Two main reasons in addition to the ones you stated: one, is to keep the chassis size to a minimum, and two, for production consistency. No two people have the same soldering skills, and can even have a bad day or two. But the pcb stays consistent. BTW, Spectral now uses surface deposit pcb's - incredibly fast and detailed. Can't really do that with wire. |
Some are, my Air Tight pre and power amps are both point to point wired. |
They still do the point to point wiring on some amps. Usually the more expensive ones. PCBs are cheaper and more consistent for production. I still like the hand wired amps. |
Point to Point wiring is always the best, but not for mass production! (consistency and efficiency) Air Tight is a great brand (they use high quality components in their products), but the production line is small when compare with some other manufacturer. Also their products (price) are focused on those higher-ended consumers. |
In a tube amp, the sockets provide most of the "points" that need wires. So point-to-point makes sense. |
If sound oriented, cost no object an non mass-oriented home amplifier's designer, the like of like Air Thight and Zenden use the different "point to point wiring" versus "circuit board" approch, as they do, we would then be forced to conclude that, "implementation" will be more of a "factor", then the use of one, over the other.
What do you thinck ? |
All Tube Research Labs products are wired point to point. |
Quicksilver also produces hand soldered point to point amplifiers, at a fraction of the cost of Air Tight. I cannot attest to these amps, as I have not personally listened to them, but it's interesting to note that it isn't only the very highest end that's making point to point wired components. |
Blue Circle uses almost all point-to-point wiring. I think only the CS line and their phono stage don't. Also check out DeHavilland (sp?) I think they make SET amps and even some SET guitar amps for those who have that kind of money. |
Cary SLP 98 is also point to point wired. |
Point to point wiring is fine for tube amps as there is space to work between the tubes.....To make solid state work properly a board is necessary for consistency. Problem with boards is the board engineers as few have the talent to keep things close to one another to keep the open loop bandwidth extremely extended. We at CTC sort of combine both in our solid state preamp as we use small boards with lots of wire. The input to output is on one square inch of teflon board for the fully balanced discrete folded cascode design which allows an open loop bandwidth (it is run open loop) of 350K........Wire sounds quite a bit better than any board material..... |
The Canary Audio line is also 100% siler wire point to point wired. "You mean there is someting other than tubes"? |
Point to point wiring may or may not make sound quality better. Each product using that particular technique needs to be taken on a case-to-case basis. Point to point wiring however, in a hobby where high price is already equated to sound quality, only exasperates the problem. IMHO. |
do you mean, 'exacerbates', probably, but I like your spelling better! |
Mark- I are an engineer. You are correct!
Russ |
correct, perhaps, but that does not make me 'right', I don't mean to criticize, take care, MM |
Royster
>>The Canary Audio line is also 100% siler wire point to point wired.<<
That is 100% incorrect. Check with the company or their retailers. |
Russ hit it on the head - it is the implementation that is more important than the wiring technology. Both PWB and wire can be done well, and there are situations where each excels, as Bob stated.
Steve N.
Empirical Audio
Manufacturer |
The AES Six Pacs are also point to point wires along with the AE-3 DJH. The are reasonably priced as well. |
