@Arkless Electronics as a designer what would a typical design brief be for a new amplifier? What are the requirements from a manufacturer when launching a new product?
Thanks
Assuming an amp being manufactured commercially for profit here...
A market sector would be identified where you don't have a product to sell or your present one is long in the tooth.
As analysis of rival products in that sector would be made. Which is the best selling? Why? Which have flopped in spite of seeming to have something to offer and why?
A basic spec is arrived at ie how many WPC? How many inputs? Remote controlled or not? What restrictions are there on width, height, weight etc
A target price on the dealers shelf is set and then an analysis of how cheap can we build it for is done.
From that a set in stone budget, including the styling and casework plus packaging etc is made.
Circuitry is designed and breadboarded (a fully functional "lash-up" that looks like an explosion at RS and is built to be very easily added to/have changes made to it etc). This is then tweaked and played around with to get it operating in a stable and predictable manner and tests carried out to make sure THD, damping factor, frequency response etc are all OK and it gives the right amount of power etc. It may or may not be actually listened to at this stage depending on a number of issues relating to the practicality of it...
This lash up amp and PSU will be analysed to see where it can be made cheaper or can have some extra feature that looks good in the brochure added to it.
Meanwhile prototype casework will be getting made.
A more robust lash up/rough prototype is built, both channels now (first go often mono) and some listening tests can be done to it. Until this point no one, not even the circuit designer, has any idea what it will sound like.
Some tweaking etc will likely be done to maximise subjective sound quality but as long as it sounds "good enough", "par for the course" it will probably go ahead as is now.
PCB design carried out and the whole thing production engineered to make it as cheap, quick and easy to manufacture as possible.
More attempts at saving money usually gone through... can the spec of this or that part be relaxed so we can use the 2p each one instead of the 2.7p one, can we fit those made in China 4700uF smoothing caps rather than the 10000uF Rubycon ones the EE wanted to fit and without too many people noticing the difference? They really go to town on this as any money saved here goes straight on to the profit margin!
This the generic kind of process that a reasonably sized manufacturer goes through with a new amp from my experience of being at the sharp end of the business.
Note how small a part subjective sound quality plays in all this! So long as it's good enough so the average punter is going to hear a "hi fi sound" from it and there is no really glaring issue like... well like glaring treble, or really boomy bass or what have you then usually it will be taken as read that a sufficient proportion of punters will be sufficiently impressed to buy it in profitable numbers. Marketing, specious claims, dealer sales techniques, a few ahem.. "friendly" reviewers getting behind it plus glossy brochure and expectation biases etc do the rest...
Sometimes things happen in a rather different order and less cynically... an EE may have tried a few topologies as background R&D, or have developed a circuit in his own time at home for his own use and has noticed it sounds unusually good, and so this circuit may be waiting in the wings when the requirement for a new amp to sell for precisely £699.99 comes along and this can then be adopted, giving it a head start... but not always!
Some may recall my tale of Alchemists Far East distributor, responsible for maybe 70% of all sales, not even wanting to hear the Axiom integrated before taking it on! but being fanatical about cost savings and styling....
This is the all so common reality of it folks...
Many enthusiast run one man bands or very small enterprises run by genuine geek electronics audiophiles do things very differently and much more like you lot would hope for and expect yes, but for an Alchemist Products, an Arcam, a Musical Fidelity etc etc it's
generally as I described IME.