These efforts to make 'World Class' reproduction cost time and money to make. It always surprises me that amateurs cannot assess where the money goes.
Of course, it is a different world entirely with mid fi. I know from recent experience that quality mid fi, has a cheap case, lots of plastic in the parts, like connectors, etc. Marginal capacitors, IC's, instead of tubes, jfets, or quality matched bipolar devices.
However, the ENGINEERING of mid fi can be every bit as good as anything we old fashioned analog engineers will ever do, but when it comes to absolute sound quality, they also find that we can 'improve' their products, by 'throwing money' at them. '-)
That is why there are so many product 'modifiers' out there who do a successful business, improving on the 'well engineered' but otherwise compromised production, products.
Of course, it is a different world entirely with mid fi. I know from recent experience that quality mid fi, has a cheap case, lots of plastic in the parts, like connectors, etc. Marginal capacitors, IC's, instead of tubes, jfets, or quality matched bipolar devices.
However, the ENGINEERING of mid fi can be every bit as good as anything we old fashioned analog engineers will ever do, but when it comes to absolute sound quality, they also find that we can 'improve' their products, by 'throwing money' at them. '-)
That is why there are so many product 'modifiers' out there who do a successful business, improving on the 'well engineered' but otherwise compromised production, products.
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Doing a first-rate job with tubes is nontrivial. The high perveance ones like the 6H30, 6C45 et al. are highly variable in their properties. The grid-cathode spacing is amazingly small. The mechanical Q of the grid structure is quite high, which is both good and bad news: good, as it is rarely excited acoustically, and bad, since when it is it rings for a long time.
So if one counts on even-order distortion reduction with balanced mode, matching is necessary and very labor-intensive. And to get the best performance it's well to lightly load the plates, and if you just don't want sand state devices to get near your signal matters get complicated. Since the piece under consideration uses tubes in the power supply I suspect they avoid almost all silicon.
In any case, that is what it takes to make 'World Class' components. Whether race cars or preamps. That is my experience. I can design 'Hondas' too, and do so, all the time, but they are not 'World Class', even if they can get an 'A' rating for best 'bang for the buck' much like a Honda often is rated.
And don't forget Colin Chapman's dictum that the optimum F1 car should fall apart on its victory lap. Far more important than capacitors hand carved from solid Unobtainium by virgins etc
Different problem, kgrlee. For autos, they are EXPENDABLE! One race, so long as you can finish it, is enough to design for. With caps, it is the difficulty in making the 'optimum' materials into something that is both reliable and without other faults. Teflon is an 'optimum' material that is hard to work with, very hard to work with, and this makes it expensive.
For example, major laboratories, for the last 50 years or so have 1uf Teflon caps in their parts stock. They might typically cost $100 each and cost about the same, 30 years ago. This is because they could RELY on this cap to behave and follow the ideal mathematical prediction of its performance, without adding extra garbage. In audio, we find Teflon to do the same thing.
For example, major laboratories, for the last 50 years or so have 1uf Teflon caps in their parts stock. They might typically cost $100 each and cost about the same, 30 years ago. This is because they could RELY on this cap to behave and follow the ideal mathematical prediction of its performance, without adding extra garbage. In audio, we find Teflon to do the same thing.
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During each of the few times I've flown till now, someone tried to slam an overhead luggage compartment shut like this :
http://www.funny-potato.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/overhead-compartment-planes.gif
Back when I worked on that stuff for a short period, the doors were made of honeycomb and foam, covered with kevlar woven roving, with a plastic foil finish.
Super stiff, super light, cost a grand each.
Next time you hop a plane, realise you're taking a spin on an F1.
Another interpretation is that any measure to prevent the failure just past the finish line would have caused the winner to lose (added weight, or rigidiy etc).
Requires knowing your requirements and how they interplay really really well to achieve that optimized design.
Just my 2 cents
-Antonio
This reminds me of phase change heatsinking. Works great for missiles. You only need to deliver the payload. The survival of the semiconductors thereafter is of no consequence.
Yes, crazymaking, I agree.
F1 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991
Senna 3x Picquet & Prost 1 each
Motorcycle World Championships from 1961 far too many to list ... including some years when they were World Champions in ALL 5 FIM classes.
Not that they subscribed to Colin Chapman's ideas or that their amps would crash & burn after 1 play of Stravinsky's Firebird. But I do know some Golden Pinnae amps that do the later.
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It always surprises me how you don’t allow for different priorities and different Gods to worship.
It should have occurred to you by now in this site.
Amateurs do know where the money goes. Professional designers too.
