Looks like Quinn is going under

[tag101]

FWIW: Despite what's going on in your life, you should get out front of it and keep people who sent you thousands of dollars in the loop. It's not fair to leave people hanging like that. I hate to see this happen to anyone. He struck me as a pretty complex dude with a ton of anger issues, and I hope he sorts things out and makes things right.

Andy, You know I love you, and IMO. you make one of the finest sounding D style amps that can be had. That being said, you should NEVER post a negative comment about a competitor. We have had this discussion about Bruno amps years ago, so it seems your opinion on this has not changed. Neither has mine...
Now that being said, I truly hope all is well in your world. [/img]

[tag101]

Here is the 183 my Employee ordered a LONG time ago, and is finally together and should be here shortly. Looks insane, and I know it will sound even better! Good for Shad for finally getting his act together. Better late than never. I was seriously concerned myself that this one may not happen. Some things are worth waiting for, and I think this will be one of them.

[IMG:683:400]http://pic20.picturetrail.com/VOL1448/1 ... 124424.jpg[/img]

[IMG:621:400]http://pic20.picturetrail.com/VOL1448/1 ... 124422.jpg[/img]

[LeftyStrat]

Making a living hand building amps is probably a fantasy many of us have, but the numbers don't add up for me. I'd need $60 an hour and 40 hours a week to just rent a house in Ballard. And that would be without health insurance.

I could move somewhere cheaper, but then I would be farther away from working musicians.

As painful as it sounds for me to say this, wealth comes from convincing others to strive for your enrichment. Right now Chinese are cheaper, and they will eventually learn quality.

Ken didn't die wealthy, and neither will Alexander.

And even if you come up with the most incredible circuit ever, all of us on TAG will clone it.

[VacuumVoodoo]

And even if you come up with the most incredible circuit ever, all of us on TAG will clone it.

Right. Thanx for your candor

[img:640:397]http://tubewonder.com/bdbpics/BDD-card.jpg[/img]

[tag101]

Making a living hand building amps is probably a fantasy many of us have, but the numbers don't add up for me. I'd need $60 an hour and 40 hours a week to just rent a house in Ballard. And that would be without health insurance.

I could move somewhere cheaper, but then I would be farther away from working musicians.

As painful as it sounds for me to say this, wealth comes from convincing others to strive for your enrichment. Right now Chinese are cheaper, and they will eventually learn quality.

Ken didn't die wealthy, and neither will Alexander.

And even if you come up with the most incredible circuit ever, all of us on TAG will clone it.

That has to be way off, or you need to get out of there. $9,600 a month to rent a house? You could live in the NY metro area and buy a very nice house for 2K a month. That would leave with $7600 per month. A decent health insurance plan will cost you about $680 a month. That still leaves you with $6800 a month!

[redshark]

Why that TKT183 doesn't have the classic 3 dumble switches between input volume and EQ?

[CHIP]

Looks like push/pull pots.

[cbass]

Making a living hand building amps is probably a fantasy many of us have, but the numbers don't add up for me. I'd need $60 an hour and 40 hours a week to just rent a house in Ballard. And that would be without health insurance.

I could move somewhere cheaper, but then I would be farther away from working musicians.

As painful as it sounds for me to say this, wealth comes from convincing others to strive for your enrichment. Right now Chinese are cheaper, and they will eventually learn quality.

Ken didn't die wealthy, and neither will Alexander.

And even if you come up with the most incredible circuit ever, all of us on TAG will clone it.

That has to be way off, or you need to get out of there. $9,600 a month to rent a house? You could live in the NY metro area and buy a very nice house for 2K a month. That would leave with $7600 per month. A decent health insurance plan will cost you about $680 a month. That still leaves you with $6800 a month!

Alexander could die wealthy if he sold out and had amps made in china.
Werent his parents pretty well off? So he probably will die rich

So it takes 120k a year just to live there?I wonder what I could make there.

