spritzer Posted October 18, 2008 Report Posted October 18, 2008 6moons just put up a review of the Kondo Gakuoh amps with an internal picture. All that Tango iron sure is nice with silver windings but it is still a lot of money...
DigiPete Posted October 18, 2008 Report Posted October 18, 2008 Thats 48,000 british pounds = 83,000 USD yikes!! Does it come with a nice looking girl??
spritzer Posted October 18, 2008 Author Report Posted October 18, 2008 There is VAT in the Uk so the price is less in the US but all you get is two amps and the crates they come in.
UWisconsin77 Posted October 18, 2008 Report Posted October 18, 2008 $80,000 doesn't look so bad, when you have a pair of $700,000 speakers.. http://www.higherfi.com/spkrlist/speakerlist.htm
naamanf Posted October 18, 2008 Report Posted October 18, 2008 For the price you think they could have made it with custom machined mounts instead of zip ties for the caps.
swt61 Posted October 18, 2008 Report Posted October 18, 2008 Ah but the glue on the zip ties is made from the urine of a Yeti. That alone is worth the price.
Sherwood Posted October 22, 2008 Report Posted October 22, 2008 I'll likely get flamed for this because the price truly is outrageous, but those things look like heaven inside. They anneal their own wire. It's probably not worth it, but it IS dedication. The material costs are astronomical, and I'll bet it sounds incredible. I've never had the opportunity to hear one, but I'd really like to. The amp doesn't seem to follow the copper Faraday cage principle that the preamp does -- any reason you can think of?
Pars Posted October 22, 2008 Report Posted October 22, 2008 Lowest signal level present is already line level (i.e., highest level in preamp), so maybe they thought the Faraday cage wasn't needed? Silver transformers? uhhh, yeah... I'll bet those are expensive
Sherwood Posted October 22, 2008 Report Posted October 22, 2008 Those binding posts look like solid brass as well. Not that it surprises me, but I'm glad they didn't just stick some WBT clones on there.
Sherwood Posted October 22, 2008 Report Posted October 22, 2008 From reading the review, it appears that they do still use the copper chassis. It just isn't evident in that photo.
luvdunhill Posted October 22, 2008 Report Posted October 22, 2008 Lowest signal level present is already line level (i.e., highest level in preamp), so maybe they thought the Faraday cage wasn't needed? Silver transformers? uhhh, yeah... I'll bet those are expensive silver transformers is nothing compared to custom silver foil inductors.. pricing is crazy on both. Electra Print offers a nice partial silver stranded secondary (PSSS) transformer option here: Electra-Print.com Partial Silver Stranded Secondary Transformers .. not that I've been considering it or anything
GPH Posted October 22, 2008 Report Posted October 22, 2008 50 000$... Meh, a good amp must be at least the price of a house, like these 350 000$ Wavac SH-833 monoblocks: What's even funnier if you read the Stereophile article is that the amp was damaged during shipping and the designer of the amp had to come to the guy's house to repair it.
spritzer Posted October 22, 2008 Author Report Posted October 22, 2008 Silver transformers? uhhh, yeah... I'll bet those are expensive Just to be clear... those are silver Tango transformers. The stock versions are very expensive let alone something like this...
luvdunhill Posted October 22, 2008 Report Posted October 22, 2008 is that a Jameco 4.7uF/500V cap in there (the first pic)?
Sherwood Posted October 22, 2008 Report Posted October 22, 2008 I'm gonna design my own amp and include an upside-down mason jar with half a gray notecard in it. I might even put some little hats on that shit.
spritzer Posted October 22, 2008 Author Report Posted October 22, 2008 is that a Jameco 4.7uF/500V cap in there (the first pic)? Sure looks like it. Those small brown electrolytics could be Nichicon or Nippon-Chemicon which are used in the Stax amps...
Dreadhead Posted October 22, 2008 Report Posted October 22, 2008 blashemy!!! It's incredibly expensive so it must be good! ps. The measurements section of the Stereophile review of the Wavac nearly made me pee myself at how horribly it seemed to perform.
Knuckledragger Posted October 22, 2008 Report Posted October 22, 2008 "proprietary white goopy material"
Sherwood Posted October 22, 2008 Report Posted October 22, 2008 Wavac claims there are no capacitors in the SH-833's circuit [I actually counted four in the amplifier chassis, two of which do appear to be in the audio circuit—JA.] Aw snap.
spritzer Posted October 22, 2008 Author Report Posted October 22, 2008 Take a look inside the 100k$ Lamm amp and fall over laughing. Hammond transformers are good but not that good...
Sherwood Posted October 22, 2008 Report Posted October 22, 2008 I went to the trouble of reading the specs breakdown on the Wavac. Long story short, under 1% THD it puts out 2 watts, not the claimed 150. At listenable power, it's putting out 10% distortion, and not all of it the benign, tubey 2nd order distortion. Plenty of 7th order shit that sounds like what it is. I'll wager the Lamm, lousy as it is, is still at least 30% as good as that nonsense. I'd love to see some measurements on the Kondo, though.
spritzer Posted October 22, 2008 Author Report Posted October 22, 2008 Found the pics of the Lamm. Scroll down...
Sherwood Posted October 22, 2008 Report Posted October 22, 2008 $126k and they're buying trafos off the shelf.
n_maher Posted October 22, 2008 Report Posted October 22, 2008 $126k and they're buying trafos off the shelf. And lowly Hammonds at that.
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