Objective 2 DIY amp under $100

[dingostolemyipod]

And if I could buy just one SS amp which would make you GREEN with envy, what would that be ?

Envy's not really my thing. But if you had a pair of halcro monoblocks, you might just get there.

[grevillea]

Great - I'll just have my wood flooring replaced with something suitable for those monsters .............. given that I'll need a Lotto win anyway, might as well just build a house around the amps.

[grev]

A few people are selling them assembled with panels, but all seem... overpriced.

[Zusional]

Yeah everyone is charging above $100 for the thing.
Unless you make it yourself.

[dingostolemyipod]

To be honest, the assembled units are priced quite reasonably, assuming its built by someone who has reasonable skills and not some chump.
The parts cost for a complete unit would be up around $80, and could easily be higher depending on the economies of scale a particular builder employed. Then there's hours of labour in there too.

[grevillea]

I'm with Dingo - I just couldn't see Ray Samuels or Justin Wilson selling this amp for the price Oliver is charging me. Ray's Paypal fees plus shipping would easily account for the first $80 of my budget.

[grev]

So far I know JDSLabs are selling them without enclosure, and the British company selling it with enclosure but for 100 pounds + other things... Any notable others?

[grevillea]

I wanted mine to be 'turnkey' and was prepared to pay a bit more for that, but it seems like a more feasible project for newbie DiYers than something like this:

http://nwavguy.blogspot.com/2011/06/qrv ... e-amp.html

It’s a bit like gluing a model ship together inside a bottle. As one builder said on diyAudio, he was ready for brain surgery after assembling his QRV09.

I spent way too much time as a child wondering how Airfix glue could stick small parts to my fingers but not to their intended location on the plane/ship.

[grev]

I had gundam models when I was young and I think I'm past that time of putting things together like that myself...

[dingostolemyipod]

100GBP for the epiphany ones is a good price IMO, and the jds assembled boards for $95 is a good price too. These are small businesses we're talking about, and they're going to be 1,000s of $$$ out of pocket to produce the amps, they'll need to make a moderate amount of profit to make it worthwhile.

Judging by the numbers of boards people purchased in the group buy, I did get the impression that quite a few people had bought an extra 1 or 2 for selling. You'll should find these odd ones popping up in f/s sections here and there. Some of these might be fairly cheap, depends how much people want to charge for their time and effort.

I think a lot of the issues on the price of the o2 are nwavguys fault for calling it a $30 amp. It was never a $30 amp, that was the parts cost + estimated board cost from the BOM(even then nwavguys bom pricing was based on higher price breaks, not the 1x). That doesn't include any shipping(3 or 4 sources) or the batteries and wallwart required to power it, or any case, or machined front panels. All of those add up.

[ory_zm]

I think a lot of the issues on the price of the o2 are nwavguys fault for calling it a $30 amp. It was never a $30 amp, that was the parts cost + estimated board cost from the BOM(even then nwavguys bom pricing was based on higher price breaks, not the 1x). That doesn't include any shipping(3 or 4 sources) or the batteries and wallwart required to power it, or any case, or machined front panels. All of those add up.

+1
My cost of parts alone from the Australian group buy (also known as the "you might get those parts eventually" group buy) is $200 for 2 sets, and looks like I will have to spend another $20 to get australian wallwarts... in retrospect I regret ordering 2 sets, by the time I get them and put them together, who knows if anyone will be interested in the second amp...

[kelvinyap9]

who knows if anyone will be interested in the second amp...

You could borrow Marcus one for a review

[ory_zm]

You could borrow Marcus one for a review

I could.. if he is even interested. Would be interesting to hear his thoughts though, especially as I have 0 amp listening experience.

[grevillea]

Even with our dollar hovering around parity (and above parity when the 02 was announced), I never considered it a '$30 amp', but at least it doesn't carry the RSA tax.

[Marcus]

I'm always interested in testing new stuff