Eddie Vaughn
Home Amplifiers Background Philosophy Tech Papers Forum Links Ordering Contact		Whenever you buy something, be it a car, a new watch, or a fine restaurant meal, you aren't just buying the actual physical product alone. You are buying the knowledge, experience, and expertise of the engineer, chef, or artisan behind these goods, and the quality of the materials and workmanship involved in their making. When you're considering buying durable goods such as a major home appliance, or (in this case) an audio component, it's always good to know you're getting something quality for your money before you take the plunge. But, even if you're confident in the product's quality, you're nevertheless still placing yourself at the mercy of the company's customer support policies, that will determine the level and quality of support you will receive after the sale, throughout the lifespan of the product. I therefore feel compelled to let you know something about myself. My name is Eddie Vaughn, and I've been a hardcore tube junkie since childhood. You can blame it on my grandparents, who raised me. You see, Grandpa was a huge fan of tube audio gear, not to mention the fact that he was an avid amateur radio nut as well. He had a stash of many hundreds (if not thousands) of tubes! I grew up with with all sorts of vintage hi-fi and radio equipment everywhere. The air was always filled with the sweet sounds of vinyl spinning in the living room, or blasting through the tube amp in my bedroom! I was actually first "bitten by the tube bug" at around age 5, when I would sit in my grandfather's room for hours, staring attentively at the glow of the power tubes in his linear RF amplifier. I was completely mesmerized by the blue glow that flashed in response to the modulation. It was the beginning of a lifelong relationship with my beloved little "firebottles." Soon after I turned 8, he got me a little spring-terminal electronics tutorial kit, which I spent every spare moment with! Being raised an only child in a rural area with no other children around to play with, I immersed myself in learning about electronics and science to beat the boredom. My grandfather had a huge library of books, manuals, and schematics, which I read at every opportunity. At an age when most kids were drawing or reading comic books in their spare time at school, I was reading electronics textbooks. At age 9, my grandfather bought me my first solder-type kit, which was a little point-to-point wired electronic organ with only 8 keys, that sounded out the tones of the major scale. He also bought me my first soldering iron at that time. I was more proud of that soldering iron than any kid could have been of a new bicycle! Before long, I'd built all the kits at Radio Shack. Then, I got my hands on a Heathkit catalog and went nuts! The learning experience of building all those kits and studying the theory behind how they worked was invaluable. By my mid teens, I was servicing all sorts of electronic gear. There were no electronics repair shops or good music stores in the area, so I worked on a lot of "pro sound" electronics such as guitar amps, bass amps, mixer boards, and PA amplifiers, as well as hi-fi gear. Before long, I began working on guitar amps for friends, and became known as "the" guy to take your amp to when it was sick. Servicing, modding, and building tube gear became my passion, and for many years it was a beloved hobby. Then, some debilitating health problems forced me to quit my job as a tool-and-die machinist, and I began to mod and service tube gear and build custom amplifiers as a full time occupation. Through word-of-mouth advertising alone, with no website or substantial Internet presence, I became so busy doing mods and custom amps that I had customers on a months-long waiting list! To me, this is the best kind of advertising anyone could wish for, a customer who is so happy with your work that he raves about it to everyone. Between being disenchanted with the poor design, parts quality, build quality, and sound of most commercially available tube gear, and being encouraged by my customers to release my own amplifier model, I decided to step out and do it. The result was the Carina, a simple, versatile, excellent sounding single ended amplifier using common tube types, that is synergistic with many of the highly efficient audiophile speakers now readily available for very decent prices. To date, the Carina has replaced many critically acclaimed SET amplifiers (some costing over $5000) in customer's systems, as well as the best of the the new generation of digital amplifiers and some of the world's most highly touted Class A solid state amplifiers. It has beaten $7000 SET amplifiers in listening tests, and is even being used as the reference amplifier at a prestigious hi-end speaker manufacturer. How does one achieve this level of success with a debut product? Very simple, actually. My approach to audio design is different from most. It can be summed up in "it's either the best or it isn't." Straight and plain, if it's not the best, then it'll not have my name on it. Besides the great sound, high reliability, and excellent quality of a Vaughn Audio product, this is the philosophy, experience, and background you are buying with every one of our products. Keep those tubes glowing, and enjoy the music! Eddie Vaughn
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