$1,198 for Quicksilver headphone amplifier
not $3,200
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The problem is that Tube amps don’t really come in High Quality. low cost variants.
The components dictate a minimum cost for at least anything transformer coupled.
A traditional transformer coupled tube amp needs a high voltage supply (with very low noise), a filament supply and a pair of output transformers, and that just adds up, before you get to the tubes themselves.
There are a few standout lower cost transformer coupled amps, though many are no longer available.
SW51+ very low production run, Made in Russia, he wound the ouput transformers himself, so the cost was lower.
Haggerman Tuba - no longer in production, he used a “parafeed” output, that means he could use cheaper output transfomers.
The Quicksilver Headphone Amp - a more traditional design, Mike I believe winds his own transformers as well, but it’s made in the USA, the most expensive of the 3, but IMO having heard all of them the best of the 3.
Now having said that for the Bokeh, you might get away with an OTL design, those can be a lot cheaper (no output transformer, often lower voltages, often no chokes in the PSU), but they don’t always play well with all headphones, and a lot of what people hear in higher end tube designs is because of the transformers and not just the tubes.
A lot of people like the Schiit Vali as a low cost OTL amp, and it’s probably good for what it is.
But there is a lot of misconception from people who’ve only heard lower priced tube amps about what tube amps sound like, the spectrum can be all the way from ooey gooey bloated bass to clean precise and in some cases even bass light.
FWIW the sky really is the limit on what you can spend on a tube amp, when you get into Output transformers with silver windings and nano crystalline cores the prices for the components are insane. I designed and built a 2A3 amp as an exercise in trying to better understand the challenges and it’s an expensive endeavor just to get the parts.
Things get REALLY expensive when you get into the big tubes where they require plate voltages upwards of 1000V, it’s just the reality of tube circuits, they are usually extremely simple, but that means they don’t reject power supply noise well, and so you move all the complexity into the power supply, and high voltage power supplies get expensive quickly.
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Yes they do, the gremlin is excellent and I recommend it. Only 120 usd
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