"Jim Lesurf" wrote in message
...
In article , Keith G
wrote:

I believe summat like 60% of the cost price of a fancy SS amp (of
modest/mediocre spec.) is in the casework, but if that's what people
want and what sells.....???

Looking at some of the commercial valve amps available today I suspect
that
the casework of those is also quite costly. It would be interesting to
know
the actual costs for such things, but I imagine that most producers would
not wish to divulge such information.

I don't particularly have any objection to this if it what people want.
Some of my all time favourite amps in terms of appearance use wood for
sleeving, etc... If you have to look at it, it might as well look good.
;-


Couldn't agree more - if you can afford it, why not have both the looks
*and* the sound?



For innards, in my experience the costly bits were things like
transformers
and heatsinking. i.e. heavy metal. I have assumed this will be so for
valve
amps as they tend to require more in the way of transformers than SS,
although less in the way of heatsinking.


At the risk of betraying a 'confidence', I'll just hint that 'somebody' told
me less than a month ago that the chunky chromed steel knobs on a certain
range of *kits* (would you believe) actually cost more than one (if not
both???) of the OPTs on the same range!