| That's funny, I didn't detect a 'stance' in Tony's post. I personally don't see it as a knock on AMS-Neve if other cloners are using some (or all) of the same parts. If AMS-Neve is making a great product, then they are making a great product, and there will be a market for it.
But hey, maybe it's simply a matter of semantics...or maybe we can at least agree to disagree.
After all, what is a clone, and what is the 'real thing?' And what's better?
Is a Universal Audio 1176 a 'real' 1176, or a clone? Universal Audio owns the specs and the name...so that makes it real, right (not a clone)? But if there are subtle differences in the build because some of the parts are hard to source, is it still real, or is it now a clone?
But wait, Andrew from Purple Audio also makes a nice 1176. Okay, certainly that's a clone and not an original, right? (hell, it's bright purple, for chrissakes). But some people seem to like it better than the UA version, and even some of the revisions of the originals...so...hmm.
How about a Telefunken U47 made by Telefunken (USA)? Is that real, or a clone?
My point is this: AMS-Neve is not "Rupert Neve & Co.," and hasn't been for a loooong time (Rupert left almost 30 years ago!). In fact, they are a totally different entity with different leadership, different personnel, and different facilities. Granted, I think there are a couple of guys left from the old regime, but everything else is different -- except the name. And a company is always about the people, never about the name...
In 1985, Neve was sold to Siemens, and AMS and Neve merged in 1992. At that time, the company was focused on their digital films consoles, and later the 88R recording consoles. They were not in the business of making 1073's. Then, when cloners recently started to build successful businesses emulating the 1073 and other Class A Neve designs, AMS-Neve saw an opportunity and decided to start reproducing 1073's themselves. Of course, they had to source the parts all over again in order to build the units, since they had abandoned that aspect of the business some time ago. For the output transformer, they chose Carnhill's equivalent to the LO1166, which is the exact same output transfomer used by the clones. When I called Carnhill and asked them about it, they confirmed that they make the same output transformer for everybody (AMS-Neve, Chandler etc). I think this issue got a little blurred because AMS had a fine-print message on their site for a while that said that only their transformers were "made to the proper spec," or something like that. I don't see that message anymore, so maybe they're dropping that line of marketing....
Which is probably wise, since they don't need to resort to that. The psychological power of the brand "Neve" will do the work for them. After all, there is no stronger brand in the world of Pro Audio. All they need to do is continue reproducing the modules really, really well, and we'll happily buy them...
However, the bottom line is still that AMS-Neve is making 'reproductions' of the original, with modern equivalent parts and a spec that essentially matches the originals. And this is still wonderful news for everybody. It's a great clone, and there's nothing wrong with that -- JB |