GA (golden Age) and similar vs Diy

[SIXTYNINER]

Hi to all,
just for talk. bit and put some opinion about
made in China low price devices vs diy way...

since the quantity of time required for a diy unit,
much of it for a so boring parts get,
like search them on endless warehouse suppliers ,
fill parts list-order , look for replacements to unavailable parts ,
and other similar boring things ,
shipping cost and backorder waiting times,
etc...

build-assembly-test times apart
that probably are the funny side of diy,
then not to be counted if considered as time devoted to a "hobby",
that is part of another hobby or job such as recording, mixing, mastering, and annexess,

vs :
to buy , power on and start to use low price made in China devices
like GA and similar ?

thanks for any about,
and cheers.

 

[wlinart]

Some things i personally don't bother with. I've build (and am building more) my 1073's, in total even cheaper than the GAP ones. But if only needing 1 or 2, i would just buy the Chinese one and maybe upgrade later. The 1176, i've bought a klak teknik one, which is enough for me.

I've also bought some pcb's assembled in China to integrate in my projects, like for example a pcb which does balanced to unbalanced and vice versa. This pcb was €10 via aliexpress, and saved me a lot of designing time and sourcing, building,...

 

[living sounds]

It depends.

Some of those units, like the Golden Age diode bridge compressor (= Alctron CP 540) sound great out of the box. Not the same as the real thing from Neve, but very interesting and useful.

I also personally wouldn't bother with building an LA2A, just get a KT2A and change the T4B, signal path tubes and signal path caps. A DIY SSL clone is probably still cheaper in terms of parts, but will only cost less than a ready-made clone if your time isn't worth much.

That said, like in the KT2A, sub-par parts may be used (ironically, in that unit the transformers are good but some important passive components aren't). So without a few well-placed upgrades you do not get the audio quality expected in studio gear. I wouldn't use the KT2A or their passive EQ without the upgrades, the signal path degradation is far too obvious with an unmodded unit.

 

[pucho812]

We don’t diy because it is cheaper. It can be at times. We diy because we can, because we learn, because there is a sense of self satisfaction that we accomplish something, that we built something. It’s fun.
These days the biggest thing companies are doing is recycling designs, designs they don’t have an ownership of the ip or no real connection to it other then several other companies are doing the same.

It’s pretty depressing. The only upside is there are some companies who don’t do that. Sadly it’s a minority these days.

 

[wlinart]

We don’t diy because it is cheaper. It can be at times. We diy because we can, because we learn, because there is a sense of self satisfaction that we accomplish something, that we built something. It’s fun.

Me neither, but if there's a good and cheap solution, i'd rather spend my time learning other projects which aren't easily available.

 

[living sounds]

Well, when I was a poor student, 150 bucks for parts for a GSSL was very attractive. And all I have learned from DIY enables me to repair and improve everything myself in my studio. My workshop is next door to the studio and if something brakes (as is known happen if you have a lot of hardware) on a sunday I usually have it fixed the next day.

But ultimately, I used a lot of time that I could have made music to do electronics stuff. If I were starting out today I probably wouldn't to it this way again.

 

[pucho812]

Me neither, but if there's a good and cheap solution, i'd rather spend my time learning other projects which aren't easily available.

Good and cheap are hard to come by. I hear a lot of talk about good and cheap from companies like stam, warm, etc, etc. we had demo after demo from these companies. Their mics are ok until you hear a real version of what they tried to clone. Mics are at best ok until you have to mix multiples of them. Their gear is ok until you have 24-48 tracks of it and it all sounds funny.
While audio gear doesn’t have to cost an arm and leg to be great, there are somethings most companies going clones miss out on or cheap out on.

This weekend I fixed a rather pricey clone that was duel mono eq. It was an eqp1a + meq5 in one piece. Their twist was a solid state output stage but had the option to do a switchable tube booster stage. You would think that a unit costing that much would not have issues out the box but it did. Even worse was how it was unterminated after the output transformer so the sweep of 20hz - 80k showed that wonderful spike of signal after the 20k mark.
I suspect they didn’t do any real measurements or anything. Just copied and out in the world without rhyme or reason.