Glad to offer the info! I even know how to solder quite well actually, but did not have the time or patience and wanted to make sure I had a BHC in perfect working order without issues, so I paid James to do it. In my opinion, the amp is good enough to pay someone to build it, and is worth the extra expense if you choose to go that route. I will say though, I do plan to build one myself in the future just for fun, and I am going to pimp it out with some mods (caps, choke . . .). Knowing how a stock BHC with speedball sounds quite well, I am curious what a modded out one sounds like.
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I see a slightly crooked wire. Completely unacceptable. Send it back.
That’s a super clean Crack! Looks fantastic
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Question for electronics whizzes… There is a helluva bang for your buck on that Etsy page. Considering upgraded parts are used, the skill of the builder, and the rather ‘simplistic’ nature of the amplification circuit used, what does all the extra $$ get you when/if you upgrade to a fancy boutique brand of tube amp? At some point you’re paying for more than quality parts and construction; beyond that these analog circuits can only give so much. Are we more paying for a name or lifestyle choice and less actual sonic differences? Or is there something that the high-end boutique brands are keeping for themselves that craft-builders can’t access?
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Output transformers.
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Boutique brands sell low volume luxury products and don’t charge that much relative to their overhead. At minimum it requires materials costs and build skills (i.e., the Etsy guy), but also unique engineering, marketing, business licenses, taxes, retirement plans, medical insurance, vacation hours, etc. Those selling direct must have a mail/return/restock system while those using dealer networks must add dealer margin too. Some parts are customized, costly, or extremely uncommon (@mfadio).
After building a Crack myself, the Etsy guy is not getting rich with the fees he charges. His fees are very reasonable. I wonder if even the pricey boutique builders earn the incomes of their average buyers.
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Thanks for the feedback.
His fees are very reasonable.
That was my point. Here’s a guy working out of his garage, let’s say, selling analog amplifiers in very nice finished enclosures. The tubes and other parts are top shelf and the wiring work includes all best practices to provide the lowest noise possible. Aside from wanting to support someone who decided name a company after themselves and hire a staff, is there any real sonic reason to buy from an ‘audiophile’ oriented vendor (what I would call boutique) for literally thousands of dollars more other than you just wanted to see the name emblazzoned in your rack? Otherwise asked, where is the real sound quality in analog tube amplifiers given that the schematics are available as are the parts and skill? Parts, circuits, or builder’s skill? w.r.t.to mfadio, thank you as well, it sounds like output transformers are the secret sauce?
Small questions that aren’t really important to answer. I’m just getting the feeling that, if this guy can turn out these products and those price points, “high end” pure tube based headphone amps are more based on wanting a name rather than build or sound quality. That, or there are some scarce parts that really drive up the costs, e.g. output transformers.
-Cheers
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Are you speaking of any particular boutique shop here?
If so, then the answer may be different depending on the company.
The BHC is an OTL amp, not suitable for all headphones. All tube amps are not created equal either, my guess is you already knew this.
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High end audio is an extremely small niche, and sells to well-off, wealthy, and ultra wealthy buyers. Some vendors sell only a few dozen to a few hundred products per year. Low volume requires high unit cost. Above a certain quality minimum, people also pay for labels, prestige, and exclusivity. That’s not unique to audio.
Some vendors sell audio products/services more as a hobby than as a money-making venture too (perhaps the Etsy guy). Some are bad business people and may lose money with every sale.
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Are you speaking of any particular boutique shop here?
Not whatsoever.
All tube amps are not created equal either,
Someone mentioned up in the thread that there is a gap between low cost tube amps where there isn’t much difference in sound until you get over, say, a thousand dollar amp when sound quality improvement is noted. What is included in those more pricey amps that results in this condition? The practical take home is, what should a person look for in build, parts, or design to guide their decisions as they cross-shop different tube amps? Simply buying the most expensive amp isn’t very realistic to us mortals who aren’t wealthy but want to intelligently apportion their electronics budget. Hence, the opening of my original question with “Question for electronics whizzes”
Tube amps are really simple devices, there are more components in the power supply than the actual amplifier on most of them.
Decent transformer coupled designs have a significant cost barrier to entry, parafeed designs like the Tuba, can be done cheaper, and there are some Eastern European one man shops who wind their own transformers like Zampotech.
BUT tube amps generally because of their relative simplicity are extremely sensitive to component Quality, and how they are wired.
High quality components are expensive, I can buy an a cheap no name electrolytic cap for pennies, or spend hundreds of dollars on an oil filled copper foil one. There really is no upper bound on what you can spend on a transformer, many are custom would, some even use pure silver wire.
In terms of wiring, the wire used and how it’s run matters.
Amps like the DNA and EC amps are veritable bargains for what you get.
That’s true of most people here, you have to be rational, there is no point buying $10K in electronics for a $500 headphone and similarly you want to spend more than $200 on electronics if you have a $6000 headphone.
FWIW and this is going to be a contentious opinion, I don’t think tube amps make sense at the entry level, outside of novelty value, SW51+, Tuba, BHC, Quicksilver headphone amp is where I’d suggest anyone even start looking at them, and you can skip to multi thousand dollar amps directly after that and not miss much in the middle.
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One does not need to be an electronic wizard, is mere mortals can also speak to the general understanding of this delta. @Polygonhell provided an excellent explanation as to the why this price difference exists and provided examples of options within the entry range of most other amps/gear.
It is really no different of a determination process of you switch out tube amp for say headphones. Why do $4k headphones exist. When a $200 HD650 is good enough for most people?
