PS Audio's Paul McGowan offers his opinion....

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May 12, 2018 12:18:15 GMT 12 Owen Y said:

PS Audio's Paul McGowan offers his opinion....

All very fair points.
My personal take on HiFi has always been to get items that have lost a lot of their value due to being 5+ years old. That approach has allowed me to hit a sweet spot on the curve of diminishing returns, at pri e points that are fairly modest...my latest purchases nudged me up that curve for almost no outlay over and above what I hope to sell my old system for, which brings me more joy than I can explain 😁😊

kentyg - what do you think is the secret to moving 'up the (performance and/or satisfaction) curve' without having to outlay more?

Or, do you think that it is just luck and/or one-off circumstances of the local market?

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Steve Guttenberg AUDIOPHILIAC questions Sean (Zero Fidelity, youtube reviewer), who has worked within various sectors of the consumer electronics market, eg. for the manufacturer, for the retailer.

Some of the interesting points:

- The economies of scale do not apply usually, to a high-end audio company.
- The additional costs of bringing a product to market, eg. packaging, shipping, insurance.
- Costs & expenses, eg. R&D, trade show costs, marketing, reviews, retail margins.
- Misconceptions about hi-fi reviewers & dealers.

DarkLantern blog - darklanternforowen.wordpress.com

tis all very well for manufacturers to justify their pricing, as much as it is for retailers and distributors to justify their margins, at the end of the day there still needs to be someone willing and able to afford their wares. And NO that isnt me either.

I learnt as a kid that better hifi equipment was unaffordable for me and my family. One of the reasons I got into learning about and making it myself. It’s been an interesting journey. Then I realised that to make something profitably the research needed is enormous, and the prototypes time consuming. A lot of manufacturers started off the same as me, wanting low cost good equipment and concluding that that is difficult to do!
Standards are moving at such a pace these days as well, making it more or less impossible for the little man to do ground up research like the big manufacturers who have vast engineering departments, like Sony. Also IC manufacturers like Analog Devices, Asahi Kasei, Microchip and Xilinx drive the industry forward. 

AMR-iFi R&D

Jun 7, 2020 19:45:00 GMT 12 colinf said:

I learnt as a kid that better hifi equipment was unaffordable for me and my family. One of the reasons I got into learning about and making it myself. It’s been an interesting journey. Then I realised that to make something profitably the research needed is enormous, and the prototypes time consuming. A lot of manufacturers started off the same as me, wanting low cost good equipment and concluding that that is difficult to do!
Standards are moving at such a pace these days as well, making it more or less impossible for the little man to do ground up research like the big manufacturers who have vast engineering departments, like Sony. Also IC manufacturers like Analog Devices, Asahi Kasei, Microchip and Xilinx drive the industry forward. 

I'm much the same.

I discovered that if one is not trying to make margin then high quality stuff can be built for much less than the retail price.

I am consistently disappointed looking at the power supplies in commercial gear. They almost never seem to have the guts expected from the stated power output.

I have a large SS amplifier beside me from a well known Japanese manufacturer. 130w into 8 ohms

The output stage has parallel 150w type transistors so no problem here.

But the power transformer is a 400VA with 42v secondaries.

400VA across 84v gives 4.8A. Derate by 0.65 for rectification and that leaves only circa 3.12A for both channels.

50W into 8 ohms = 28.3v peak /3.53A peak. Divide by 1.41 gives 2.5A continuous.

So an amp rated at 130w into 8 ohm has a power transformer that cannot provide current for 50W continuous into both channels. Let alone dealing with a 4ohm load.

After the rectifier is 20000uF per rail which is not bad but on the low side for the claimed power capability.

It seems to me that the manufacturer is really relying on the user not actually using all of the rated power for any length of time.

The necessity of 130W into 8 ohms is another discussion.....