Point to Point vs Circuit Board

We use hand wiring for our tube power amps. But we use circuit boards for our preamps. This is because in a preamp you have to control stray capacitance much more carefully and consistency is important. Preamps (especially if a phono section is involved) can have a lot of gain and everything has to be right. There's a lot of nuance to circuit board design- making sure traces don't introduce noise where they shouldn't, how pads are designed so they will hold up properly if the board requires service, making sure that parts that get hot can't degrade the board over time and of course controlling stray capacitance. If you design the board properly you simply won't be able to tell the difference between a properly hand wired example vs the same circuit on a circuit board.

This can go both ways; for years we made a kit version of our M-60 amplifier. Some people would do really well with it (you can see its layout in a video on the landing page of our website) and some people don't do so well- I've seen some that look like a rat's nest inside (quite often people who do this ask for more wire....). Its a simple fact that if the hand wired layout isn't clean and well thought out that it will not perform as well; the results can be highly variable.


Of course people like to open up a product and see a hand wired interior that is a work of art. I can safely say that we do that really well. But actually I think the internal appearance of our preamps is actually better than that of our amps.

If you design the board properly you simply won't be able to tell the difference between a properly hand wired example vs the same circuit on a circuit board.

Some may not but some may. Many times we played beat the proto...

Some may not but some may. Many times we played beat the proto...

This is why I was careful to use the word 'properly'.

Atma Sphere makes fine, well designed products. I'm not slagging them off, but 'properly' has nothing to do with it.

There are vast differences between controlled impedances on a circuit board and a hand wired prototype. SS gear can shrink by 50% between prototype and release changing noise radiation and absorption. A PCB has maximum track separation of 1 thickness between sides, contains ground planes and power distribution, all of which can affect the sound. PCB materials can affect the sound. Maintaining PCB tolerances in a handwired prototype is next to impossible. Prototypes types of any ilk are seldom evaluated in the retail packaging. Parts used in the prototype are sometimes superseded / improved necessitating a few steps back or sideways...

Simple circuits of tube amps invite point to point wiring, but for a solid state amp you would have wiring everywhere along with interference caused by all the wiring going everywhere, the routing would become too complex for sure.