Verastarr amplifiers? Anyone ? Owners or Opinions


Hi guys I am looking for owners of or people that have heard of Verastarr amplifiers, particularly the ssa 64 but any will do.I have found very limited info out there and most was from people that seemed to have an interest in Verastarr. I am wondering how it sounds whats current worth or if anyone would even be interested because I see no sale history. Either their awesome amps and no one wants to get rid of them or no one ever buys them ? Whats the real deal here ?
joehernandez509

Showing 4 responses by mikepowellaudio

Hi Joe, Zephyr by far gives the best advice. One phone call and I could give you a history of that Amp along with our company history, which, by the way, does not include a "money laundering scheme" LOL. Sorry to disappoint the dramatic fantasy.
This amplifier was quoted by the Positive feedback Online Reviewer John Beavers as being the "best Solid State Amplifier I have ever heard". It was our attempt at crossing Home Theater with the High End, and we did it in spades. Problem was Verastarrs heart is in 2 channel, not Home Theater. So we probably made a dozen or so of these amps and they were gobbled up by a cult following, including professional recording studios which used them to tri amp a stereo setup. In fact we sold an iteration of this amplifier which was much more pro oriented to George Lucas for the new (at the time) Industrial Light and Magic installation in the Presidio location of S.F. He used 9 of them for one theater which was their in house screening room the size of a small public movie house. So, you are correct. The people that have them hold on to them like Gold. The people that buy them give us right of first refusal upon the desire to sell, so we have bought back roughly 5 of them and re sold. Do you have one of these Joe ??
As far as Hot Rod Audio, this is what was left of the start of our career. Verastarr started making cables and modifying gear, as well as selling other companies products. We became good enough at it and understood the design of components well enough to make our own designs that were already "hot rodded" from the factory. So we renamed the mod / dealer portion Hot Rod Audio, and relegated Verastarr to making only U.S.A handbuilt exotic Hi-Fi gear. Meanwhile Hot Rod Audio kept selling Chinese and Japanese made modded products. There was one transitional year in between where Verastarr commissioned the manufacture of Chinese tube amps, but we dropped it after 1 year in favor of sticking to our passion which was making exotic handbuilt hi-fi in the USA, rather than designing and selling "profit widgets" from China. Maybe not the best business idea, but its where our passion lies.
Now, we go to RMAF, AXPONA and CES every year and are associated with some of the best names in the industry. Some of our favorites being GRYPHON and MBL.
My relationships run deep in the industry, but we are a company that keeps ourselves low key. We meet dealers through word of mouth contacts. They all come to us, we do not go outbound. Most of our product is sold overseas where 2 channel is strong, and exclusive USA products are highly sought after.

Please feel free to email me: verastarr@gmail.com with any questions..

All the best !

Mike
Hi Joe, I couldn't keep these amps in hand if I tried. I have a waiting list of people ready to buy used SSA amps. Lets just say nobody buys these for resale value. Chances are if you can find one used, you will be paying under $5K which is an amazing price considering these are $12K amps. I dont build anything Joe, I run the company and hatch our design concepts, then oversee the projects. This amplifier was built by my employees under my project management. This is not even close to a "rebadge" of another companies amp, and when I say an "iteration" of this amp was sold to Lucas, I mean I was the guy flying to ILM in SF. In other words, I'm not associating some other company that sold to Lucas that also makes our amp type connection. In fact we made amps for 3 other companies at that time. When I decided to steer the company away from Home Theater, the amp factory was sold by me, and all the IP from this amplifier was retained by Verastarr. We have in our possession the only remaining PCB's from this amp, as well as the only remaining special filter capacitors we made for it. I hope this helps to understand the history a little more.
Hi Joe, I couldn't keep these amps in hand if I tried. I have a waiting list of people ready to buy used SSA amps. Lets just say nobody buys these for resale value. Chances are if you can find one used, you will be paying under $5K which is an amazing price considering these are $12K amps. I dont build anything Joe, I run the company and hatch our design concepts, then oversee the projects. This amplifier was built by my employees under my project management. This is not even close to a "rebadge" of another companies amp, and when I say an "iteration" of this amp was sold to Lucas, I mean I was the guy flying to ILM in SF. In other words, I'm not associating some other company that sold to Lucas that also makes our amp type connection. In fact we made amps for 3 other companies at that time. When I decided to steer the company away from Home Theater, the amp factory was sold by me, and all the IP from this amplifier was retained by Verastarr. We have in our possession the only remaining PCB's from this amp, as well as the only remaining special filter capacitors we made for it. I hope this helps to understand the history a little more.

Most amps we buy back are in the $4K range. We sold them for $6500, as we are the manufacturer. We do not retail. My guess is nobody paid $12K even though it was the retail price. Same thing that's done with most every brand.

Evidently you did not Google me or you might understand why people buy from Verastarr. Its a history of making some of the best products in the industry. It has nothing to do with resale, as resale is not why people buy from us. I do not recommend anybody buy because of resale. Buy for performance and quality. Commonly the smaller, handmade audio products outperform the "well known" brands.. Its been happening for years..

Do you attend audio shows Joe ?

The SSA-64 is special because of a massive dual differential Class A input stage, with very high quality film and foil capacitors. Besides this it has a massively overbuilt power supply. These both mean extremely low noise and very clean, dynamic presentation. "Well known" brands will not use parts like these as they are cost prohibitive and not available in large quantity.

This is common knowledge in the Hi-Fi arena. Hope this helps.