"Bret Ludwig" wrote in message
ups.com...
Trevor Wilson wrote:
snip
**You're entitled to your opinion. However, B&O have always led the
industry
in various technological areas. The customer pays very dearly for that
technological innovation (and the fact that the product is sourced from a
First World nation).
Several US, UK and Continental European manufactured brands are
available at much more reasonable prices than B&O (or McIntosh for
that matter.)
**Sure. However, I have not seen any product which quite matches B&O's sense
of style. Style, of course, being a completely personal issue.
Mc's look is at least something someone raised on
Altec, WE, Ampex and other serious professional equipment can relate
to.
**Not with those silly output autoformers. They are akin to bolting on a
fifth wheel to a Ferrari.
Nonsense on stilts. Altec used output and interstage transformers on
several early solid state amplifiers.
**The operative words being: ".....several EARLY solid state amplifiers."
(My emphasis). In the early days, solid state amplification was expensive
(transformers were cheaper than transistors), direct coupling was not often
used and, more importantly, the current capabilites of power transistors was
seriously limited. Transformers were necessary to allow reasonable current
into laods, without adding extra (very expensive) output transistors.
Things are very different now. Direct coupling and the low cost of
transistors renders coupling transformers unnecessary. The low cost of
providing high currents, at high Voltages renders output transformers
completely superfluous. All they do is add mass, cost and volume. They also
damage performance.
snip
I am not impressed
at all or respectful of McIntosh's reisue tube equipment, for
several
reasons. I do think they should stick with solid state if they don't
believe in the genuine merit of tubes, and am certain they do not.
Since Mcintosh amplifiers are not the most expensive brand to be had
(but are certainly somewhat overpriced) one can not take excessive
umbrage at their poor value for money.
**Sure one can. If McIntosh dumped the usage of autoformers, they
could
reduce their costs (and, hopefully, retail prices) significantly.
They could not reduce their retail costs without lowering their
profits and prestiege in the minds of their upscale purchasers as well.
**The autoformers add SIGNIFICANTLY to the cost of McIntosh products.
Audio
frequency transformers are expensive to manufacture, both in materials
and
labour. They also add significantly to the mass of the product and offer
no
performance benefits.
Mc prices its products according to what the market will bear at a
certain "value plateau"
**Really? Prove it. Do you have access to their confidential costing
systems?
I have friends currently employed in Binghamton, whom of course I will
not name here, but you can do your homework and find this is in line
with what Mc executives have said publicly and privately for decades.
**Lack of response duly noted.
The autoformers, and the tube Unity Coupled OPTs before them, are not
terrifically expensive because Mc wind their own on machinery
inexpensively built by themselves, by not terribly well paid
labor-female, and resembling from my trips there, Shelley Winters'
character from a pretty good movie late in her career called "Heavy". A
pair cost less than $100 in cores, wire, and labor, you may be sure,
except on the "full gallon" model.
**Which is around US$90.00 more than the output transistors which could be
used instead.
Keep in mind low build cost has always been a core component of
McIntosh's business model.
**Nope. I have a reasonable idea of how much things cost to build. McIntosh
amps are not cheap to build.
The most expensive products in their history
build-cost-wise are some of their bigger speaker systems and the
show-stoppingly superior (for its day) MR 78 tuner and even they were
built more cheaply than one might think. A person I know who has worked
at both Mc Binghamton and Rockwell Collins in Cedar Rapids once told me
that had the MR78 been built at Cedar Rapids it woulod have cost $5000
in build cost
Mc built one model of autoformerless heavy power amp and it was not
well received by buyers. Several have found their way into transformer
manufacturers' test labs, ironically, along with many autoformer SS
models and the MI-200 tube triode amp. Mc does learn from experience
pretty well.
**McIntosh know how to milk money form gullible consumers, by providing a
USP that other amps do not have. Nothing more.
--
Trevor Wilson
www.rageaudio.com.au