I guess I was looking at where the cheap line gets drawn. I agree on the effort part of the build. Cutting and mounting is a lot of work.

I got called upon by a friend of mine who is engineering a minimum cost amp. 12AQ5's for the finals and 12AT7 for the input. $20 output Iron and 'lytics everywhere. Voltage doubler PS...

While the exercise on paper is entertaining, I don't think I'd take on such an amp. Major overhaul, and IMO as you noted E-Linear is quite easy and effective.

I don't breadboard. I do some serious tweaking once I get it together in a chassis usually. It's why I don't use much of the 97/3 lead free tin and copper solder from Radio Shack. The stuff does not play well with solder-wick.

I have a bench top adjustable PS. Fairly potent, and enough to run a fairly healthy stereo amp. I don't use it much. I have seen some clip-lead nightmares and with a little one running all ova the place I won't be doing *THAT* today.

I like to build, then mod, then stretch some limits, rearrange the circuit...Bigger PS Iron, change things around in the front end. It can get ugly from time to time. Back to the question...

is it better to go inexpensive at first and upgrade, or buy the expensive bits in the first place and then buy more experimental expensive bits as the development progresses? Does this change with the project? I must admit a certain joy at creating with the least expensive bits I can find, and designing around the short-comings while taking advantage of the hidden strengths.

But it's hard to eval something if one gets to marginal in the parts selection.
cheers,
Douglas