|
Gomez,
Please man, what I do all day, my primary job, is to read and listen to customer feedback and beat up my people at my factory to test more parameters, match more parts, and pay closer attention. More on top of more already. We have all kinds of custom-made jigs to match tubes, batch tubes, burn in tubes, measure and match pots at 11 points on their rotation(!) whist logging the data into a custom Filemaker database that will then calculate and spit out the best matches, measure and sort Vactrols, match transistors, match capacitors, match chokes, etc. And we do not charge enough for all this hidden work that you don't even imagine that we already do! We'll order 1000 stereo pots and use 200 of them. We commonly will get a 80% pre-QC fail rate on tubes. What does THAT cost? More than we charge for, I assure you.
You are welcome to come visit our factory to see for yourself what goes into producing this kind of high end equipment. You have no idea... You just think we are all lying to you! Wow!
Manley Massive Passive bandcards are built as pairs. Extensive matching goes into every unit, whether it be for the mastering version or normal version. There is no calibrating stereo match for the bandcards. Each part (pots, chokes, caps) must be measured, sorted, selected, then paired up to its other channel friend. Then those two bandcards get labeled and taped together so they end up in the same unit.
We achieve the absolute best matching that can be practically achieved using 20% tolerance pots, 10% and 5% tolerance capacitors, 10% tolerance hand-wound multitapped chokes, and 1% resistors. In order for matching to improve, lower tolerance parts would have to be found (do they exist?) and your parts cost would go up HUGE. It does end up cheaper to go to 24 position Grayhill switches, but hell, it is still too rich for your blood. Can't win now can we?
|