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I think I would support this contention.
Don’t get too wrapped up in components, get wrapped up in how it sounds then see what components make that sound, not meaning to be facetious but I mean it’s not just components but how they work together. It ain’t all about Jupiter caps. Outside of practical considerations from amps like an OTL it really just comes down to how they sound.
I think so as well. The ultimate boutique headphone amp builders? Maybe.
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I’m looking for advice about music players to use for playing back digital music off my hard drive. Ideally, it needs to 1) work well with classical music’s metadata, 2) have a remote app that I can use even without wifi. I’ve been using MusicBee, which has a remote I can use on my android phone, but I recently plugged my desktop directly into the router and don’t run wifi on it anymore (which I believe is a requirement of the MusicBee app). Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. Is JRiver my best bet? Roon’s yearly subscription seems like overkill.
It sounds like Bubble upnp and one of the many remote apps taht interface with it would do it. No idea as to how well it does with classical metadata, but I assume badly, since almot everything does.
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I’m a defender of entry-level tube products (hybrids), but am not contentious about it. They aren’t as good or as compelling as those you mention. Yep. Their reason for being follows from small budgets, the weak alternatives, and the often harsh/flawed signal chains used in lower price categories.
I make a point of keeping and comparing my purchases to cheap stuff, not because I want to suffer, but because I want perspective. If there’s no understanding of the cost/benefits of entry → middle → high-end upgrades then the hobby becomes an ever narrower niche. People with $5K to $20K headphone budgets talk to others with similar budgets, while the mass market buys Bose, Beats, and Topping and thinks they’ve reached nirvana. These vendors get wealthy and control the market as budget vendors with better products struggle.
Cheap hybrid amps don’t deliver a “tube experience,” but they have a place. Low end solid-state amps often make my ears ring. Sometimes within 5 seconds. Balanced solid state (a la THX AAA 789) improve on the worst (honestly), but are not pleasant or enjoyable. Low end tube-hybrids emphasize the mids and smooth away high frequency noise. Budget buyers often have $50 to $100 clinical ESS or Cirrus Logic DACs, and indeed benefit from tubes. These amps sound little like an OTL or high-end tube amp, rather, they move in the direction of rounded-off Class A solid state.
I wonder if the $300 DarkVoice 336 fits in your list of viable options? I’ve never used one, but I think they use a circuit similar to the BHC and are often modded.
The $500 Lyr 3 isn’t on your list, and also offers a different experience in the price bracket. The stage is narrow and it borders on overdriven, but carries over some tube character and relaxation. I’d choose it over similarly priced products in the THX/Topping style myself.
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No it lacks too much control for my tastes, it a big we sloppy sound.
I do like the BHC with speedball, though for me it couldn’t be an only amp, the big difference between the two is the level of refinement and control the BHC brings over the Dark Voice.
All of the cheaper amps to me are a characature of what a good tube amp should sound like.
I’ve used tube amps in 2Channel systems for decades, and I’ve never been a fan of the overly relaxed sloppy wet uncontrolled sound. I want some midrange weight, but I want it without sacrificing the speed and clarity, you just can’t get that at the lower price points.
I haven’t heard the Lyr, which is why I didn’t mention it, but I have heard positive things about it.
I also like the Liquid Platinum as a hybrid, again a bit more than entry level.
having said that, and I did say it would be contentious, there is absolutely nothing wrong with liking something I don’t, lots of people love the big wet relaxed sound, just not my preference.
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@Polygonhell provided an excellent explanation as to the why this price difference exists
Yes he did, and I thank him for that. That is the technical discussion I was looking for.
Why do $4k headphones exist. When a $200 HD650 is good enough for most people?
Are you asking me? I never made a value proposition or broached what is “good enough” regarding differently priced gear. I was simply asking for a discussion of the technical differences in construction and the cost to build analog circuits that accounts for the wide disparity in MSRP and, at least as reported here, performance. FWIW, nor am I in the market for said equipment. I just thought it was interesting.
Yes you did, your commentary is around value propositions on tube amps. I simply switched the product to demonstrate that the same can be said for other components. It was an analogy.
If “good enough” was not the basis of your technical question, then was was the determining factor to consider on your tube amp query?
For the record the commentary you referenced was not the $1k mark, but rather $2k+
You don’t seem to understand the technical aspect here, an OTL amp, an SET amp, or any other variant of a tube amp have vastly different components. You stated your opinion on the basis of the BHC, an OTL design which I reckon has the least number of components and thus less cost of parts.
So your technical discussion is not on the same playing field when another design such as an SET amp required output transformers. Those alone could be half the cost of the amp depending on their quality, well designed iron is not cheap.
Ergo the premise of your assumption cherry picking an OTL design vs. other designs is flawed.
Ergo the premise of your assumption cherry picking an OTL design vs. other designs is flawed.
No, I never picked any design, OTL or otherwise. That’s on you. I was simply asking a general question on amplifier design and cost consideration looking for a technical answer as to the cost differential. But after a couple of back and forths, thank you for adding some technical meat to your input vis-a-vi OTL vs SET and output transformers. That is what I was interested in.
Cheers
NOTHING.
The purpose of the amp is to provide listening enjoyment. There is no direct line from reading a part/circuit description to your listening enjoyment.
To be blunt, but supportive, what you are doing is a waste of time.
You need to focus on learning what sound you like, identify more experienced people with similar tastes and gather their listening experiences to direct your potential purchase.
Edit: Apparently you are not looking to buy a tube amp but rather a conceptual discussion of why people buy different products. You can ignore this post then.
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