What 50k$+ buys you...

[spritzer]

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]

Thats 48,000 british pounds = 83,000 USD yikes!!

Does it come with a nice looking girl??

[spritzer]

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.

[aardvark baguette]

in for 3

[UWisconsin77]

$80,000 doesn't look so bad, when you have a pair of $700,000 speakers..

http://www.higherfi.com/spkrlist/speakerlist.htm

[naamanf]

For the price you think they could have made it with custom machined mounts instead of zip ties for the caps.

[swt61]

Ah but the glue on the zip ties is made from the urine of a Yeti. That alone is worth the price.

[Sherwood]

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]

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]

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]

From reading the review, it appears that they do still use the copper chassis. It just isn't evident in that photo.

[luvdunhill]

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]

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]

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]

is that a Jameco 4.7uF/500V cap in there (the first pic)?

[Sherwood]

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]

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]

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]

"proprietary white goopy material"

[Sherwood]

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.