Black Widow [Update] - Second round official, 100 amps total, single chassis

1. The heatsinks on the amp board don't even get that hot. Why would we need bigger heatsinks? Real power and bandwidth figures are the website. We actually hook up an HD600 and LCD2 and crank the thing up until we see clipping on the scope. We aren't hiding how powerful or not powerful the amp is.
2. You guys know the history of the BW going from two chassis to one. We even conducted a vote here. (The unit stacking on top on the Gungnir Multibit was not accidental). A single board would have been a much more elegant solution. But it would have taken us more time (money) to redesign two existing boards. Looking back, yes, the board could have been better planned out without the need for as much hand soldering wires and shit.
3. @Rotijon: We can't compete against Audio-GD. US assembly and labor isn't cheap. A lot of what we didn't do as opposed to what we could do for the amp was to keep costs down. Take a look at all of the parts on the BW. (And there are a lot of parts). Add them up and price them on Mouser. Also take a look at the stupid shit we did like keeping the components close together, having resistors mounted vertically, etc. The board was expensive to stuff and difficult to troubleshoot / rework. Where we didn't skimp was sound quality.
4. Putting a KSA headamp together from EBay is a good idea. After chassis, connectors, and jacks, can probably put one together for $600-$700, maybe less if you are DIY'er with parts (wires, screws, standoffs, jacks, caps, resistors, etc.) lying around. I don't recommend going against for it if you can do it. EC sells to people who don't wish to DIY, whether it's because they can't or it's because they don't have time. Last time I checked, Craig needs to make payments on car, mortgage, food, and take care of his daughter. This is how capitalism works. And in any event, a KG KSA sounds different from an EC BW.
5. For people who think KG is an infallable God who knows everything from looking at the internals, he is completely wrong on the Studio being a push pull amp based on his looking at the number of wires attached to the OPT. It's kind of a trick OPT that only people here on the site know the details about.

 

P.S. Just in case people think we are charging too much and getting rich, buying ourselves Aventadors, Veyrons, and shit:

1. The chassis costs us $100 including painting, laser etching, etc. (but not including the time and gas money we use to drive to three different places in the San Pornando Valley to get the work done.)
2. The two boards cost us $500 to be made locally in Southern California. About $250 each. This includes parts, stuffing, and "testing". We've had to do a lot of rework ourselves. The board house was terrible. They pulled off crap like forgetting to put parts on.
3. Labor for final assembly is $100. Costs for box and custom cut foam for shipping are not included in this.

This amp costs us $700 to make, not including ancillary costs. It sells for $1289. Anyone who has been in this business knows that this is not profitable. Something to think about for pretend businessmen or communists who think that everything should be for free.

 

What technical points are there to defend against when people make up random stuff like "needs bigger heatsinks" when the heatsinks are warm to the touch and you can leave your finger on them? Or when people misidentify a SE amp as push-pull because they come to wrong conclusions based on looking at the internals? KG is really scraping from the bottom of the barrel on this one.

And seriously, why should I even waste my time to respond to someone and a forum (HC) who seems to be overtly hostile against the smaller boutique manufacturers: Craig, Alex, Donald, etc. You have to wonder about peoples' motivations.

 

Maybe I shouldn't have brought up Craig's living expenses, but I was trying to make a point EC is Craig's only source of income. I don't know where the f**k you are getting the idea that EC is side-gig idea for Craig or that these amps are being priced based on Craig's living expenses.

Let me put it more bluntly. The BW is not currently profitable and may never be. EC is losing money on every single amp sold for this run. I asked Craig to price the amp at $1499, but he didn't want to because he is stubborn, wants to make good sounding shit for cheap, and didn't expect that manufacturing difficulties would happen. I've already refused my commission.

Finally, please stop drinking the Kool-Aid. Please give us a f'ing break.

 

No, I am just stating an objective, definitive, near god-like fact that raw fish is a food abomination. I swear I am 100% serious and not at all exaggerating for any reason whatsoever.*

*HashbrownIMightBeLyingOrExaggeratingAtLeastALittleBit

 

Let's say I have a lot of those too, but I don't feel the need to use such tactics.

What I don't understand why you continue to be seemingly unsatisfied by my responses: 1) That we didn't do a single board for this run because of time-to-market and controlling fixed costs; 2) That we didn't need bigger heatsinks because they didn't get hot; 3) That KG is just guessing at this point (and has already guessed wrong); 4) That EC does not necessarily place a priority on cosmetics or design elegance.

This only tells me that it's lose-lose situation to even bother to respond. My point is that EC can't keep responding to BS. And BTW, not that many people care all that much about what KG / HC has to say. They've already poisoned themselves with the LL fiasco. They diminished not only Cavalli Audio, but also themselves by the way that they did it. I even remember comments (now deleted) back to Alex when he responded there like "f**k You Thought Leader". I'm going to take the advice I gave to Alex back then and simply not respond to BS. I'm now sorry that I did and that it's even gone this far.

 

For $2500, we'd put it in a much nicer chassis. Anodized in your choice of colors.

 

Cavalli Audio seems to be doing quite well. They've sold hundreds and hundreds of Liquid Carbons. It's also my understanding that the LF was also super successful with well over a hundred or maybe two hundred units sold. I think Cavalli Audio hurt itself more than HC ever did when they attempted a distribution model (remember when the LAu was priced at $6k), and ended up lowering prices when they transitioned back to the direct sale model.

 

BW update. Delivery of another 10 units late next week. We are behind and haven't delivered in the past week or this week.

 

wait what? you don't have some crappy Nighthawk or Ether C v1.0 / v1.1 / v1.69 plugged into BW2?
good on yah mate!