how much does it cost you to build an amp?

[wsaraceni]

i see this question asked a lot.....is XXXX amp worth $$$$? i wonder how much it costs the average person to build an amp. let's make it easy and assume that you bill out at $50 an hour (not a crazy rate for self employed people to cover all of the extras).

for me i built one amp.

parts: approx $750 (with no box)
headshell: approx $200
took me about 30 hours to source parts. $1500
took me about the same to put it together and troubleshoot $1500
took it to a friend to troubleshoot it for about 3 hours $150
i figure ill put about another 4 hours into it before i work out the bugs (hopefully not more). $200

Total cost of my amp: $4300 not including rent, advertising, maintenance, and all that other stuff a real company pays for.

i realize i can cut down the time to build, order materials, and troubleshoot once i do more amps. but that first amp wasnt too cheap when you look at it this way.

[Ed de Jager]

A bargain if you ask me.

[wsaraceni]

it makes me wonder how a builder can offer amps at even $2000 and expect to make a decent profit. id bet that the amps some people build here for $1800 they arent quitting their day job and building amps full time.

[Allynmey]

Bill, I agree it takes a lot of time to build a nice amp. Amp companies that do it everyday usually build an amp in 8-12 hours of actual bench time. The parts are presourced since they make multiples of them and they are usually semi-finished (chassis holes). Rarely do amps that are made everyday by the same person cause consistant trouble requiring debugging at startup. Since you own a Komet 60, I figure you are comparing that to your equation. The amp should cost about $2000-2500. Of course, you can add $150 for overhead per amp and a commision to the designer

Just one man's opinion. Of course, the amp is really worth what someone will pay for it! I'm not against someone making a buck!

[rfgordon]

My parts cost, including getting the wood cab built (I tolex them) and the chassis bent (I drill them) runs between $425 for an 18 watt amp to around $650 for a 40 watt reverb amp.

My total time investment is around 20 hours. I generally sell amps for about twice the parts cost.

Some custom amps cost more--I had to get two yards of color-shifting vinyl for the harp amp--at $60 per yard! yikes!

Sourcing takes less time since I started using CE Distribution for most parts.

[Ed de Jager]

As a production potter i can honestly say that if it took me the same amount of effort and time it takes an amateur to produce ,for instance,a plate i`d never sell one and make a profit.
When you start selling things and want to make a profit one of the talents you need is gettig a great job done with the least possible effort in as little time as possible.
I am sure that if you did not make just one amp but planned ahead to sell 1000 amps you would have thought of tricks to save both time and money.Lots of them.

[rfgordon]

Ed wrote: I am sure that if you did not make just one amp but planned ahead to sell 1000 amps you would have thought of tricks to save both time and money.Lots of them.

Quite so, but therein lies the balancing act for me. I enjoy the designing and building process, so it's more about having fun and empowering other peoples' tonequest than making money. If I had to make enough amps to earn a living, it most certainly would NOT be fun anymore! People say all the time, "if you got a website you'd sell lots more amps." Well, I don't want to sell lots more amps. I want to sell a few (5-7) every year, and still have fun doing it.

[wsaraceni]

Bill, I agree it takes a lot of time to build a nice amp. Amp companies that do it everyday usually build an amp in 8-12 hours of actual bench time. The parts are presourced since they make multiples of them and they are usually semi-finished (chassis holes). Rarely do amps that are made everyday by the same person cause consistant trouble requiring debugging at startup. Since you own a Komet 60, I figure you are comparing that to your equation. The amp should cost about $2000-2500. Of course, you can add $150 for overhead per amp and a commision to the designer

Just one man's opinion. Of course, the amp is really worth what someone will pay for it! I'm not against someone making a buck!

all of that makes sense. but it's still not like 3800 or 4000 for an amp is like highway robbery.

take burleymaples example of $650 profit per amp after parts, at 5200 a month at that rate, its not like he would make a killing if he had to factor rent, advertising costs, health insurance, etc.

[wsaraceni]

Ed wrote: I am sure that if you did not make just one amp but planned ahead to sell 1000 amps you would have thought of tricks to save both time and money.Lots of them.

Quite so, but therein lies the balancing act for me. I enjoy the designing and building process, so it's more about having fun and empowering other peoples' tonequest than making money. If I had to make enough amps to earn a living, it most certainly would NOT be fun anymore! People say all the time, "if you got a website you'd sell lots more amps." Well, I don't want to sell lots more amps. I want to sell a few (5-7) every year, and still have fun doing it.

and if you did want to do it full time, im sure the price would go up from $1300 to something a little higher no?

