Why expensive integrated amplifiers better than Topping...?

[JWAmerica]

If provenance doesn't matter, why are Italian brands consistently at the bleeding edge of speaker manufacturing?

 

[Bleib]

Provenance matters. The Japanese have an excellent track record. The Chinese do not and this has not changed even in the current year. The brands that sent their manufacturing to China (to cut costs) are now losing their reputation as quality brands and they are suffering the consequences. Ideology matters. The Chinese propensity to shave hairs and cut corners ultimately shows itself down the line.

Everyone has basically the same idealogy. To make money, it's the one true religion in this world.

 

[Talisman]

If provenance doesn't matter, why are Italian brands consistently at the bleeding edge of speaker manufacturing?

As I mentioned above, just think that a modern smartphone has infinitely more technology than any amplifier / dac concentrated in a tiny space, 99% of smartphones are made in China and the industrial defect rates are ridiculously low on these instruments. (also for Chinese brands that produce in China like Huawei, not just for brands that relocate like Apple).
If we want to make a parallel, we can consider Topping as Huawei, a totally Chinese brand that designs and builds its products in China, yet we are at a very high level, on par with any other world brand.

The problem is not WHERE it is done, the problem is HOW it is done and on the basis of what project.
Staying in the Audio business, Cambridge Audio designs in England but builds in China, and these are generally very well built products.
Manufacturers must take full responsibility for the products they release, too easy to blame any problem on Chinese manufacturing, it would be like justifying them for any problem
"poor guys, they had designed an exceptional product but the low-cost Chinese manufacturing has ruined everything"
No it does not.

 

[Chrispy]

You can have whatever level of product you want produced in China. If you don't want to control quality, that's on you.

 

[JWAmerica]

But they're not designed in China and are made to the specifications of the foreign designers (ostensibly). Many European and American brands have fallen into disrepute because they outsourced manufacturing to China. You're obviously not familiar with the pitfalls of sourcing from China. Just as the Mexican government is notoriously corrupt, so is Chinese manufacturing.

 

[JWAmerica]

You can have whatever level of product you want produced in China. If you don't want to control quality, that's on you.

There are a few firms in China that will consistently deliver what you ordered. And they are considered the top tier. The rest will find a way to turn a penny into a nickel. If you don't know this, you're talking out of your ass and have no experience with Chinese suppliers.

 

[Chrispy]

But they're not designed in China and are made to the specifications of the foreign designers (ostensibly). Many European and American brands have fallen into disrepute because they outsourced manufacturing to China. You obviously are not familiar with the pitfalls of sourcing from China. Just as the Mexican government is notoriously corrupt, so is Chinese manufacturing.

If in response to my post, not particularly, still the onus on the designer/brand owner to have sufficient spec/quality control in place. You may have to pay for it in a variety of ways, price, participation, cooperation, etc.

 

[Chrispy]

There are a few firms in China that will consistently deliver what you ordered. And they are considered the top tier. The rest will find a way to turn a penny into a nickel. If you don't know this, you're talking out of your ass and have no experience with Chinese suppliers.

Still, depends on what level of oversight you wish to employ. Many don't wish to.

ps No, I've not sourced product there but have dealt with a variety of issues there in logistics.

 

[JWAmerica]

If in response to my post, not particularly, still the onus on the designer/brand owner to have sufficient spec/quality control in place. You may have to pay for it in a variety of ways, price, participation, cooperation, etc.

It's well known that if you call out a supplier for not meeting specifications that you will be blackballed by the Chinese market. This has been going on for decades.

 

[Chrispy]

There are a few firms in China that will consistently deliver what you ordered. And they are considered the top tier. The rest will find a way to turn a penny into a nickel. If you don't know this, you're talking out of your ass and have no experience with Chinese suppliers.

Perhaps you can share just what you've had produced in China and more specifics?

 

[JWAmerica]

Perhaps you can share just what you've had produced in China and more specifics?

Nope not gonna dox myself. This is literally common knowledge. You don't have to take my word for it. There are many others who can confirm it.

 

[Chrispy]

Nope not gonna dox myself. This is literally common knowledge. You don't have to take my word for it. There are many others who can confirm it.

Uh huh

 

[JWAmerica]

Uh huh

Says the guy with no experience with Chinese suppliers. OK.

 

[JWAmerica]

I'll just say auto parts manufacturing. Spec a part and six months to a year later the materials will be adulterated and the parts are not built to spec, usually by fractions of millimeters. Over and over again. There are a handful of Chinese suppliers who will not do this and they are top dollar in the Chinese market, which defeats the purpose of sourcing from China. We eventually brought it back to Mexico.

