[Sonic Defender]

Graham Slee is an odd duck, however, he really does tune some very musical amps. Still, the price point strikes me as high. If it takes him that much time to refine and tune the designs he will have to eat more of that time as an unrecoverable expense. I get the feeling that the price reflects the belief that all of his tuning time was billable. Regardless of how you cut the cake, it is a simple box, with fairly simply parts. Sounds great, no argument, but that is far too expensive. Hell the Gustard U12 will give it a run for $399.

 

[Articnoise]

  Graham Slee is an odd duck, however, he really does tune some very musical amps. Still, the price point strikes me as high. If it takes him that much time to refine and tune the designs he will have to eat more of that time as an unrecoverable expense. I get the feeling that the price reflects the belief that all of his tuning time was billable. Regardless of how you cut the cake, it is a simple box, with fairly simply parts. Sounds great, no argument, but that is far too expensive. Hell the Gustard U12 will give it a run for $399.

 

The Graham Slee Solo Ultra Linear diamond edition sounded good to me. Better than the Soloist I had at the same time in some for me critical regards. I don’t know about simple parts. The caps and volume pot for example is of high quality. The very, very small amp with a separate PSU can be attractive solution for people that value this aspect.

 

Am I saying that the Ultra Linear is the best there is. No far from it. It’s good for efficient headphones and people that want a refined, open and musical sound IMO.

 

Btw Ultra Linear have caps that need very long burn in time before they sound at its best. 

 

[Sonic Defender]

   

The Graham Slee Solo Ultra Linear diamond edition sounded good to me. Better than the Soloist I had at the same time in some for me critical regards. I don’t know about simple parts. The caps and volume pot for example is of high quality. The very, very small amp with a separate PSU can be attractive solution for people that value this aspect.

 

Am I saying that the Ultra Linear is the best there is. No far from it. It’s good for efficient headphones and people that want a refined, open and musical sound IMO.

 

Btw Ultra Linear have caps that need very long burn in time before they sound at its best. 

I had a Novo for a time, and I won't lie, it impressed the hell out of me. Such a tiny thing, very light and yet it generated that much quality sound? That said, I still feel that the prices are too high. Maybe I'm not giving enough credit to his designs. I know I would love to have a Solo UL, but I would never pay the full retail. While it may seem irrational, in my mind there should be some relationship to parts and price. I can't help but thinking that with such a design we pay a disproportionate amount for intellectual time in the sense of musical tuning. Regardless, the few Slee pieces I have heard have been very impressive so I would not like my comments to seem that I am dismissing the quality of sound. 

 

[Articnoise]

  I had a Novo for a time, and I won't lie, it impressed the hell out of me. Such a tiny thing, very light and yet it generated that much quality sound? That said, I still feel that the prices are too high. Maybe I'm not giving enough credit to his designs. I know I would love to have a Solo UL, but I would never pay the full retail. While it may seem irrational, in my mind there should be some relationship to parts and price. I can't help but thinking that with such a design we pay a disproportionate amount for intellectual time in the sense of musical tuning. Regardless, the few Slee pieces I have heard have been very impressive so I would not like my comments to seem that I am dismissing the quality of sound. 

 

No problem, I don’t take your comments as dismissing the quality of sound. Am just describe the pros and cons as I see them 

 

Which aspects we value is very personal and also subjective. The problem for me is that even if the Ultra Linear have much more power than the spec will indicate, it’s still not enough for my more power hungry planar. Have you heard the Graham Slee Solo Ultra Linear?

 

[Sonic Defender]

   

No problem, I don’t take your comments as dismissing the quality of sound. Am just describe the pros and cons as I see them 

 

Which aspects we value is very personal and also subjective. The problem for me is that even if the Ultra Linear have much more power than the spec will indicate, it’s still not enough for my more power hungry planar. Have you heard the Graham Slee Solo Ultra Linear?

Sadly only at my local audio shop for a brief demo. I would love to have some quality time with it. Which planar do you have?

 

[mark2410]

   While it may seem irrational, in my mind there should be some relationship to parts and price. I can't help but thinking that with such a design we pay a disproportionate amount for intellectual time in the sense of musical tuning.
 
Regardless, the few Slee pieces I have heard have been very impressive so I would not like my comments to seem that I am dismissing the quality of sound. 

 
well you do realise that in everything electronic you buy there is a component of the cost to cover R&D?  granted if its some mass market device that cost can be split more ways and thus is one of the ways you get economiies of scale.  devices such as those from Graham Slee and any other higher quality audio maker is going to have that same issue,  you arent selling them in their millions and you never will.  all high end stuff is like that, even from large scale companies (sony, senn, yamaha etc etc) their top end stuff begins to dramaticaly rise is price in comparison to the corisponding sound quality improvement.
 
its rather like complaining Van Gogh's Sunflowers should cost no more than the bill of materials used.

