Decware SE84UFO25 vs. Unison Simply Italy => what can I expect?

Of course that‘s possible. The Unison Simply Two is almost worshipped by my dealer who sells them in large numbers. And for a tube amp, it has really sold very well over the years. Surely for a reason.

My dealer, who designed the Max 1 and 2 for them once visited their factory and realized that a lady‘s job was it to glue the Unison logos to the boxes at the bottom of the front. My dealer, a German, said this takes time and money, one could leave it away. The boss of Unison Research (an Italian of course) immediately intervened and said: “This woman has been doing this for years. And she‘s got children.“ End of story

By the way, Unison Research is located close to Venice. An area where lots of small manufacturers are located, those who really do craftsmanship in its best form.

 

I wasn't exactly knocking g Decware quality. It's very good quality , the Unison is much higher quality . Hand made / assembled vs hand crafted. Do you really think Decware makes the casework and cuts the top panel? I doubt it, they have them made to their spec and assemble the parts manually. They don't take raw materials and make them into parts.

 

Correct me if I’m wrong, but based on pictures from a quick internet search, Unison doesn’t even hand wire their amps, they use circuit boards. Capacitors don’t look like anything special either. Can you tell me what type they use and also where do they get their transformers?

 

Audio Note amps use circuit boards too, are they junk? I never said anything about point to point. I prefer point to point but its rare. Decware is a good value, never said it wasnt but they are very cheap to make. If you have ever been associated with bringing an audio product to market you know exactly what I mean. They only significant cost is the transformer. And most of them are small . Parts cost on the se84 is probably $150 - 200. They are buying in volume The volume pot is super cheap and costs a few bucks. Please don't act like it's a $2000 amp for $1000, its not

I heard the smallest Unison driving a pair of Cornwall and it sounded great , they are good sounding amps.

 

If you have NOS RFT EL34's you have great tubes already, and as far as the KT77's go just check with Simply Italy on compatibility before you try it. And I love your system those speakers look great!

 

Thanks for the response Oddiofyl. You seem to know a lot about the internal parts of the Decware amp and the Unison and what these parts cost. Can you please compare the parts of the Decware with that of the Unison? I’m not concerned with the casework, everyone knows that Decware puts very little effort into their casework, it’s what they do. No question the Unison looks better, but many are interested in what’s under the hood. Tell us what you know. Thanks!

 

I don’t but , when I see an internal photo it says a lot. I was in the biz during the heyday of AV there is a huge markup on audio. Huge

That $1000 receiver by name any brand costs about 200 -250 to make. Speakers , even more profit. What do you think streamers cost ? Very little compared to what they sell for.

Like I have said many times , Decware is a good value but I have seen and used unison products and they sound excellent. Look and feel high quality

There are plenty off the shelf parts in the UFO. Nothing special there. Simple , low parts count. Cheap to make. That’s not a bad thing, that’s the philosophy, great affordable sound . Be ready for a price increase at Decware , parts are going up 15 to 30 percent on electronics

The original poster bought an amp that was perfect for the speakers from the same mfg. What advantages would he have with a flea powered amp? None. He made the right choice in my opinion

 

Cheap to make?...



8:29 in the video and you can see the level of components and handmade p2p construction found in a Decware amp. The components shown are clearly premium, and they’re paying a skilled tech to assemble those amps 1 at a time by hand with the quality required to stand behind a lifetime warranty..

the UFO may very well not be the best amp for the poster, like you have said it’s low powered and is only going to be ideal for a minority of speaker situations... and at over 1 year the wait is excessive... but in terms of craftsmanship and quality for dollar spent I really doubt there are many better options than Decware for those with high sensitivity speakers and a willingness to be on a wait list for an extended period of time.

 

I think it can be a slippery slope when one starts looking at the price of individual parts at the wholesale level and then conclude Decware is an inexpensive, or less high quality, than another product. Nearly all companies in these sorts of price ranges use inexpensive parts when looked at individually, including Unison Research. Sure, the parts play an important role, but a bigger role is the design, engineering and manufacturing quality. On that level, they are comparable brands.

Yes, Unison Research puts more money into their casework. I own the Marantz Model 30 stack (SACD 30n and Model 30 integrated) which both have very nice metal casework from Japan, and they look great. But my Decware preamp with it’s real cherry wood base also looks the business. And I love the fully exposed tubes and the cables shooting up from the rear.

