Point to Point Wiring


I'm relatively new to audio but pretty well informed about tube guitar amps. The great guitar amps are, almost without exception, point to point wired. My '67 Super Reverb is a good example.

When reading reviews of supposedly top of the line audio amps, whether solid state or tubed, I usually see references to the amp's circuit board-- even Lamm and other cost-no-object amps don't feature point-to-point wiring.

In guitar amps, it's the simplicity of design and "less-in-the-signal path" goal that dictates avoidance of circuit boards, in addition to the fact that burned out circuit boards take out the whole amp at once.

Wondering what the reason most audiophile amps aren't point to point wired, other than the fact that circuit boards are cheaper and faster.

D
dkidknow
Quicksilver also produces hand soldered point to point amplifiers, at a fraction of the cost of Air Tight. I cannot attest to these amps, as I have not personally listened to them, but it's interesting to note that it isn't only the very highest end that's making point to point wired components.
Blue Circle uses almost all point-to-point wiring. I think only the CS line and their phono stage don't. Also check out DeHavilland (sp?) I think they make SET amps and even some SET guitar amps for those who have that kind of money.
Point to point wiring is fine for tube amps as there is space to work between the tubes.....To make solid state work properly a board is necessary for consistency. Problem with boards is the board engineers as few have the talent to keep things close to one another to keep the open loop bandwidth extremely extended. We at CTC sort of combine both in our solid state preamp as we use small boards with lots of wire. The input to output is on one square inch of teflon board for the fully balanced discrete folded cascode design which allows an open loop bandwidth (it is run open loop) of 350K........Wire sounds quite a bit better than any board material.....