| The price on most gear has little to do with purely the costs of the components involved.
The design of a quality piece of gear costs money. Making something like one of the Earthworks or Grace preamps costs a great deal, and while you might not have tubes in it... you might have stepped attenuators instead (which are rather expensive).
And yea, no preamp is "straight wire". Actually, nevermind there is. I have one that i'll sell for $12,000USD. You do have to sign an NDA however and promise to never open the box, which will be epoxied solidly anyways. Actually you have to use it in front of another preamp, but I promise that it will make it sound better. It's nothing but straight wire, i promise. :) |