2. amps-preamps
  3. 1335060111

Amp design logic

I hope you'll excuse my absolute and obvious ignorance...but this is a sincere question.

I don't get why one company is selling a new tube amp for ~$1000, and another is selling one for ~$50,000. What is one paying for? The proprietary circuit design?

Surely if one adds up the cost of the parts, trannies, chassis, etc. it's not worth $50K.

I accept that the more expensive one sounds lots, lots better. But what makes the price so high? Demand?

I think given a circuit diagram from a repair manual, I could eventually build most tube amps from scratch, using the absolute best of each part available. After I learn to solder. For less than $50K, just buying the best cap, resistor, wire, etc. made, for each part, I could slowly build an amp equal to the best in the world. So I don't get it.

What makes an amp worth $50K? It can only be the proprietary tube amp design.

Maybe another factor is the transformers. Each company seems to have their own iron, but that can't be a significant part of $50K?

Thanks, just really wondering about this. And wondering why don't I just make my own? If I buy one part at a time, eventually I can have the best amp there can be.

Jim
river251

Showing 1 response by ths364

ths364
181 posts
 
IMO, part of this pricing is hype. Boutique parts can be very pricey, especially if machining costs do not benefit from the economy of scale. Unless the manufacturer is copying a time proven circuit and modifying it, there could be significant time spent engineering the circuit, plus there are all kinds of esoteric build "tricks" that experienced designers/builders know and frequently don't share. Things like: wire routing,component layout, capacitive coupling, and stuff that's just plain weird like eddy currents and transformer core-saturation.
It may be a case of the 80/20 rule. You might be able to get 80% of the way there for 20% of the price, but the final 20% is REALLY gonna eat up some time and money.
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