Oy! Such a Bargain! (1 Viewer)

http://www.stereophile.com/amplifica...views/704wavac

$350,000/pair...I think I could do better with a Marshall Amp and have enough money left over for a session at the Chicken Ranch with a porno star to do some real tube rolling Why there might even be enough left over to buy a car. Then I could drive back to the Chicken Ranch!

"Accidents
Despite having been carefully packed in substantial wooden crates, the SH-833 arrived damaged, including a bent isolation-transformer chassis, which is constructed not from sheet metal but from solid metal plates that range in thickness from 10mm to 50mm. There was more damage in one of the main amplifiers. It took the designer the better part of a day to undo the pallet punter's work. (I didn't get special treatment: a visit from a Wavac rep., most likely Yuzuro Ito or Yasunori Matsuki, is part of what your $350,000 buys you.) A week or so into the review, one channel failed, and back the designer came. Turned out to be a cracked power resistor—probably a result of shipping trauma. "

I cant believe they didnt package that thing right!

Yeah, but if you don't get some 500 grand cables to go with it, it will sound like #*&*#(&%(*&.

I didn't know you rolled your tube for fun. I just stick them in and out of the socket for best results

I read that review a few months ago.


At least the amps come with a visit from the designer (flys out from Japan)..also if there is any problems they fly out to you and fix it.

Perhaps in the middle of Kansas. Over here in CA you would get a beat up shack for 350K without electricity let alone a theater.

These are the end times for the so-called high-end cult. As its last gasps are heard throughout the land (with no veiled midranges), it fires off a final few desperate shots and this is one of them. It's the very sort of thing that gives that cottage industry such a bad name.

Madness.

Isn't the warranty on this thing super short? Like 6 months?

If a 10K Hyundai can give you a 10 year warranty....

wonder if it has a short protection curcuit

Is it AAAA or not?

Didn't someone say the exact same thing back in the late sixties when solid-state amps became big?

Exactly...digital amplifiers are cheap right now but once Rotel/B&K/etc get ahold of them all of a sudden they will cost $1000 minimum. I also have a feeling that the $300 units will mysteriously sound worse than they do today.

Yes and they will continue saying that. But looking at all the new companies cropping up every year making affordable tube gear (more affordable than solid state gear in some instances) it doesn't seem likely so.

It wasn't the price so much Jake. As you look at the review and observe the measurements that indicate what the amp is doing, it should become quite obvious that regardless of price, this is a poorly performing piece of equipment. In fact, it is sufficiently wretched that it should be considered broken and defective. Junk. The efforts of an individual totally unconcerned with any measure of quality and ignorance regarding audio reproduction. My early comparison to a Marshall amp was in retrospect, decidedly unfair to the the Marshall.

This is an example of whomever the editor is in abrogating his responsibility to serve the audio community with integrity and assess the performance of equipment critically. No one is served other than the manufacturer who decidedly deserves condemnation. However, StereoPhile finds itself backed into a corner that it has created over many years - afraid of saying a product is pure unadulterated bullshit for fear that its other laudatory praises for other incompetently performing equipment will be subjected to the same scrutiny.

I could care less if the reviewer personally likes the product. That's his perogative. That he is unable to distinguish performance from junk and convey it to his audience is far more disturbing and one would have to seriously question this person's ability to critically evaluate anything. He may well relish the fragrance and pungency of a juicy broccoli, sausage, garlic fart and the way it hangs around like a thermal inversion in LA. That he should sing its praises should come only from the walls of a building for the mentally insane.

I'm Chu Gai, and I approve this post