I totally get the notion of a flea watt amp not being enough for most folks, and that’s a reasonable knock. The Unison Research will run a wider variety of speakers. But I don’t see the parts used by Decware to be appreciably better or worse than Unison Research and their printed circuit boards. Decware sells direct while Unison has to support a distribution network, which takes a larger slice of the pie. Once you remove the distribution network, Decware and Unison Research are priced similarly, and share similar overhead burdens.

Which sounds best is a different issue and certainly a matter of personal taste.

That’s a long winded way of saying that both Decware and Unison Research produce high quality, great sounding tube amps.

As for a Decware price increase due to parts supply issue in the future. Part of Decware’s issue is that they have taken orders 3+ years out at today’s prices. They could institute a price increase, but it will be applicable to orders being built in 2025 and do nothing for the interim.

 

I understand it’s all labor , my estimate of parts cost is accurate for a se84 If it wasn’t they wouldn’t make any money. They need to make 2x as a direct business model.

 

Realistically what examples do you have of brands that operate on thinner margins?

 

I’m sworn to a Non disclosure but a while back I was involved in a project where the receiver cost $207 to build and retailed for $800. So the Decware probably has a smaller margin because it is hand built here in the US.

 

One ding on Whammerdyne, unless I just haven’t looked hard it enough, is it doesn’t seem they are super upfront with what’s under the hood, granted the owner seems the type to geek out on tube gear and I’m sure would be open if asked

 

Please understand, I am not saying Decware is bad at all. It seems to be a good value, they have a cult like following , it sounds good.... it will cost you $ 3200 for a "loaded" se84ufo 25th which is not even the same amp. It's bigger , has a lot more filtering and better parts . So for $ 998 you get a nice amp, p2p, sounds good.... it is a lot for the money compared to any $1000 or so Chinese amp , no doubt . Would take one any day over Chi Fi.

 

I’m not trying to argue with you by the way, just curious what people that know more than me see when they look at all this stuff.

 

But that is sort of saying Decware is not that great, right? If one says that they’d take one over a Chi Fi amp, that’s not exactly a ringing endorsement. It seems you’re saying that Decware is sort of a pre assembled kit that uses cheap off the shelf parts, but sounds ok compared to Chi Fi. Totally fine if you don’t care for Decware, and I’m quite free with my criticism of certain aspects of Decware, thus hardly a cult member, but I’m not sure your characterization of Decware’s quality is fair.

Decware is selling wholesale direct to consumer, so that $1000 price tag is somewhat misleading when comparing it to brands requiring distribution. Decware is certainly niche due to the dependency on highly sensitive speakers, but it’s a high quality product that comes with a LIFETIME warranty to the original owner, and I believe, can be transferred to a second owner for a fee. Few companies offer such a thing. Unison Research seems to have a one year warranty that can be extended to 2 - best I can tell. If Unison Research were of such superior construction quality as compared to Decware, one would think their warranty would be much better than that. One year is pretty lightweight.

 

Even Audio Research and McIntosh only offer a 3 year warranty on their tube amps.

That places one in the position of having to argue that Decware can endure a lifetime warranty for every product they sell because the parts are so cheap that replacing them is easy. But that certainly begins to bend the laws of physics as then every cheap brand would offer lifetime warranties. Or perhaps Decware is so adept at finding high quality/ cheap off the shelf parts that they’re able to accomplish a reliability and longevity that both Audio Research and McIntosh would envy?

Or maybe Decware simply makes a high quality product (including quality parts) for which a lifetime warranty is no problem for the company. I’m thinking that’s the story….

 

Hi Guys!

If I will ever buy a tube amp to start with it would be the Unison Simply Italy.

I wonder if anybody has tried this amp with less sensitive speakers. I own old Sonus Faber Concertino Home (87dB - 6 ohm) and I wonder if this would still be a good match as the Unison Simply Italy has only 2x12 watts.

I live in an appartement and nearly never go over 80dB. So this would still be enough?! What do you think?

Bye Andrea

 

As far as the “lifelong guarantee“ is concerned I always wonder what will happen, when the company is gone? I mean not because they are not successful, they certainly are as the long lists prove, but when the founder retires? I don‘t know his age, but seeing how they handle the deposit thing I‘m not super confident that lifelong guarantee is something that extends into the far away distance. But well, that‘s just speculation.

