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RE: Spending $6K to $8K for amp/pre-amp and speakers

Posted by RavenDave (M) on May 11, 2015 at 10:02:28

In Reply to: RE: Spending $6K to $8K for amp/pre-amp and speakers posted by ivan_terrible on May 11, 2015 at 08:53:18:

Sorry to hear about your poor hearing and the fact that your business knowledge/prowess is non-existent. The tubes in our integrated amplifiers cost more than $400, so what you are saying is certainly not very useful and absolutely lacking in real-world knowledge on the subject.

The man asked about building a system for a certain price point. I am sure he is not looking for a 50-year old piece of equipment, nor home-made/altered speakers. This is YOUR opinion and is of NO use here in this forum.

If you are not offering experienced or knowledgeable information (which you certainly are not) then you should keep your views and personal feelings to yourself. But let's look at the real costs of building a new amplifier, preamp, speaker, or whatever in real world costs.

It costs about $125 to cut, fold, weld and fill a single entry level steel integrated amplifier cabinet in preparation for painting, which then costs an additional $150 for a decent multi-coat job. Then the preamp plate, faceplate, and transformer cover must be carefully attached, after everything is baked and dried for about 5 days.

The input and output speaker and source terminals cost an additional $125 and then one has to build and wire the large components and then assemble and solder and attach them all into a working amplifier inside that finished cabinet.

Skilled technical labor and craftsmanship are not free, and that cost often exceeds the parts cost for a high quality build.

Then the entire unit must go through a rigorous testing procedure and burn-in process before it is ready for sale so we know it will be a dependable product that will last a lifetime, or at least the lifetime of its parts. That costs quite a bit also.

The faceplate and preamp plate must be machined and anodized and that costs several hundred per set, though we must again commit to a minimum order for this as well. If we built anything singly it would cost hundreds of dollars more apiece.

The Alps Black motorized volume costs us about $124 each and we must purchase a minimum of (100) to get them at that price. Then there are the high end capacitors, transformers, and other high end parts that we use that also add a few hundred more.

A lot of the Chinese amplifier manufacturers these days that are flooding Amazon and Ebay would spend about $50.00US total on everything including the PC board~! UGH. I've seen many of them because I have been asked to repair/rebuild them for years, and the quality is going down, not up - on most... not all of course.

The balance of the finishing parts such as the sonic feet, handles, etc. adds to the final cost, so your prices are impossible for anyone to achieve at any professional commercial level, so even our parts cost is several times what you are claiming.

We give all of our customers a limited lifetime warranty on all of our products as long as they own the amplifiers or preamps. Your Chinese/Asian claim and obviously your personal stuff has no such insurance for a person looking for a good dependable high quality audio system.

So in the end what you say is of no use whatsoever, and to write personal feelings about audio when you have nothing of any value to offer for the person looking for something specific or general is ludicrous at best. It is somebody else's money, not yours, so you are at best not helping to communicate any knowledgeable information at all to this subject, nor to answer any of the man's requests accurately.

The truth is, all of your opinions are of absolutely no value in the real world. So please do us a favor. Keep this all to yourself so those of us that know about the real world of electronics and the real value of such can communicate.

Thanks
RavenDave

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