On May 9, 1:48*pm, flipper wrote:
On Sun, 8 May 2011 17:00:41 -0700 (PDT), Patrick Turner
wrote:
On May 8, 10:39*pm, Tabby wrote:
On May 8, 12:32*pm, John L Stewart John.L.Stewart.
wrote:
anterm;930852 Wrote:
Some audiophiles say that the sound quality in vacuum tubes is better,
but I fail to see why, especially since vacuum tube electronics is an
older technology
Same odd reason some people prefer to ride a horse now & then! Not
difficult to come up with many other examples.
John
Age doesn't determine quality, it more determines price. There are
still some very good amplifiers from the 1950s about, like Quad II and
similar.
IMHO, Quad-II has a quite parsimonious amount amount of "very good" in
it. It is one of the poorest mass made amplifiers ever foisted upon
the public. But so were many others from 1950, Most mass makers were
reluctant to make gear which compares well to what we can do with
tubes now. The car industry also produced attrocious cars in 1950.
nearly everything you bought was butcherd quality, or quality watered
down. In 1955, everyone complained about cars rusting from the inside
out while also wearing out rather too soon.
Peter Walker didn't get famous because of his amps. He became famous
for his electrostatic speakers.
The Chinese make Quad amps now and has tried to make them better, but
the Quad 40 has many shortcomings; they just don't get it.
Things have not changed, the vast majority of stuff for sale is what I
never want to own. And the fact that slave labour in China makes it
for almost nothing so that when its sold in Oz after rapacious shop
owners here sell it at 20 times the Chinese factory gate price, I
still don't want it. The Chinese can make good underpants
and plastic reader glasses, but not tube amps. I also get many solid
state amps coming in for repairs, and made badly.
There are differences between valve and transistor amps' sound
quality, both have their pros and cons, and some people much prefer
valve.
Indeed. Both forms of amps should measure well at normal listening
levels. I've heard some tube amps which don't, and they don't sound so
good, and often its because the makers have NO IDEA about how to
design anything. I have had to totally re-wire a lot of brandname amps
because of the ignorance of the makers. Much tube gear is complete
rubbish and the prooduct of minds that were merely greedy, and they
peddle crap in an entrepreneuring effort which is a complete con job.
Many people have more money than good sense let alone any ability to
tell what really sounds well and slick promotion efforts get sales of
rubbsh. Some people woud gladly eat a **** sandwich if they are told
how ****in marvellous the sandwich is and shown how wonderful the
sandwich looks.
But I raise my hat to the **** producers of the world.
I can then compete with the crap products by offering real
performance.
Until such time as you build and sell 'real performance' for the same
or less price as the alleged 'crap' you're just an elitist curmudgeon.
AND I am PROUD to be an elitist curmudgeon......
You don' realise that chinese workers get less than anyone I know
here.
A quick Google gave me
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine...2051_mz011.htm
I quote.....
""""" .......The cost of Chinese factory labor is a paltry 64 cents
an hour. Although that figure is rough, since it's pieced together
from sketchy statistics, it's still the most thorough estimate ever
compiled. It includes both wages and employer contributions for
benefits and social insurance. And it covers not just city factory
workers, who get the most attention, but the more numerous rural and
suburban factory workers as well......... """""
Average mean income per annum where I live in Canberra = $66,000 pa.
270 days work at 9 hrs a day = 2,430 hrs, so mean hourly rate = $27.00
per hour.
This by rough comparision is 42.4 times the wage of a Chinese worker.
Or +32.5 dB more wages.
Now I dunno about youse, but I refuse to work for 64 cents an hour. Of
course the cost of living is less in China but at the end of the day
if there are 200 man hours in a chinese amp, ( 5 men working for a
week ), the cost of wages is $128, and if materials in chinese prices
are also $128, then total cost of production = $256,and if you double
that for the profit made my whoever owns the chinese company, maybe
the Chinese Communist Party, then the export price might be $512.
Take a look at
http://www.avhub.com.au/index.php/Pr...amplifier.html
Quad 80 is shown for $14,000.
I searched around for Quad II-Forty and saw $6,500, but other places
showed they are unavailable,
maybe the Chinese have stopped production.
Seems to me the curmudgeons are the western country importers and shop
owners.
I raise my hat to such cumudgeons, I'd never sell a damn thing if they
cut their prices to what I consider reasonable. For awhile you could
buy 5050 stereo power amps from "Hong-Kong Hi-Fi", some bunch of
Chinese goons, and online for about $1,000. These POS amps are Jolida
quality. I had rewire two which were bought by local guys to make 'em
sing and stop smoking.
People here and everywhere just don't give a **** about Chinese slave
labour; oh yeah, nobody has trouble with social inequities all around
the world. Yet all thse ****wit know-alls try to tell us the Chinese
are giving us a mighty raw deal yet they are doing what we refuse to
do. Just imagine if the Chinese quit exporting cheap underpants and
gadgets. Your standard of living would plummet.
Patrick Turner.