@fsonicsmith Thank you for your kind words and for reading my business right. I like selling big-ticket items too of course but spent my teenage years with my nose pressed up against the glass windows of stereo stores longing to get the best I could with not a lot of money. I get that.
The Ah! Tjoeb was a $549 bargain made in Holland. It weighed what it should. It was a life-changing product for me after making so many people happy.
The Chinook SE MKII with upgraded NOS tubes is $2799, and weighs as much or more than $5k preamps I can mention, and almost as much as a popular $9k preamp. Why then isn’t the Chinook $5k? Because EveAnna Manley said so. The prices charged by high-end audio manufacturers are sometimes arbitrary. If anyone wants a certain name and is willing to pay it that’s cool with me. I just tell it like it is.
The majority of companies do a great job with owners that really care. But no other industry would swallow the B.S. that gets sold here. There are more former nuclear submarine engineers with top-secret clearance working in audio than any other business. My Vice President Craig actually has that clearance and we laugh about coming out with some magic box. I’ve been asked to lend my name to projects that would be money-makers but were obvious snake oil so I declined. I would love to write a book. In 45 years in this industry, I’ve seen it all.
I have a little more insight into how stuff is made than most because I have samples traded in all the time. I love audio and understanding how things work. I take products apart and look up part numbers and their costs with my service tech who is also a pro audio circuit designer. Coming from pro audio he just shakes his head and laughs at some of the stuff we see. It would never fly in that business. Musicians are or often broke...and cheap.
I see "new upgraded" models with higher price tags using cheaper volume chips. I see an amp with two driver tubes and two gain tubes being replaced by a "new upgraded" model with a higher price tag also with cheaper chips plus the elimination of driver tubes that get replaced with an FET. Or companies that tell you their cathode bias amp is auto bias. One of them actually changed their website description to what is technically correct after I pointed out to them it was misleading. Then months later, they changed it back to auto-bias.
Regardless, the vast majority of companies do a great job with wonderful owners that care about making a great product.
I’m tasked with explaining how the brands that I represent are made and work. Whether we retail or import/distribute them.
In every PrimaLuna video we produce, I talk about parts and engineering. Weight is a factor that I emphasize more with preamps because they can be a profit center for manufacturers. Much like soft drinks to a restaurant. As you said, parts quality is more important, which is why I show them and describe them in detail. I’m very proud of that. You guys have no idea what a freak Herman is about component selection. Part for part, I can compare PL to any brand at its price or double its price.
The late great Art Dudley said it best: "I’ve never seen a better-built amp. ... Someone made this as if it mattered."
To your point on the PrimaLuna preamp sound, second harmonics are certainly the way to go, which is why people (including me) love tubes.
But the real glory comes from the Holy Trinity for tube preamp design: Dual-mono, tube rectification, point-to-point wiring.
The Ah! Tjoeb was a $549 bargain made in Holland. It weighed what it should. It was a life-changing product for me after making so many people happy.
The Chinook SE MKII with upgraded NOS tubes is $2799, and weighs as much or more than $5k preamps I can mention, and almost as much as a popular $9k preamp. Why then isn’t the Chinook $5k? Because EveAnna Manley said so. The prices charged by high-end audio manufacturers are sometimes arbitrary. If anyone wants a certain name and is willing to pay it that’s cool with me. I just tell it like it is.
The majority of companies do a great job with owners that really care. But no other industry would swallow the B.S. that gets sold here. There are more former nuclear submarine engineers with top-secret clearance working in audio than any other business. My Vice President Craig actually has that clearance and we laugh about coming out with some magic box. I’ve been asked to lend my name to projects that would be money-makers but were obvious snake oil so I declined. I would love to write a book. In 45 years in this industry, I’ve seen it all.
I have a little more insight into how stuff is made than most because I have samples traded in all the time. I love audio and understanding how things work. I take products apart and look up part numbers and their costs with my service tech who is also a pro audio circuit designer. Coming from pro audio he just shakes his head and laughs at some of the stuff we see. It would never fly in that business. Musicians are or often broke...and cheap.
I see "new upgraded" models with higher price tags using cheaper volume chips. I see an amp with two driver tubes and two gain tubes being replaced by a "new upgraded" model with a higher price tag also with cheaper chips plus the elimination of driver tubes that get replaced with an FET. Or companies that tell you their cathode bias amp is auto bias. One of them actually changed their website description to what is technically correct after I pointed out to them it was misleading. Then months later, they changed it back to auto-bias.
Regardless, the vast majority of companies do a great job with wonderful owners that care about making a great product.
I’m tasked with explaining how the brands that I represent are made and work. Whether we retail or import/distribute them.
In every PrimaLuna video we produce, I talk about parts and engineering. Weight is a factor that I emphasize more with preamps because they can be a profit center for manufacturers. Much like soft drinks to a restaurant. As you said, parts quality is more important, which is why I show them and describe them in detail. I’m very proud of that. You guys have no idea what a freak Herman is about component selection. Part for part, I can compare PL to any brand at its price or double its price.
The late great Art Dudley said it best: "I’ve never seen a better-built amp. ... Someone made this as if it mattered."
To your point on the PrimaLuna preamp sound, second harmonics are certainly the way to go, which is why people (including me) love tubes.
But the real glory comes from the Holy Trinity for tube preamp design: Dual-mono, tube rectification, point-to-point wiring.