 

[JWAmerica]

Forget about sourcing steel from China. You need someone in China to validate what you're getting before it's ever on a boat. This behavior is endemic to the market. And hope they're not paid off.

 

[BDWoody]

Can Topping or other Chi-Fi brands...

Since term 'Chi-Fi' is too often used pejoratively, we have asked members to refrain from using it.

Let's Avoid the Term Chi-Fi

I often see the use of the term "Chi Fi" to describe audio products from China. I see the intention and don't think anyone is trying to be racist and what have you. Still, I like us to show the highest respect to products from around the world. As avid readers of this forum know...

audiosciencereview.com

I'm not saying that was your intent, but I'm just pointing it out for everyone's benefit.

Cheers.

 

[pjug]

Transcendence DHT Amplifier — ToolShed Amps

www.toolshedamps.com

Here we have someone exploiting his chassis artwork knowing many people purchase amps with their eyes only. His original specs only said "less than 1% THD". I had my hands on one and measured 1% THD at a little under 1 watt, for 5% THD it was around 5 watts. I called him out on it in another forum group and so he changed the specs on his webpage because I didn't want people to think it was putting out full 7 watts of power with less than 1% THD. The problem with these amps is with zero feedback the distortion output is highly dependent upon the linearity of each tube in the circuit, largely the driver tube needs to be high gain and so it's linearity can greatly impact distortion figures. I can take 10 of those preamp tubes (E180F wired as a triode) and measure distortion at the same output, say 140v peak to peak, distortion figures will be all over the place. Same for the 300b but they vary less due to such low gain but you will still have different distortion figures for different specimens. I believe his specs, say 5% THD at full power is when you choose the most linear specimens you can find. It's bad engineering to have a circuit so heavily dependent on component linearity, this is where feedback helps. Unless the tubes are carefully selected you will get numbers closer to what I measured, which is 1% THD under 1 watt and you may get 5 watts at 5% THD.

These amps are nothing more than copies of what we were doing on diyaudio over 20 years ago which was instead of having two stages of gain before the 300b we wanted to reduce phase shift and get away with one voltage amp stage. We were using high transconductance pentodes triode strapped because they turned out to be very linear, low plate resistance and high enough gain. What's the point of reducing phase shift if you aren't going to use feedback? If he wanted better numbers without feedback he should have just stuck with the two stages and linearized each stage with a little local feedback, think of the JC Morrison circuit with cascading 6SN7 gain stages driving the 300b. I'm not afraid of feedback and with a triode output you don't need much to improve the circuit, but dropping the number of stages keeps phase shift low for stability purposes. Anyway these are bad designs in my opinion in a nice looking steam punk style chassis. These things almost always end up around $8,000 after the "upgrades" are done, the one I tested was close to $10,000!!!

Don't get me wrong, tubes can do well if designed correctly but just copying designs without any understanding always produces bad results. The only reason these sell is because of what they look like. Before clipping the amp put out 7 watts at 8% THD, with little effort you can easily get 8 watts from a single 300b with <1% THD at full output But that's with some feedback, people that tend to build these amps are scared of feedback and i just don't know why. I'm not scared of a little distortion, I'm personally listening to less than 1 watt so at those power levels my SE tube amps are better than -60db distortion which I feel is not very audible when you consider it's all second harmonic. With his amps distortion is -40db at light listening levels, around 1 watt which I feel is too much. My SE tube amps are rated 12 watt at 1% THD which for me is very loud, the speaker distortion is much higher than 1% and it sounds very clean to me still, I run Class A2 mode so I have headroom up past 20 watts. People still rant and rave how amazing these distortion makers are, to me the amp was too colorful and didn't do complex music very well at all. Simple music it sounded okay and the distortion adds to the richness but when cranked up it was just too distorted, complex music lost it's clarity. I presume most of these people use these amps at around 1 watt with light jazz and vocals which is why they like them so much.

To answer the question there are lots of these boutique tube amp builders out there that know very little about circuits but they can make very nice looking amplifiers and that's what sells them. There is a huge markup, I mean $10,000 for these amps? really? At least put some more effort into the circuit to get some acceptable performance.

OK but I thought we were talking about exploiting the parts shortages situation.

 

[captainbeefheart]

OK but I thought we were talking about exploiting the parts shortages situation.

Instead of having new transformers wound to his spec the builder sells old transformers that he can scrounge up as "upgrades" for ridiculous prices.

 

[pjug]

Instead of having new transformers wound to his spec the builder sells old transformers that he can scrounge up as "upgrades" for ridiculous prices.

I see. A different thing as I see it, but the gouging is sure there.

 

[bkdc]

Quality control, robust long term durability and improved customer service in case you have an issue. Older Topping Tripath amps were long term bombproof. The new Topping amps have to prove themselves, and that would take years.