Garage1217 is actually a nickname and part of the address of my first shop in which I designed and built many projects from cars, custom speakers, computers, electronics and countless other crazy ideas. At events and through different online community’s clear back around 2005, I somehow picked up the nickname Garage as I was always in my shop or building something. The nickname stuck. It was/is quite common for my home to play host to all sorts of gear heads and real-world audiophiles having a good time and enjoying the music or project(s). When it came time to make a business out of all of the things that had evolved, Garage1217 was born.
I have always had a love of HiFi and have been an enthusiast as far back as I can remember. Music and the wonderful equipment that can reproduce it was rather an obsession. From home HiFi to Car Audio, I was constantly building, designing, tearing it all down and going again while learning all I could.
Sometime around 2009 / 2010, the headphone craze hit me hard as I spent many long days in an office. During that time, I had a chance talk on a headphone enthusiast forum with an amazing gentleman named Frans. Frans is an engineer based in the Netherlands who specializes in analog circuits, Hi-Fi and headphones. I had no idea at the time, but this chance encounter would drastically change the course of my life and countless others around the world!
Frustrated with the current offerings of affordable tube headphone amplifiers and amplifiers in general that needed numerous tweaks and fixes to make them sound decent, Frans and I started talking about what we really wanted from headphone amplifiers. Or simply, that if we made an affordable tube headphone amp, what would we do differently? Frans had already built and designed many amplifiers and knew the path of what should be done. I brought to the table the other side of things. An extensive hardware knowledge, design and production ability coupled with a serious case of OCD :) Ideas were bounced around, beaten up and talked about until it was decided to just build an amplifier rather than keep trying to band-aid what was available (which we were already doing, Frans offering mod guides and I was modding amplifiers). It was quite a fun project and after tons of emails and critiques, the first amplifier we produced (Project Sunrise) was born. To this day, we keep the Sunrise amp alive and strong as the sound has become nearly legendary.
One thing we do differently than most, we offer all of our products in a kit form with an excellent build manual. Personally, I love DIY projects and thought other solder slingers would as well. So many kits on the market are just a bag of parts, a single page of where to solder the parts and sellers not including everything needed or even half of the total parts for the build. This always irritated me. I wanted to make something that a new builder or veteran solder slinger would have a fighting chance at completing rather easily and have everything he or she needs from the components, PCB, chassis, and power supply. DIY always gives a great feeling of accomplishment. While we sell pre-built amplifiers primarily, it has been a pleasure catering to the DIY crowd and we will never stop doing that!
Our design philosophy is to provide the biggest bang for the buck possible and bring headphone HiFi to the masses. We also firmly believe in being straight up with our customers. We give all of our product specs, power ratings and info up front. No blanket statements to get a sale or giving misleading info. If there is something we do not list that someone wants to know - ask us! Another belief we have, is in the law of diminishing returns. In this, we provide excellent hardware components but do not and will not make the leap to exotic boutique parts to drain bank accounts. We also pay close attention to the size of our products. We do not believe in the bigger is better theme and try to make each product fit nicely on a desktop and not take up a ton of room.
In short, we design for real world use and try to keep the wallet as much out of the pleasure of listening to music as possible as music is what it is all about! Many companies forget that key aspect.
That sums up our company. We have a lot of visions to become more and offer more, but there is a fine balance of growth and doing things right. We only build as fast as quality allows and will always stick to that theme.
I have always had a love of HiFi and have been an enthusiast as far back as I can remember. Music and the wonderful equipment that can reproduce it was rather an obsession. From home HiFi to Car Audio, I was constantly building, designing, tearing it all down and going again while learning all I could.
Sometime around 2009 / 2010, the headphone craze hit me hard as I spent many long days in an office. During that time, I had a chance talk on a headphone enthusiast forum with an amazing gentleman named Frans. Frans is an engineer based in the Netherlands who specializes in analog circuits, Hi-Fi and headphones. I had no idea at the time, but this chance encounter would drastically change the course of my life and countless others around the world!
Frustrated with the current offerings of affordable tube headphone amplifiers and amplifiers in general that needed numerous tweaks and fixes to make them sound decent, Frans and I started talking about what we really wanted from headphone amplifiers. Or simply, that if we made an affordable tube headphone amp, what would we do differently? Frans had already built and designed many amplifiers and knew the path of what should be done. I brought to the table the other side of things. An extensive hardware knowledge, design and production ability coupled with a serious case of OCD :) Ideas were bounced around, beaten up and talked about until it was decided to just build an amplifier rather than keep trying to band-aid what was available (which we were already doing, Frans offering mod guides and I was modding amplifiers). It was quite a fun project and after tons of emails and critiques, the first amplifier we produced (Project Sunrise) was born. To this day, we keep the Sunrise amp alive and strong as the sound has become nearly legendary.
One thing we do differently than most, we offer all of our products in a kit form with an excellent build manual. Personally, I love DIY projects and thought other solder slingers would as well. So many kits on the market are just a bag of parts, a single page of where to solder the parts and sellers not including everything needed or even half of the total parts for the build. This always irritated me. I wanted to make something that a new builder or veteran solder slinger would have a fighting chance at completing rather easily and have everything he or she needs from the components, PCB, chassis, and power supply. DIY always gives a great feeling of accomplishment. While we sell pre-built amplifiers primarily, it has been a pleasure catering to the DIY crowd and we will never stop doing that!
Our design philosophy is to provide the biggest bang for the buck possible and bring headphone HiFi to the masses. We also firmly believe in being straight up with our customers. We give all of our product specs, power ratings and info up front. No blanket statements to get a sale or giving misleading info. If there is something we do not list that someone wants to know - ask us! Another belief we have, is in the law of diminishing returns. In this, we provide excellent hardware components but do not and will not make the leap to exotic boutique parts to drain bank accounts. We also pay close attention to the size of our products. We do not believe in the bigger is better theme and try to make each product fit nicely on a desktop and not take up a ton of room.
In short, we design for real world use and try to keep the wallet as much out of the pleasure of listening to music as possible as music is what it is all about! Many companies forget that key aspect.
That sums up our company. We have a lot of visions to become more and offer more, but there is a fine balance of growth and doing things right. We only build as fast as quality allows and will always stick to that theme.
US Contact - Sales, Technical Support and Service:
Admin@garage1217.com (Jeremy)
Based in Phoenix Az
Based in Phoenix Az
Euro Contact - Detailed Technical Support Only:
Solderdude4u@gmail.com (Frans)
Based in the Netherlands
Based in the Netherlands
A long winded rambling about who G1217 is:
G1217 Amplifiers and Preamplifiers:
Exceptional sound, versatility and design with a price tag that leaves your wallet in one piece. G1217 Amplifiers and Preamplifiers offer more as they are designed with what we want. Prices are kept low as we are factory direct, keeping the middle men out of the loop.
With every amplifier, you see the entire inner workings. Anyone can stick a generic PCB with the cheapest parts and crappy layout hidden in an expensive metal case... we do the opposite. We offer the best PCB quality, beautiful layouts and top notch components which all add up to exceptional sound. We do this while keeping prices low so anyone at any budget can afford our offerings and enjoy the hobby.
Regards,
Jeremy
With every amplifier, you see the entire inner workings. Anyone can stick a generic PCB with the cheapest parts and crappy layout hidden in an expensive metal case... we do the opposite. We offer the best PCB quality, beautiful layouts and top notch components which all add up to exceptional sound. We do this while keeping prices low so anyone at any budget can afford our offerings and enjoy the hobby.
Regards,
Jeremy