Buying amps based on Most Watts Per Dollar

I peaked at some of the other forums today…

I know, I know, I should know better.

Somebody pokes their head up to ask people to recommend tube amplifiers… I just imagine this person, afterwards, head fogging up, eyes going in circles…

I always wonder, should I post something? Like…

Buying an amp like this is like buying wine by what is the cheapest with the highest alcohol content.

OK, admit it, most of us HAVE bought wine this way (Mad Dog 2020 anyone?) , but we were young and stupid, or rather, young and desperate 🙂

But this is no way to buy an amp.

This approach gets people to the ASL Hurricane at $5K for 200 watts. It diesn’t help that HP says wacko things like “once in a decade an amplifier comes around that redefines state-of-the-art – this is such an amp”. He just forgot to mention ‘in the $5K price category’. Kind of missleading otherwise… Perhaps not a bad amp for $5K.

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Then there is the ‘get the wine with the most alcohol, no matter the price’ folks.

OK, this what we looked for after we got our first job, … we wanted that EXPENSIVE rot-gut, right? Hmmmmm… hope I am not the only one who went through all these fazes of alcohol abuse …. And I can’t remember if Everclear goes into this category or the one previous…

This gets us the massive VTL, ARC, and BAT amps.

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Next, a significant other may have stepped into the picture. Now we wanted something that was impressive, it no longer was REQUIRED to have the kick of a mule, and it needed a nice label and some nice flavor.

We may have tried orange schnaps, for example. 🙂 Quickly to be replaced by Amaretto and Kahluha.Or great Port.

This might correspond to say, Cary, Joule Electra or Jadis amps.

Our significant others have to like THIS, right?

And they do, for the most part.

But it may grow old, after awhile, like eating ice cream for supper every night. [Of course, some of us LIKE eating ice cream every night… or pie 🙂 ]

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Next, we start looking at the GOOD stuff. Stuff that has enough character, but not too much character, to both entertain and astonish, but with subtlety, and in measured doses, containing enough mystery to not bore us right away yet enough truth to norish us.

The stuff that is considered good now, and will be considered good in 10 years, and, hopefully, in 50 years.

I wonder how many used-to-be audiophiles no longer count themselves among us, OD’ing on the bad stuff before they can find the good stuff?

I hope at least some of them get to the pie.