 

[Sonic Defender]

   
well you do realise that in everything electronic you buy there is a component of the cost to cover R&D?  granted if its some mass market device that cost can be split more ways and thus is one of the ways you get economiies of scale.  devices such as those from Graham Slee and any other higher quality audio maker is going to have that same issue,  you arent selling them in their millions and you never will.  all high end stuff is like that, even from large scale companies (sony, senn, yamaha etc etc) their top end stuff begins to dramaticaly rise is price in comparison to the corisponding sound quality improvement.
 
its rather like complaining Van Gogh's Sunflowers should cost no more than the bill of materials used.

I'm not saying that his time and skills shouldn't be factored into the selling price; however I am saying the cost may be disproportionate overall. Regardless of the skill in tuning, or how hard it is to make these fully discrete designs, at the end of the day, the cost in parts would be quite low. Maybe I'm wrong here, that is very possible, and I'm certainly willing to have an open-mind on the subject. I'm actually kind of divided even on my own opinion. 
 
One part of me thinks it was Slee's choice to adapt a more time intensive way of achieving the sound and that was his choice so expecting people to pay a premium for the decision seems a little disconnected from most players in the industry. I could be wrong here, but I assume most people are more concerned with the final sound of the product and not as much with how the product was tuned. I don't hear the process of design, I hear the finished product and while very good, I'm not sure there is universal agreement that Slee's designs always sound better so we can't even simply except that a fully discrete design always yields a superior product therefore it is worth paying more for the design and tuning skills.
 
On the other hand it is hard to discount that the industry needs design artists who are experienced in the design of discrete circuits and if we simple allow this type of craftsmanship to disappear the audio industry will be worse off in the long run. It is kind of like genetic diversity for a species, the more diversity, the more rigor found in the species. So if I try to think like that, how can I really gauge just how much that skillset is worth? Maybe he isn't really paying himself that much for his work.
 
Frankly, maybe I should simply say I don't actually have the right to really make a pronouncement, nor do I have enough information anyway. If his designs sound good (and they most certainly do) and people accept the price as reasonable for their needs and sensibilities, I guess that is really all that matters. I could simply go back and remove my comments, which I'm tempted to do, but I think it is more fair to leave the comments so that others can think about things raised here as it is an interesting discussion at the least.

 

[mark2410]

well i think it all comes down to scale and trickle down.
 
its like F1 cars, they cost stupid money, are rediculously ahead of the cruve, they are extreem high end easoteric stuff.  even basic things on them are insanely expensive.  everything is brand new, vast ammounts of R&D and then produced in tiny, tiny quantities.
 
however eventually that R&D knowledge trikles down, becomes more common, begins to be mass produced and 30 years later ends up in normal cars.  its just how technology works.
 
 
so while i can understand where your comming from, i mean the best examlpes i think are the Kef Muon and the B&W Nautalus speakers.  they are / were just insane things, crazy money, but you give them time and the tech and knowledge gained by making them trickles down into more sensible things.  still youve got to keep in mind that even those big names (Kef B&W) all their cheaper stuff is all mass made over in china. as far as i know.  however Graham Slee stuff i believe is all still hand made in the UK.  in a sence its not far off having some hand made suit made for you, its all the time and human hand work that your paying for.
 
while i understand you may prefer that the things were made by a robot and churned out by the thousands, thus making them cheaper, we might all like that but there are certain economic realities that prevent that being the case.

 

[Sonic Defender]

Yes, I can't disagree with the spirit of your above post. While I'm not sure that I prefer mass production, I also don't really care about hand-assembly either, but I'm quite sure some people do. I am glad that the industry can still support the different models of design and production, as I said diversity is a good thing. I have learned that quality is obtained in many ways. Can I get wonderful, technically perfect items from mass-production, Asian models, damn straight you can. Can I get the same level of quality from a small shop in the UK, sure thing. It is nice to have choice and I do hope that my earlier, somewhat regrettable comments about the cost of Mr. Slee's offerings don't overshadow that I do understand there is value to small scale, hand production. Anyway, I'm glad for the conversation as it has helped me explore the issue and in doing so I have actually come around almost full circle to seeing more value than I originally thought I saw in this production style. It is good to challenge our own assumptions and I do feel I learned a little by thinking about this question.

 

[Articnoise]

  Sadly only at my local audio shop for a brief demo. I would love to have some quality time with it. Which planar do you have?

 
Audeze LCD-3F and a modded Hifiman HE-6.