George
>Edit. I wish you were humorous in your last (above) post
OK, gpapag, let's discuss where the money goes in making a quality audio product, let's say, as few as 100 targeted, to several thousand in some cases.
I would like to first follow the Parasound 'rule of thumb'. That is, the finished product has to be priced about 4 times its LANDED cost. That is: The cost of initial manufacture, parts, and initial testing, as well as packaging and shipment to San Francisco from Taiwan.
Runs may be 100 or more, but not too many, BECAUSE of the capital requirements in advance, necessary to do business.
If you gpapag, or anyone else actually did an inventory costing of one of the designs, I should think that YOU could not even source the parts, for what we pay for the finished product. This is our commercial advantage over typical amateurish start-up operations.
Now why, about 4 times the landed price for a product.
Well, Parasound has to DESIGN the product, at least the general topology, and make sure the prototype actually works as well as expected.
Parasound has to ADVERTISE the product, so that people know it is available.
Parasound has to WARRANTEE the product, for a number of years.
There are shipping charges, some fairly high.
The dealer usually needs about 40% to make their overhead. This has been true for many decades, at least 50 years and probably more.
Now, what is mark up for a $1000 item?
Landed cost $250.
Factory price $500, with 100% incoming inspection and bias adjustment. (warranty repair is a later cost)
Shipping, etc, maybe $100, if the product has any serious weight and size.
This leaves about $400 for the audio dealer to both stock and sell the product to its regular customers, as well as the advertisements paid for by Parasound bringing them into their dealership looking for the model.
Now is this 'out of line' with other companies and their mark-ups?
I would like to first follow the Parasound 'rule of thumb'. That is, the finished product has to be priced about 4 times its LANDED cost. That is: The cost of initial manufacture, parts, and initial testing, as well as packaging and shipment to San Francisco from Taiwan.
Runs may be 100 or more, but not too many, BECAUSE of the capital requirements in advance, necessary to do business.
If you gpapag, or anyone else actually did an inventory costing of one of the designs, I should think that YOU could not even source the parts, for what we pay for the finished product. This is our commercial advantage over typical amateurish start-up operations.
Now why, about 4 times the landed price for a product.
Well, Parasound has to DESIGN the product, at least the general topology, and make sure the prototype actually works as well as expected.
Parasound has to ADVERTISE the product, so that people know it is available.
Parasound has to WARRANTEE the product, for a number of years.
There are shipping charges, some fairly high.
The dealer usually needs about 40% to make their overhead. This has been true for many decades, at least 50 years and probably more.
Now, what is mark up for a $1000 item?
Landed cost $250.
Factory price $500, with 100% incoming inspection and bias adjustment. (warranty repair is a later cost)
Shipping, etc, maybe $100, if the product has any serious weight and size.
This leaves about $400 for the audio dealer to both stock and sell the product to its regular customers, as well as the advertisements paid for by Parasound bringing them into their dealership looking for the model.
Now is this 'out of line' with other companies and their mark-ups?
margins
Not at all. Indeed some of the Harman products had a far larger markup, and Engineering was frequently getting slammed by Sales and Marketing for somehow not coming up with products that were "competitive". Actually the designs were wonderfully efficient and streamlined, but the edict that the traditional margins be maintained made it impossible to compete in the lower end categories. And perhaps that was as well.
Opportunities that were missed however in the OEM computer business included working with the audio source providers toward synergistic systems. It turns out that, with very rare exceptions, people resent and combat any such cooperation.
Not at all. Indeed some of the Harman products had a far larger markup, and Engineering was frequently getting slammed by Sales and Marketing for somehow not coming up with products that were "competitive". Actually the designs were wonderfully efficient and streamlined, but the edict that the traditional margins be maintained made it impossible to compete in the lower end categories. And perhaps that was as well.
Opportunities that were missed however in the OEM computer business included working with the audio source providers toward synergistic systems. It turns out that, with very rare exceptions, people resent and combat any such cooperation.
I watched the box speaker guys at HCG do exactly this to the multimedia group. It was truly confounding.
Oh yeah there was plenty of intracompany fighting. At one point consumer bitched that Multimedia was taking business away from them, but their idea of the business was sourcing transducers that already existed elsewhere, marking them up and branding them, and trying to persuade someone like Samsung to pay a premium! Whereas Multimedia was designing custom transducers optimized to the customer's needs.
But I was thinking about when Harman was supplying Dell, and there were opportunities for doing things like look-ahead on the audio data and using that for more intelligent behavior of the amplifier/speaker. After a short time I realized that, despite their size, Dell basically just picked suppliers and didn't do much development themselves. And as well the suppliers weren't the least bit interested in cooperation.
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