I just bought a big 5 bedroom 3 bath house on a private golf course here and fixed it up. My mortgage is 500 bucks a month.
Its terrible here though.I dont even lock the doors at night or ever take the keys out of my truck.
Probably not the best place to gwt your name out for ampbuilding though.
The General Guitar Gadgets Pedal kit guy lives the next county over out in the sticks.

[LeftyStrat]

That has to be way off, or you need to get out of there. $9,600 a month to rent a house? You could live in the NY metro area and buy a very nice house for 2K a month. That would leave with $7600 per month. A decent health insurance plan will cost you about $680 a month. That still leaves you with $6800 a month!

I meant that income would enable you to live in Seattle and rent, but not buy. My rent is about $2300. You'd be lucky to find a house for purchase under $500k.

[vibratoking]

You have good, current skills if I remember correctly. You should be able to 'get ahead' with your skills. Find a job that does or it's time to move. You can always find excuses why you need to stay there, but I doubt any of them justify financial suicide.

[tag101]

That has to be way off, or you need to get out of there. $9,600 a month to rent a house? You could live in the NY metro area and buy a very nice house for 2K a month. That would leave with $7600 per month. A decent health insurance plan will cost you about $680 a month. That still leaves you with $6800 a month!

I meant that income would enable you to live in Seattle and rent, but not buy. My rent is about $2300. You'd be lucky to find a house for purchase under $500k.

That still leaves you with $7300 a month. I think you forgot there are 4 weeks in a month.

[LeftyStrat]

That has to be way off, or you need to get out of there. $9,600 a month to rent a house? You could live in the NY metro area and buy a very nice house for 2K a month. That would leave with $7600 per month. A decent health insurance plan will cost you about $680 a month. That still leaves you with $6800 a month!

I meant that income would enable you to live in Seattle and rent, but not buy. My rent is about $2300. You'd be lucky to find a house for purchase under $500k.

That still leaves you with $7300 a month. I think you forgot there are 4 weeks in a month.

You're forgetting taxes, so it's closer to $5500 after rent and federal taxes.

I have three teenagers, they are kind of high maintenance items. They eat like they have bottomless pits for stomachs. I spend at least $1k a month on groceries.

Then clothes, guitar lessons, cell phones, etc. Gas is more expensive in the NW. My combined trash pickup and electric is $400 a month. I spend over $100 a month for high bandwidth Internet. $200 a month for eating lunch downtown on workdays.

Once the kids are out of high school I'll move out of this expensive neighborhood. We're here for the schools. My youngest daughter has a great eye for composition and is a very good photographer. Ballard high school has a film/video/photography program that has has student's films played at Cannes.

Admittedly, there are some things others might consider luxury items. Everyone has pretty up to date Mac laptops. OTOH, I dumped cable after it went over $100 a month.

Then there's that heavily taxed legal weed I can buy...

You're right though, a builder could probably get by on less if he wasn't also saving for college and retirement. Have you checked out tuition lately?

[talbany]

I sat down once and figured out how many amps I had to build in 1 year so my wife could quit working and I could support her and my daughter..Or most expensive amp at that time was 2,200 retail (if I sold it not a dealer) we also had rent for our shop as well as utilities..I had to sell 180 of those amps a year just to cover everything..This didn't include my daughters tuition for private school at the time which was 450.00 a month,also at that time I didn't have a car payment..That's 3.5 amps a week (for our most expensive amp).. As well as building amps I did advertising answering emails and running the company it averaged out to between 60-70 hours a week (if everything went smoothly) just to keep up.. I was living just outside of DC

Tony

[LeftyStrat]

Regardless of my math for Seattle, the question remains how to make a profit/living at handmade, no circuit board, made in the US amps. Other than Dr Z, who else is doing this?

And by profit/living I mean, able to eat something other than ramen. PCB's are disqualified. Obviously Dumble could have been successful if he spoke enough Chinese to have them build his amps, but then would have been undercut by the common Chinese practice of stealing designs to sell to others.

My point is that designer and businessman are at odds.

[Tubetastic]

Their website appears closed. Whether they're presently taking orders or not I'd have kept that open.