 

[mark2410]

  Yes, I can't disagree with the spirit of your above post. While I'm not sure that I prefer mass production, I also don't really care about hand-assembly either, but I'm quite sure some people do. I am glad that the industry can still support the different models of design and production, as I said diversity is a good thing. I have learned that quality is obtained in many ways. Can I get wonderful, technically perfect items from mass-production, Asian models, damn straight you can. Can I get the same level of quality from a small shop in the UK, sure thing. It is nice to have choice and I do hope that my earlier, somewhat regrettable comments about the cost of Mr. Slee's offerings don't overshadow that I do understand there is value to small scale, hand production. Anyway, I'm glad for the conversation as it has helped me explore the issue and in doing so I have actually come around almost full circle to seeing more value than I originally thought I saw in this production style. It is good to challenge our own assumptions and I do feel I learned a little by thinking about this question.

 well, yeah i tihnk we both really agree on the issue.  i mean id be perfectly happy if the amp got a sudden burst of popularity and instead of being sold in the hundreds? / thousands? if they could get some factoroty productionaline going and start churning them out and thus production costs plummet, hey win win for us all right?  same quality but for much cheaper.  however life just isnt that easy and the fact is that this sort of higher end headphone amp is a pretty small market.  it getting bigger but its still nothing next to mobile phone market.
 
hmm though you know you could always contact Graham an ask if hes thought about maybe making some cheaper, more mass produced products, you know something farmed out production wise to china.  i myself have no clue how easy or hard such a thing would be but for the moment, you want this quality, hand crafted, audio peice of art then your wallets gonna take a beating.  its just how it is.

 

[swannie007]

If you perceive value in the asking price then you may purchase it. I, for one, don't perceive value in hand made solid state amps as I believe that a mass produced ss amp is probably better made due to modern assembly techniques and thus more reliable and not to mention, cost effective. I can't hear the difference between hand soldered components and machine soldered ones so won't pay what I perceive to be excessive prices for this, however, if this is of value to you then I am sure you would happily pay a premium for this manufacturing method.
Hand made suits and shoes are another thing all together and, in my opinion, not comparable to a hand built ss amp. This is just my opinion and I appreciate that some others will have differing opinions and I salute the diversity expressed in this forum as life would be very dull if we were all the same and all had the same tastes and sensibilities. Cheers. 

 

[mark2410]

well i would question why you feel  a hand made suit, the value being in that its a small production run of a product thatt has a very specific tayloring in mind.
 
the same is true for an audio product, hard crafted due to being a small numerical production run, of a finely crafted unique product.
 
 
now i do agree that there is no inherent reason why the same product could not be made by machines, on an assembly line, pumped out in the thousands, fora price that could be drasticaly reduced.  that is the nature of mass porduction, you get to sperad the cost of development over many more items, so each can be sold cheaper and that machines are cheaper to run than humans are, still further reducing the price.  So im sure if say Sennhiser came along and said, Graham, wo want you to make us a new version of the Solo Ultra, put our name on it and we want (and will guarantee we'll buy a minimum of) 20 thousand.  then im sure they could produce a similar quality product for less money. in the exact same way you could order 20 thousand suits to your exact  measurements for a fraction of what you would for each one, than you would be buying just one.

 

[Articnoise]

Only a few audio companies that makes higher end headphone gears have the means and demands to operate at Economies of scale. The increased interest in personal audio have brought more businesses with big pockets and assembling facility’s to the market of making higher end headphone gears lately, so we might see a change.

 

A mass produced gear is not more reliable or better sounding than a handmade. Nor is a handmade automatically more reliable or better sounding. Some more expansive handmade audio gear are made without op-amps and pre fabric circuit board and instead they uses discrete components and point-to-point construction for electronic circuits. To by hand make point-to-point construction and use more expansive discrete components take more time and cost more and it’s up to the consumer to evaluate if they value this method and design - price and SQ vice. 

 

[Sonic Defender]

  Only a few audio companies that makes higher end headphone gears have the means and demands to operate at Economies of scale. The increased interest in personal audio have brought more businesses with big pockets and assembling facility’s to the market of making higher end headphone gears lately, so we might see a change.

 

A mass produced gear is not more reliable or better sounding than a handmade. Nor is a handmade automatically more reliable or better sounding. Some more expansive handmade audio gear are made without op-amps and pre fabric circuit board and instead they uses discrete components and point-to-point construction for electronic circuits. To by hand make point-to-point construction and use more expansive discrete components take more time and cost more and it’s up to the consumer to evaluate if they value this method and design - price and SQ vice. 

Agreed, in the current state of technology, even average components can sound so close to exceptional ones that often the technical merits of each design and individual part are simply academic discussions. I think where the truest value in somebody like Slee would be the final tuning of the products. Not much different than the variation among say violin makers in the golden age. You could achieve different signatures between violin makers even when they worked with the same wood species simply from the nuanced manner in which they tuned their violins. Again, it is entirely possible to prefer a mass produced sound signature if it suited your tastes over a finely crafted hand made amp or whatever. I also find the Slee gear slight austere looking, but not unattractive completely.
 
For my sensibilities, I try to keep an open mind, but I find the products that come out of say China these days are frequently quite good. My iFi iDSD Micro for example seems exceptional, and given the features and solid amount of power available I am happy with the results. If I had more disposable income I would be very interested in another Graham Slee amp as my brief experience with his work was quite positive.