Rebuiling Vintage Tube Gear Costs

I used to rebuild Fisher amps & receivers. I would rebuild all on board power supplies, upgrade the coupling capacitors & replace 12AX7s with good sounding NOS vintage tubes. Also, replaced out of tolerance resistors. These Fishers were stunning sounding per my customers and most never pursued better gear after my sale to them. I did this as a hobby, not really a business. I charged about $500-600 for this service, but NOS tubes did cost about $150 adding to the rebuilding cost. I did sell the existing 12AX7 tubes to reduce the cost of best NOS 12AX7 tubes I supplied. If the amp or receiver needed new power tubes, add about $200 to final cost. I could rebuild these amps in about 6 hours including repacking the item for shipment.
BTW- many rebuilders used awful sounding Sprague Orange Drop coupling caps. I used superior Russian K40Y-9 coupling caps.

What did you pay for a rebuild?

 

I believe I paid 650 for the beautiful Harman Kardon A500 Integrated amp that your friend and fellow Michigan resident restored. I didn't buy it from him directly but from a gentleman in Georgia who is a carpenter and made a beautiful wooden cabinet for it out of cypress wood. After I bought the amp I contacted the restorer who then sent me all the details that went into the restoration. It's an amazing sounding integrated amp.

 

I've never paid anyone for a rebuild, but I have been paid to a number of rebuilds over the years. It seems like it is never possible to charge for nearly as much for time and effort as it actually requires to perform the rebuild for most of us. And for this reason I got out of the business of rebuilding for anybody other than myself years ago.

 

There is not a lot of financial benefits for rebuilding gear. My job pays more per hour.

 

This surprises me. I suppose the trouble shooting involved can be time consuming.

 

I got a great upper management job. It pays mre per hour than I ever could get from repairing/upgrading gear.