Congratulations on 100 Monday Monologues! I think I have watched all of them! I suggest you shoot for high-end when building with known tubes (KT-88, etc) and amps you intend to offer for sale. "Experimental" builds, like the 6c3c?? that haven't been proven out pose a financial risk if you have to buy very expensive iron which can only be used for the one project and it turns out to be a dud. Please keep doing new builds when you can fit them in the que. To keep the DIYers who are on a budget in the fold, maybe offer suggestions on what iron and capacitors would be satisfactory but cost less on their initial build. They can always save their S&H Green Stamps and buy upgraded components later. This way, you cover all the bases that matter. Very excited to hear your assessment of the new PS Vane tubes!

Dear Steph, I think I might be repeating myself, but anyway, build your amps the way you feel comfortable with. Do not try to meet customers requests, do your stuff your way - either it's budget or pricey, don't get lost in the product jungle, trying to cover every market segment (by the way, 500 bucks is not that much of a price difference if you are willing and able to spend 2000). Actually, it's quite simple: Dear customer, take it or leave it. A good and solid brand is based on character. Kind regards and congratulations on the 100th monologue.

Congrats on 100 vids, Stehe! 👍🎶🥳💜 Damn, time flies. It seems like your 300B build was yesterday…… I personally think you should offer both the standard and the upgraded versions. People like having choices, and upgrading to better parts isn’t as important to some, as long as it doesn’t become a pain in the ass for you. Your channel is very unique in what you offer, but unfortunately some people just enjoy complaining, and there’s no pleasing everyone or accommodating everyone either. Congrats again, Stehe! 100 episodes is quite an accomplishment. 👍🔊😊🎶💜🥳

Congratulations 🎉🎉🎉 Thank You Steph

Can't wait for the results of that Musical Paradise amp! CONGRATS ON 💯! 🎉

Happy 100th Stephe. If you happen to receive a Musical Paradise MP-301 Mk. 1, pull off the cathode bypass capacitors on the two 6AU6 pentodes and drop the gain. There's plenty of gain without them and the 6V6GT output tubes will stop going into premature clipping. You will hear an immediate improvement. The 6L6GC model is a lost cause. One of these came to my workbench. Good output transformers potentially equal good sound. Excellent output transformers potentially equal excellent sound. You are no doubt aware that the output transformer is the weakest link in the signal path, and money spent here is money well spent. Yes, Audio Note capacitors are excellent, both electrolytic and film caps. I use both, though I may stop buying AN copper foil film caps. They're just too expensive these days. Build with the very best you can afford, and you will be glad you did that you didn't compromise. Lots of junk out there and so little of the really good stuff.

Congratulations Stephe!!! Thanks for everything you do!

Congratulations on 100th episode. I've been there from the beginning. I can't wait to see PSVANE tube review and R300+ review. Dave

My vote goes for the higher spec / higher parts quality for the KT 88 / KT 120 mono blocks. There is a solid market for that ! Also, as you have already found out the hard way, "mass market" DIY is a vipers nest of guys who will demand all your time, ideas and resources for free...! Best to avoid that stress and spend your time working with a smaller customer base who are prepared to pay a fair price for all your time and resources. Good luck!

100! Congratulations. I haven't found a better tube channel on KZfaq. You're a natural communicator and passionate. Love your work!

Congratulations Stephe. You have had interesting ride and it is (hopefully) very far from over!

Would love to see your approach on a tube output stage for the topping. This could be an endgame DAC!

Congrats on this 100th milestone, It's funny that you are having minor issues with builds and content, well I guess that just comes with success ,Love to see the smile , also I think we all love that when you come across a poorly sounding build that a follower sends in ,instead of just trashing it you put your heart and soul into the correction of design show us the completed repair of the unit, Oh yes I've commented before and you respectfully shot me down ,we would love to see and hear your builds over this channel. If you don't do it I challenge someone else to do so, Sorry Skunkie.

its customary to get dolled up for the 100th episode 😉

Congratulations on your 100th! Never boring. Always appreciate you.

Congratulations on your 100th ep. Thank you for all the knowledge you've been providing.

I tried looking for that ILFORD record behind you for the longest time. 😅 hahahahaha imagine my surprise. Cheers to your 100th Monday Monologue. Keep it up!

Congratulation , Like to see the next 100 !

Congratulations!!!

Congrats! 13.3K subs in 100 videos, that's something. I really love your approach to Chinese vs US products, that's the spirit! You definitely care about quality, both in components, build and most of all - sound, you totally should keep that up. None of that Chinesium rubbish. My take on their amps is they try outweighing the sound with the looks, going for fancy schmancy enclosure designs (I'm a bit skewed here as I prefer the raw elegance of the '50s/60s/70s professional electronics) while using flimsy chassis and substandard components.