@andrea Belluci: Ciao You‘re from the originating country of this beautiful product. Maybe you can find a local dealer who has them on stock so that you can try it at home. Actually, in reality the Simply Italy is more like 2x8 Watts, if I remember correctly. So you should give it a try to definitely find out. In the end it‘s probably a question of volume.

 

Hi Andrea I suspect it could be enough with some music not others, jazz for example should work well, what you may find with busier or more dynamic music is that the combo might feel slow at times. It's certainly worth trying if you really want that amp and perhaps you could change to more suitable speakers down the road. I ran a 17 watt pushpull amp on a pair of 90db sensitive monitors (Focal) and found that to be the case jazz and simpler music sounded great rock sounded slow, moved to 93db speakers and all genres sound great.

 

If there is a 15%-30% increase in electronic parts (and I have no reason to doubt you) that could be incredibly hard for Decware to absorb considering the three year backlog of orders. Even if they increased the price of their amps today that’s three years of making them at a much higher costs than anticipated.

This is one reason why having a lengthy amount of back-orders is a bad thing, accounting-wise. Lots of exposure to unforeseen component price fluctuations.

 

Fortunately for a lot of their designs there is low parts count

 

The back and forth about parts quality has stirred something within, and now I’m curious which y’all would prefer: an amplifier full of parts that combine optimal values with garbage branding—or that combine sub-optimal values with boutique branding?*

You want both optimal values and boutique branding? What if, in whatever specific case, measurements and listening experiments prove the sonic superiority of Brand Garbage … could we, as armchair amp designers with a propensity to share on audio forums, handle that?

I’d be careful with this stuff, as sometimes we assume a little too much. (Not pointing fingers—I’m as guilty.) Putting together an amplifier is not like ordering options on a new car. In the automotive context, upgrading to leather is not going to affect our 0-60 time; in the audio context, it could. In other words, sometimes the right choice is not the luxe choice.
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*For those who very reasonably would choose the former, the latter is sometimes an option. I was messaging recently with someone looking at a SE amplifier sporting some fancy-ass output transformers, which had roughly half the primary impedance needed by the output tube they were connected to. How does this happen?

 

It's obviously not an either/or question but the point you raise is totally valid the more expensive part isn't guaranteed to sound better in a given circuit. I think that's why repeated breadboarding of circuits and listening tests of a range of parts is very important. And obviously output transformers are crucial in a SET or any tube amp they should be correctly specc'd obviously but generally better transformers, and to me that's usually vintage, sound better.

 

Honestly have a very difficult time distinguishing between what some on here consider a fantastic tube amp and one that’s just filler

so I was actually going to bring in some recent posts from yourself and @Oddiofyl over in the boutique brand thread, but as you’re here I kinda wanted to follow up on some recent thoughts.

Jim you mentioned several builders in the other thread, and then pose this question here, and I wonder if you have a different opinion as to what boutique means than I. I would consider those builders you mentioned to frankly be “boutique” brands. They aren’t household names with flash and pizazz marketing, and provide optimal value, at least in your eyes. I’d say boutique lacks branding or household recognition, so kind of the opposite of what it is you are portraying boutique to be. I know more about bikes (or did) for instance than audio, so someone like a custom frame builder, ie Davidson, would be boutique, and what your describing is a brand that sells a lifestyle, and still makes quality, but lacks soul, kind of like Specialized.

So this brings in some of what’s been mentioned here and in the boutique thread, value of the parts, value of the builder, value of the designer, value of marketing etc.

What is it, for instance, that draws you to Don Allen or any of the other names mentioned? Is it the quality of parts they use? Is it the vintage of parts? Is it that he is passed away, or others retired, and so there is a certain rarity to obtain any of their work? Is it that you respect their “ear” for voicing an amplifier? What is it about them that adds the value, because to be frank while they are all difficult to find for sale due to scarcity they don’t sell for much, so what is it about those builders that you put on a pedestal that you feel you can’t get in a similar price bracket as say a new Decware amp, or from someone like Triode Lab that you just stated you “don’t get” the allure when they very specifically detail the expensive quality components that go into one of their amplifiers? I’m not saying they (triode lab) are better, I’m trying to gain a genuine understanding and improve my knowledge in regards to this niche of hifi.

And @Oddiofyl , what is it about the parts or build of
Toolshed that makes you see the value in their work vs other builders?

Again, this is all out of genuine interest an learning, as I’ve got about 20+ years less experience than most of you all in this industry haha