time he actually came to my house with headphones, CD's, records, and a big box full of tubes. After two days of tweaking, he left with an amp, and I had another chunk of cash....and a Mullard 5AR4 that he left for me to appreciate. It's still in the box he left it in.
About 2 years later his teenage kid had wrecked the Viper, and he was bankrupt because of real estate speculation. He abandoned the house one weekend, and my brother never saw any of them again.
I sold, or gave away maybe two dozen complete amps since then. About 10 of those were ultra low buck guitar amps based on the Fender Champ. Most were either given away, or sold for the parts value, and most went to my daughter's friends who played with her in the high school marching band.
Wow, that's a lot of iron for only 8 tubes.
My RCA Victor console's only got one PT, a choke, and 2 OP's....
And powers 18 tubes total on 2 chassis, including the tuner.
This one's got 9 iron bricks for 9 tubes, and 3 of those tubes are rectifiers. It makes 30 to 40 WPC and consumes 500 to 600 watts to do it. It could have been built with one power transformer if I had the financial backing that RCA had to spec a custom transformer. Instead, I built it for low bucks with junk box parts, Ebay OPT's and cheap Chinese tubes. That power supply has 5 transformers and two chokes.
The DIY PCB for the driver on the power amp chassis was one of two prototypes made to test out what became the Tubelab TSE amp design. I sold those for 14 years, and recently replaced it with the TSE-II. That board is what powered the $2K and and the $1.5K amp.
The TSE is a well regarded amp. Some people spend more for their pair of OPT's and tubes that I have in my entire system......some people spend more on their custom cabinet than I have in my system.
Two builders purchase a $35 PC board from me. One builder makes an amp for $500 and is happy with it. Another builder has a custom CNC cabinet made from an old tree, and drops several $K on components for his $5000 build. Who is right, and Why?
