Why cheap Chinese amps are not the chopping block for high-end tube amps
 

I have to admit it appears unlikely but, as Lenin said, "One step
backwards, two steps forward":-)

I thought that was Victor Sylvester....???

Hadn't thought of that...the Internationale should have been a waltz
:-)

Maybe that was what went wrong?

thanks keith.

cheers, Ian

Why cheap Chinese amps are not the chopping block for high-end tube amps
 

In article ,
says...
My point is that I don't think the Chinky amps are rubbish (FWIW) - I don't
claim them to be the best available either, I just say they are *excellent*
VFM and are a good way of prising open a very stiff door....


That door may be even stiffer than you realise Keith..

Just before Christmas I was in the Cheltenham branch of a well known
national chain (no names, but sounds like it should be in Kent!) when a
customer asked about the possibility of listening to a valve amp, ANY
valve amp.

The shop guy's answer (he was mid-late 30s-ish) was that they did not
stock them as it was a very minority market (with a sub text that the
few who were 'into' tubes were well out on the lunatic fringe)


Interesting that they looked to have some very expensive interconnects
in stock..

T.

Why cheap Chinese amps are not the chopping block for high-end tube amps
 

"Ian Iveson" wrote in message
.uk...
I have to admit it appears unlikely but, as Lenin said, "One step
backwards, two steps forward":-)

I thought that was Victor Sylvester....???

Hadn't thought of that...the Internationale should have been a waltz :-)

Maybe that was what went wrong?


It ain't over yet - Capitalism requires an uneven playing field to work and
the rest of the world's catching up fast. Totalitarianism requires
communication/information controls and freedom of movement restraints to be
effective and that's out the window with the Net, mobile phones, Israel in
the Eurovision Song Contest and the EEC stretching towards Outer Mongolia!

Still everything to play for, if you ask me.....!! ;-)

Why cheap Chinese amps are not the chopping block for high-end tube amps
 

"Tony Gartshore" wrote in message
...
In article ,
says...
My point is that I don't think the Chinky amps are rubbish (FWIW) - I
don't
claim them to be the best available either, I just say they are
*excellent*
VFM and are a good way of prising open a very stiff door....


That door may be even stiffer than you realise Keith..

Just before Christmas I was in the Cheltenham branch of a well known
national chain (no names, but sounds like it should be in Kent!)


Sevenoaks? :-)

(Let's not be too shy - we are their *customers*!! :-)


when a
customer asked about the possibility of listening to a valve amp, ANY
valve amp.

The shop guy's answer (he was mid-late 30s-ish) was that they did not
stock them as it was a very minority market (with a sub text that the
few who were 'into' tubes were well out on the lunatic fringe)


:-)

Good, accurate information then - he's not a long way from the truth!

This is my point - it ain't easy to get to hear valves in the UK which is
why I operate an 'open door' to people I 'know' from here.

(Others do the same - it's quite common in the 'thermionic community'!! :-)



Interesting that they looked to have some very expensive interconnects
in stock..


(I'm not sure what the connection is here....?? ;-)

Why cheap Chinese amps are not the chopping block for high-end tube amps
 

In article , Tony Gartshore
wrote:
Just before Christmas I was in the Cheltenham branch of a well known
national chain (no names, but sounds like it should be in Kent!) when a
customer asked about the possibility of listening to a valve amp, ANY
valve amp.

The shop guy's answer (he was mid-late 30s-ish) was that they did not
stock them as it was a very minority market (with a sub text that the
few who were 'into' tubes were well out on the lunatic fringe)


Interesting that they looked to have some very expensive interconnects
in stock..

Evidently expensive cables are not a minority market. Also, presumably the
profit margins that are possible by fitting plugs on a couple of metres of
cable and charging stupid prices for the result are quite attractive to
the companies that flog this sort of stuff.

On the other hand, the profit margins on valve amplifiers can't be so
good. Not surprising really, as the devices don't readily lend themselves
to mass production techniques, and they are generally bulky but with
delicate components and therefore awkward to pack. Also, like it or not,
fewer people would want a large room heater with an audio output of 20
Watts even if they weren't expensive, and shops can only survive by
selling what people want

Rod.

Why cheap Chinese amps are not the chopping block for high-end tube amps
 

But what are the facts about chinese GOSS production?

Please stick to the facts please.

It *is* a fact, silly. China can make its own GOSS. How could you
possibly expect otherwise? Their technology and science is at least
on a par with any other leading industrial state. They don't lack
many raw materials. They are, however, short of *capacity* in many
sectors because of rapid growth.

It's not so much a matter of what China "can" make as what is
optimally profitable to the people in charge for them to do. China is
very limited in certain skills and capacities, because there are two
"drivers" for Chinese expertise: the needs of its military production
and what Western companies bring in to exploit Chinese cheap labor,
lack of environmental and safety costs, etc. There are very big gaps in
Chinese production ability, certainly in terms of what a real
industrial nation (say, the United States between 1940 and 1980) could
have accomplished.

Oriental mag materials have always suffered from a lack of
standardization vis-a-vis US and Western European sources. Even the
Japanese have always been good at meeting specific needs on orders of
sufficient size but not as good at offering comprehensive, accurately
graded ranges of materials on a catalog basis. That's also true of tool
steels, high energy metals, wire and extruded materials, connectors and
threaded fasteners. The oriental mentality works fine if a firm of
sufficient size tools up to make a widget and makes a lot of them in
one continuous run, on a "continuous improvement" basis, with costs
lowering as the workforce improves skills and tooling is upgraded, then
the product is discontinued forever. It is abysmal if you endeavor to
make a fixed run of a widget, stop, make something else, and then go
back and make more five years later. That's why when a Japanese
supplier stops making something it is over and done with forever-it
would be far more expensive to make the old one again than a new one,
which always is designed around new tooling ideas. Their toolmaking is
an extension of their production staff: the upside is they can make
tooling with a better idea as to its use, but far less repeatability
then the classically disciplined US toolmaking community. In the US,
you could make a widget perfectly interchangeable with one not seen in
fifty years far more easily than in Japan or anywhere else in Asia.

The Japanese are the vanguard of Oriental manufacturing: generally
Taiwan, Hong Kong, Korea and China itself follow suit.

It's interesting to look at it from a nationalistic perspective. The
Japanese ran US manufacturers out of mainstream consumer electronic
manufacturing in the '70s, not through "coolie wage" undercutting, but
through detail development and reliability enhancement. They killed the
consumer electronic service business, and that was a path for
producing skilled electronics technicians, engineers and development
planners. The consumer, as consumer, benefitted: but as a citizen, did
he?

Why cheap Chinese amps are not the chopping block for high-end tube amps
 

Stewart Pinkerton wrote:
snip

Except of course that a Ford doesn't have the performance or the build
quality of a Mercedes. Unless you buy a Ford GT - which costs more
than a Mercedes.

The Ford GT has the build quality of a Ford Focus or Five Hundred or
F-150. It uses the same tacky dash materials and brightwork and the
same cheap plumbing, fittings, comnnectors, wiring and everything else.
It is a 105% scale model of a race car-but it is not a race car. Race
cars have welded or riveted monocoque structure, fuel bladders in
structure with AN fittings, Cannon plugs, cockpit adjustable things for
brake balance, etc. It is a joke.

The last really reliable Mercedes were made in the mid-80s.

Why cheap Chinese amps are not the chopping block for high-end tube amps
 

"Keith G" wrote in
:

I've got plenty of Zappa (LP and CD) and what I've heard of it on the
Chinese amps is excellent. I think I played a bit for Ray a few nights
ago....???


Yes you did, and it was excellent!

--
Cessna172