Still many thanks for your help.

About the A1, what can I say?

When I purchased the A1 I was 19 years old, and it seems to me to buy a
"Cadillac" (also for the efforts to save the money!).
It was really a pleasure to listen to it, with Celestion 5 speakers.

Time goes by... I come to the feeling the A1 is a myth:
* I thought it is 20 Watt class A, now I read it is only 2 Watt class A...
It heats like a true class A to tweak the listeners ?

* The volume pot failure is a design failure.

* Some components (example the caps) are not well suited for the high
temperature inside.

* Users report different failures.

* Musical Fidelity feedback is null...

* Do you see http://www.musicalfidelity.com/merchandise.html ?
Watches... pens... ridicolous!
The "keep in touch" page: nothing to send a question, only their way to
cater information from the user.


Now I want to build a Gainclone. If it will sound better than A1 I
understand the business: marketing and psichological stuff. I already think
it for hi-end, but facing this also for the A1 is sad :-(

Going to hi-fi and hi-end, you pay
- sometimes, the handcraft manufacturing
- the high costs of manufacturing low quantities
- the brand
- some excellent materials, but they don't improve sound quality (carved
wood, gold everywhere, shark oil for cdrom, cables more expensive than Nasa
Shuttle ones, abuse of special and expensive electronics parts to obfuscate
customers minds - perhaps the design is weak, and so on...)

Here it is my Murhpy law about hi-fi:
price quality
10 10 % cheap
20 20 % midi
30 30 %
40 40 % mini
50 45 % hi-fi
60 48 % hi-fi
100 50 % hi-end
1000 55 %
10000 60 % madness!
you never reach the perfection, it is all marketing hyphens.

Better for your wallet, more amusing and satisfying is do some DIY project!

ciao, Massimo
ITALY