If you use good quality components ( including wires, switches, power supply etc. ) on a well designed PCB  and a good enclosure ( preferably steel or at least aluminum for EMI shielding ) you can even outclass commercial HI-FI equipment ( don't take my word for it , go to www.diyaudio.com and see what hi-end stuff diy-er's can actually make ). Keep in mind that for commercial equipment you pay a lot for the brand and the components inside are not always hi-end ( like in the infamous Grado RA1 ) , and when it comes to ,,audiophile" equipment people pay for their lack of knowledge and understanding of  basic principles of physics ( or at lest the part that deals with electricity )  : 150 $ wall sockets, 2000+ $ power cords , amplifier stands that somehow ( through magic I presume ) drastically improve the sound and so on.

Well, the CMOY isn't exactly "audiophile", a Beta22 on the other hand...

To me HiFi is a claim rather than a certification like ISO or FDA.  Any company can put an amp in a fancy case, charge a heavy price and call it HiFi.  We've seen it a million times in this business.

On the other hand us DIYers don't need to make claims about a 'black box'.  The schematics, measurements, simulations, and so on are all available for you to judge.  So to me DIY is an area where proof is what counts ...something that's almost unheard of in HiFi.

I think we are missing to things here.

The first is the differences between DIY and commercial. Most of the time, people are relieved to pay for something, we think it is a proof of quality. Yet you will find commercial products that are much worse than DIY products (singlepower rings a bell, it is not the only one).

I actually believe the biggest difference is that sometimes, DIYer spend much much less on chassis than manufacturer (chassis, connectors, button, everything that you can see and is not hidden but on the contrary is exposed as clearly as possible) so some DIY amp seem cheap and like they are going to collapse any time. 

I didn't say every DIY build is great, it can go from the really awesome to the awfully dangerous and ugly sounding. It is the same thing with commercial products.

The second thing is that it is not enough to have a bunch of "boutique" components that you throw together to have a good sounding amp. Let's consider the grado RA-1 ; we replace every resistor with some super expensive ones (these at 15$ pc should do it), in the power supply we put black-gates. As for the big black capacitor, they are replaced with 4µF silver mica (I don't even know if this stuff exists but if it does it should be seriously pricey) You won't have a great amp. Even if you replace the obsolete JR4556 with a OPA637 it will still be mediocre. It is difficult to have enough current or voltage from a monolythic op-amp. 

Some designs are seriously flawed and adding boutique cap is not enough, this is commonly admitted. Furthermore I believe (this is not as commonly admitted ) that a good design will not need vodoo parts (take AMB M³ or β22 or Kevin Gilmores solid states amp), not even the tube based design.

To sum-up, you can actually build great stuffs (that equals or surpass the commercial, but a CMoy is not a WA2 or a GS-X, you will at one point throw a LOT of money in your build). I too have wondered what was the "magical thing" that is inside commercial amps and make them sound that great (or as great as people describe in the reviews) to finally find out it does not exist.However DIY is expensive, takes time and necessits to actually have some skills. If we think the contrary, it is often because we can buy a M³ (for instance) for less than the price of the components, that is not the kind of deal manufacturer are willing to do (even if they have cheaper components).

(i am trying to concentrate all I have learnt, which is not much and sometimes may be plain wrong...) 

On the other hand, it's worth noting that there are cases where there is no DIY equivalent

Eddie Current Zana Deux comes to mind.

http://jockohomorants.blogspot.com/2010/01/why-i-hate-audiphiles.html

Not all may agree, but there is some astute observations in there.

DIY'ers don't have to pay for stuff that companies do.  But on the other side of it, we have to pay more for our stuff as we buy 1 or 2 of them instead of a 1000.  I don't DIY because it's cheap, I DIY because it is a great hobby.

Quote:

Originally Posted by nullstring 

On the other hand, it's worth noting that there are cases where there is no DIY equivalent

 

Eddie Current Zana Deux comes to mind.

There can be no commercial equivalent of a DIY project but the contrary is not true. Of course you may encounter problems while trying to clone an amp the manufacturer doesn't want cloned (components painted, schematic not published, case impossible to open etc...) but eventually (and hypothetically) you'll be able to clone it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by bidoux 

There can be no commercial equivalent of a DIY project but the contrary is not true.

Err, why not?

If a commercial product can be cloned, surely a DIY project can be cloned.

Of course, they can't be exact duplicates because of legal issues, but for the contrary, this is true as well.

But unless the project is patented, there is nothing stopping them from producing a similar, technically equivalent product.
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by bidoux 

There can be no commercial equivalent of a DIY project but the contrary is not true. Of course you may encounter problems while trying to clone an amp the manufacturer doesn't want cloned (components painted, schematic not published, case impossible to open etc...) but eventually (and hypothetically) you'll be able to clone it.

Sure, in theory. But doesn't mean that sufficient documentation exists for all products.

I guess my point was that there exist products in which there is practically no DIY equivalent.

Quote:

Originally Posted by psgarcha92 

so, to get a good amp, the things required are:

 

i) a good basic design (one with less flaws)

ii) well Designed PCBs

iii) good tolerating components

 

when i made my CMoy based on OPA2132PA with 1000mF caps, and listened to it, i felt what must be the difference between these and the ones i might buy? what if, by mistake, or by co-incidence, i made something really good? i cant be sure until i measure things and even then, cool graphs dont always mean cool sound. i was looking around for a good sounding or Transparent Amp that can help my new RE0s. i need to make it really small. The problem is that i cannot find anything else then sijosae's designs, and well, they have no documentation whatsoever. What should i do? i want to make an amp, the size of the iBasso T3 (T3 has the minimal parts too) and maybe want it to sound as good as the commercial ones. what should i be trying to build and where to find the documentation? Small, HiFi (even if its just a way to sell it, who knows i might make amps like the iBasoo ones someday?), Portable, Good Sounding if not HiFi. and i hate 9 volts. they are pretty big to be used in "Portable" amps.

 

Thanks for elaborating bidoux

beta22 i might try, but its way too big (should i post my "wanting-to-build-a-small-amp-thingi" as a newthread?)

start a new thread for your other thoughts.

I'm not sure what iii) is but aside from the design and layout (PCB) you need the actual build to be good.  The build itself is an extension of the layout.  If it sucks, you just screwed up whatever you could possibly have.

I meant to say something like this "some DIY amp have not equivalent in the amp market while other do"
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by nullstring 

Sure, in theory. But doesn't mean that sufficient documentation exists for all products.

I guess my point was that there exist products in which there is practically no DIY equivalent.

I can only agree with that. 

Well, the idea is "DIY", stress on the YOURSELF part.

As for Zana Deux, I don't understand why it would not have a "DIY equivalent", you can certainly design and build an amp with 6SL7 driver, and 2 6C33C-B tubes, in fact there was even a thread about that right here on Head-Fi http://www.head-fi.org/forum/thread/340309/6c33c-b-se-otl

Quote:

Originally Posted by psgarcha92 

Hey Cobaltmate, man, i cant help when i am a student living away from home and all the money i saved was just spent on the rig i now have. The thing is, DIY is a hobby for me too, but i cant help saving money with DIY. When looking at the iBasso T3, and T4, i felt, Hey, i can build a cute little amp too, and can totally save the money i dont even have right now. so i dont know, for me it is a Hobby and saving money hand in hand. also, by Audiophile, i did not exactly mean audiophile, (its a relative term i feel, as for me audiophile means good-sound-grade stuff), but meant good sounding or alternatively HiFi or good sounding amps

Do not think of saving money in DIY.  You can get great value for money, but you don't really save money.