[benoit]

Sourcing takes less time since I started using CE Distribution for most parts.

What do you have to do to qualify to use that site. They say you have to be a business but considering you only do 5-7 amps a year they must not be too picky... Info would be great as its hard to find on their site.

[Allynmey]

Bill, I agree it takes a lot of time to build a nice amp. Amp companies that do it everyday usually build an amp in 8-12 hours of actual bench time. The parts are presourced since they make multiples of them and they are usually semi-finished (chassis holes). Rarely do amps that are made everyday by the same person cause consistant trouble requiring debugging at startup. Since you own a Komet 60, I figure you are comparing that to your equation. The amp should cost about $2000-2500. Of course, you can add $150 for overhead per amp and a commision to the designer

Just one man's opinion. Of course, the amp is really worth what someone will pay for it! I'm not against someone making a buck!

all of that makes sense. but it's still not like 3800 or 4000 for an amp is like highway robbery.

Bill, if they can get it, it's OK with me. I have no axe to grind and more power to them!
I think (I may be wrong) Komets main thrust is repairs not new amp builds. I heard they only do a couple a month. I may be wrong but, that what was told to me. If someone can afford $4000 amps and someone wants to buy them...great! No jeers here!

[Normster]

Pricing will always be a sensitive issue with consumers, but we ARE a capitalist society, right?

If I were to total up all of the time it took to launch the D'Lite project, it would be in the hundreds of hours. Converting schematics to layouts is probably the most time consuming. (To be honest, I'm a constant tweaker so some of that time could be cut back.) Working with metal fabricators, silk screeners, etc. is also pricey. Those guys don't do AutoCAD work for free and there are ALWAYS revisions! I was also shocked one month by a $900 cell phone bill!!!

I'm afraid I have to view amp building as an expensive but very satisfying hobby. If I were going to do this as a business, I'd take the same approach that I do with my day job (as a project manager).
1. Analyze market opportunity to set pricing/unit sales. (Revenue)
2. Set margin expectations. (Profit)
3. See how much is left over for development/production/operations. (Target cost)

If I can't build the product at or below target cost, I don't approve the project. That's the real difference between a business and a hobby.

[rfgordon]

For the question about CE Dist, I just registered, and they took me. Give it a try.

If I had to make a living building amps, I'd need to charge more and also bring the assembly time down. As a hobby-builder, I'm not paying shop rent, employees, etc. I've looked into several places to deliver finished/tolexed cabs, but the minimum orders are about 6 per size/style. Even then the cab is around $300, compared to around $100 the way I do it now.

However, if you think about it, even asking $2000 to $3000 for a handbuilt amp is not bad. The Twin Reverb debuted in 1964 for more than $500! According to one online inflation adjuster, What cost $500 in 1964 would cost $3181.75 in 2006.

The only reason Marshall, Crate, Fender, Kustom, and others can offer tube amps at less than $1000 is because they are machine assembled, and all the cab work is done elsewhere, like Mexico or China, where labor is cheap, uninsured, and poisoned by rampant pollution. Some, like the Vox amps, are 100% made overseas. They can sound OK, and do offer a decent amp for the average player, but they're hard to fix/tweak, and won't last very long for a gigging musician. But they ARE profitable for the retailers. The page area devoted to a particular brand in the catalogs is directly proportional to the markup.

In the words of one of my guys: "Your amps make mine sound like transistor radios. I never knew how dull my tube amps really sounded."

That's why I melt the lead.

[mooreamps]

I don't know about the others. Building them is a lot of work. The guys I biuld for, they apprieciate the tone. Perhaps that's all that matters.
-g

[nickt]

it makes me wonder how a builder can offer amps at even $2000 and expect to make a decent profit. id bet that the amps some people build here for $1800 they arent quitting their day job and building amps full time.

To make a million dollar business building amps start with a two million dollars and wait a while . Seriously I think it's really hard to even make a profit let alone a living building amps.

If you're living in an inherited house with a block of apartments or a trust fund paying for your kids and putting gas in the car then it would be a fun occupation if that was what you loved. Judging by this forum lots of folks love building amps and some (very few) make a living out of it but always plus repairs/mods. If it's what you love then what does it matter so long as you can pay the phone bill.

Personally I'd love to kick the day job and build guitars, wind pickups and maybe build amps but can't do it till the kids are gone and the house is paid off. YMMV