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Tiers Amplification

#22
Mesa makes tube amps in the US still (sadly no all tube bass heads anymore).
Most of the huge cost of tube amps is the transformers. Tube heads are really simple circuits as long as you don't expect a compressor and graphic eq.
An enterprising person could get the PCBs for a tube head made overseas, buy off the shelf transformers and just have the soldering and metalwork done in the US.
I think the assumption that tube heads aren't popular is silly. They continue to be popular. The new models that come out and flop are just because they are priced too high and have too many features (or they are ugly!). Why in hell would you want a compressor on a tube head anyway? Or an enhance circuit?
3 knob eq is cool for me. 4 knobs is a luxury!
 
#23
JimmyM said:
hook the send up to the cd input. tried it last night but i was in the garage and couldn't really tell if it made a difference. stuff like that i really need to hear it in a band context.
Click to expand...

I think there was a compromise with that but do not remember exactly what it was. If you went that route then X happened.
 
#25
Rick Auricchio said:
Fane and Eden have done that. Soldering and metalwork can also be done overseas; they can do a good job.
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Sure the whole thing can be done overseas. I was just replying to the idea that you cant make a tube amp in the USA anymore. companies do, though as with most things there are ways to keep costs down. Mesa stuff may seem expensive, but considering that the same money buys you ampegs made in Vietnam/China quality I think the Mesa stuff is a better deal. That said, if I had to buy a new head today it would be the Traynor or the Eden tube heads. Better bang for the buck. (the peavey is just, uh, not to my aesthetic visually).
 
#27
And that quote from the Syn-Aud-Con is actually itself a quote from my considerably earlier letter to "Recording Engineer/Producer" magazine, the successor IIRC to dB magazine........ probably around 1979/1980

There had been an article by a guy (Kimber) who was apparently selling super-duper speaker cables..... touting the damping factor and indirectly how his cables improved it. The whole letter went into the basic physics of damping via the voice coil. I had forgotten the whole thing, and particularly the reference to acoustic resistance....a big deal with a horn....

Thanks for the memory jog....
 
#31
Jerrold Tiers said:
from my considerably earlier letter to "Recording Engineer/Producer" magazine, the successor IIRC to dB magazine........ probably around 1979/1980
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Hey, you must be older than I thought, Jerrold! ;)

[sidetrack]

dB coexisted, but was not connected, with RE/P. In the early 90s RE/P did a supplement on live sound, which after a couple issues split off and became Live Sound magazine. LS has changed publishing hands a couple times but continues to this day, but RE/P went away shortly after giving birth. AFAIK dB continued on until about the mid 90s.

I think Mel Lambert was the editor of RE/P back then. It was part of a stable of trade magazines put out by Intertec. dB was a small, low-budget operation based on Long Island.

[/sidetrack]
 
#34
Slightly OT too...

Didn't Obeid Khan (former SLM'er) start his own line of amps? I believe he's 'collaborating' or something now and is part of Reason Amps... Do you know/talk to Obeid and what's his take on breaking into the amplification world?

And now for something really OT...

Ken - NEXT TIME DROP ME AN EMAIL WHEN YOU'RE GONNA BE IN TOWN! I'd have loved to catch your gig! :D
 
#35
tZer said:
Slightly OT too...

Didn't what Obeid Khan (former SLM'er) start his own line of amps? I believe he's 'collaborating' or something now and is part of Reason Amps... Do you know/talk to Obeid and what's his take on breaking into the amplification world?

And now for something really OT...

Ken - NEXT TIME DROP ME AN EMAIL WHEN YOU'RE GONNA BE IN TOWN! I'd have loved to catch your gig! :D
Click to expand...

TONY!!! I need to do that. It is very rare that I play a public club sort of date. Hope you are well. Please send my best wishes to your dad!
 
#36
greenboy said:
And amazingly strong on theory, measurements, technical data as well as philosophies of system design. And of course all that "huge system" porn for those who only look at the pictures.
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Many of the trade magazines back then did good tech and theory articles. Even some of the consumer audio magazines did, like Audio. My boss in the early/mid 80s, John Roberts, used to write a tech column for RE/P.
 
#37
Bob Lee (QSC) said:
Many of the trade magazines back then did good tech and theory articles. Even some of the consumer audio magazines did, like Audio. My boss in the early/mid 80s, John Roberts, used to write a tech column for RE/P.
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Yeah, Bob -

I used to nab subscriptions at the publisher booths at NAMM. Unfortunately when I was closing on a house ten years back my storage unit got robbed and the magazines with everything else. I really appreciated the education those publications offered and wish I still had them around for reference.
 
#38
Jerrold Tiers said:
But, the time is definitely NOT right.
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Glad to see you're living up to my earlier opinion of your common sense. ;)

Listen, I've been watching these fora for ages. People are like those idlers who see someone on a window ledge and begin yelling, "JUMP!" There's nothing so crazy that they won't encourage it.

They're not committing to give you a business loan or even promising to buy a unit of something you're going to produce. That simple fact should put them in their proper perspective.

The industry is in such bad shape at the moment and bad in so many different ways that it has managed to outstrip my most pessimistic expectations, and I frankly don't see a turnaround any time soon.

A great time to plan, but not a great time to spend, in other words.
 
#39
Wow, RE/P haven't heard that in a long time.
Always thought that to be a great magazine and at least it ended on a strong note
Didn't feel the same way about Mix, it seemed serious back in the day but later became more of a magazine of advertisers

You have to have owned a small manufacturing company to truly understand how hard it is to make a decent living selling specialized products (or services for that matter).
A strong business plan and a load of cash is not always enough.
I do think the right patent can be a license to print money although doubtful that many will happen anytims soon in audio.
 
#40
Bob Lee (QSC) said:
Hey, you must be older than I thought, Jerrold! ;)

AFAIK dB continued on until about the mid 90s.
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I probably am...... I was up for the draft in 1970.

I would have to look in the old mags file.... I got dB until it was no longer "gettable", which I thought was lots earlier than the 90's...... but I don't remember for sure without looking.

RE/P was a decent mag...... nothing after it really lived up to either RE/P or dB....

I probably recall RE/P being in existence after dB magazine, which is how I figured one morphed out of the other.... It was a long time ago....

As for the music biz........

Anyone who cares to can make a good product.....companies with really good products fail all the time. The real deal isn't the product, its the other stuff... marketing it successfully, getting production, QC, service, etc going, and, of course, reliably making payroll.

The way the music equipment biz is right now, a lot of those things are not so easy as they were in 1965 through 1990, say.
 

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