Happy 100th videos.

Congratulations from Spain! Such a cool Channel, keep going please. Thanx!

A little late but congrats. I only discovered your channel recently and am catching up. As with many others I personally would like to see you build high end amps for sale. You are two skilled to spend your time building budget amps. Put the circuit out there with maybe suggestions on how someone might do it cheaper. Then let others figure that out. I think there is a market for a manufactured in USA 100% analog point to point amp. No PCBs. No active components. There is an allure to that. It is certainly important to me. Gustave🤠

Happy 100th !!!!!!!!

Congrats on 100 monologes! I agree with you when it comes to the quality of components etc. When making something custom, that your amps is and what we are making when building kits (or from scratch for that matter) it makes no sense to try and compete with mass produces stock stuff in price. When one builds something custom it has to be the best you can do , naturally within your own reasonable limits. Else the investment in time we make does not make sense, except we are doing it as a hobby of cource, but still! But I think we can operate with two categories of devices: Experimenters edition , where we test out ideas and whether we like the sound of the architecture / components / tubes, this category can be a bit more budget, not neccessary to go to the supposedly best components just to test out stuff. Then you have the "Best amp I can build at the moment" category that we make when we think we are done experimenting...for a while :-) . Here you should go for the best you can afford and makes sense when it comes to tubes and components. My 2 cents on that!

I remember watching motorcycle builder Jesse James thinking about price. More people want his bike that he can build. A guy told him "people will pay". That's what I didn't do in my business. Go with the best.

Well done on the 100!

skunkie, ive so enjoyed your videos. whats so special is the thoughtful, inventive, affordable builds. i hope you dont lose any of these qualities. theres stupid asking prices and rampant price gouging in tubes and tube audio, and there no shortage of pay as much as u can amps. but theres a remarkable corner of audiophile where builders make good, excellent or exceptional audio gear at very los coast, because...they build it. its a world of audio for those who can. i like that you make this world of audio a bit more accessible for those who cant. even if you offer an ungraded bigger money version of a standard build, i like the way you do what you do. seems you got it right the first time, so to speak. blessings!

I’m happy for you to go higher end on the KT-88’s (~$5k), hoping you show build videos, schematic, provide BOM. My ideal situation would be to purchase the chassis from you and then build it myself, following your lead. Not really a kit, but it supports DIY. I don’t know if that fits your plans or not, but that would be my vote.

congrats on 100th ep！ I strongly recommend going with the higher end quality product line，especially consider you are limited in production volume . As you mentioned in this video，your amps are not competing with chinese made amps. Your time and energy would be best spend on ensure best design and sound quality. This should provide you with descent margin for your labor and free up your time for making new video contents and other new ideas. keep up the great work！

Congratulations!!🎉🎉 it is a wonderful achievement. It is not easy to maintain the excellent content. That you so earnestly provide. Thank you, it is most appreciated. 👍

💯CONGRATS! 💯 The new AKM DAC chips sound really good. I find they are more sympathetic to poorer recordings than Sabre chips.

Congratulations!

Imo mono amps should have the best parts posible.Why not start a kickstarter for the mono's see if there is demand for them.

🎉CONGRATULATIONS 🥳

Love your content. You should have a lot more subs!

Congrats on number 100!!! Look forward to the next 100 :) Be curious to find out more about this new line of Psvane tubes. I am on my 3rd quad of EL34’s in my amp, and their EL34PH Phillips replica tubes are, along with the Winged-C EL34’s, the nicest sounding tubes I’ve ever tried. As far as your amps go, build the best amps you can. The caveat is, however, the price point to keep in the back of your mind is related to “off the shelf” parts. And by that, I mean the chassis are not being custom manufactured to suit a particular design aesthetic, the transformers are not custom wound with silver wire, capacitors are not custom would. I think you see where I’m going with this. All that to say, if you are using all off the shelf parts, no matter how good, that will set some kind of limit to how exotic those off the shelf parts should perhaps be, and what price point you should be selling them at. Use the best parts that are reasonable to use that provide a definite sonic benefit without going overboard.

Great channel 🎉🎉🎉

Yay grats!

Congrats on 100! You are very much at ease on these episodes. You really shouldn’t compete against cheap Asian kit. I suspect your followers are much more sophisticated and know that you get what you pay for. Ignore those who think you should compete with China. I have a 300b with Hashimoto outputs and Mundorf paper/oil caps. Did I spend too much? I don’t think so because I wanted high quality.

A mile-stone Nice Lot of builds going on It may make sense to just do your builds exactly the way you think they should be made and capture a higher-end audio market segment and quality Appreciate all you are doing

Congrats!

Congrats!!

Would like your opinion of tone controls-like the McIntosh or Shiitt