I heard that Sequerra system in NYC at the show. Amazing performance. Until just now, I never had an idea of what it cost. My impression must have been tainted at the time by anticipating that decades later I would discover the price...
The sound was especially impressive, considering that the room acoustics were dreadful. And, I had no interest in the opera being played.
It was also amazing how few people sat down to listen. I guess they were in a rush to wait in line down the hall for a local dealer's demonstration. Perhaps they were giving away free stuff.
There is some sort of strange, inverse thing happening in the audio world - a number of times I've noted that high quality sound is ignored, or taken little notice of, by those who should be most receptive to it. Perhaps part of the reason that it sounds so "normal", it doesn't have a razzamatazz, hit you in the face quality about it - it's not 'spectacular' enough ...
A '200W Class A' power amplifier that barely does 100 watts continuous in class A doesn't have the appearance of being an 'all-out' power amp.
(AMaudio in Italy manufactures a Full 200W class A MOSFET monaural amp, aka also made in EC. Twice as voluminous, twice as heavy, at a fraction of the $120k figure)
Depends, if one can get away with 90% margins and not get competition fine. But the hi-end is not like a normal business, I assume the magins are pretty high on a $15,000 gown from a Paris fashion salon also.
This arguement has little point since the sides will never agree on a measure of accountability. On electronics you find folks here like Earl Geddes equally outspoken and there are others. Last week Lynn Olsen made some surprising (to me) comments on speakers, he certainly has more experience than me.
Could you figure out what "octo-coupling" is? The 18GHz IC's look suspiciously like repurposed cables similar to the ones Aglient uses with their 18GHZ network analysers.
Well, my JC-1 only does 25W in Class A, and Nelson's does 40W (I think) Class A, so 100W Class A is a little more than our efforts.
Perhaps those of you who know 'better' can help me with a design problem. The problem is not that what I proposed won't work, and work well, but it is just too expensive to easily manufacture.
It is simple: We want to make a remote controlled MC cartridge load that has a readout showing its setting, and we want as much resolution as possible for the range of 10 ohms and 5000 ohms, for example.
Now, I drew on my past experience: A dual 10 turn wire wound pot sounds good to me. The problem is adding a 3rd pot to track the resistance with 1-2 ohm precision.
We have a prototype, but it is VERY expensive. Not even Demian (Audio 1) has proposed an alternative with the same PROVEN quality. Any suggestions?
Now, this is an EXAMPLE of why hi end audio can cost so very much. Anything less is a compromise, and compromises do not win listening contests, (usually).
It is simple: We want to make a remote controlled MC cartridge load that has a readout showing its setting, and we want as much resolution as possible for the range of 10 ohms and 5000 ohms, for example.
Now, I drew on my past experience: A dual 10 turn wire wound pot sounds good to me. The problem is adding a 3rd pot to track the resistance with 1-2 ohm precision.
We have a prototype, but it is VERY expensive. Not even Demian (Audio 1) has proposed an alternative with the same PROVEN quality. Any suggestions?
Now, this is an EXAMPLE of why hi end audio can cost so very much. Anything less is a compromise, and compromises do not win listening contests, (usually).
A third pot? Hell, where are you getting dual 10 turn wire wound pots that match within 1-2 ohms up to 5,000 ohms?
se
se
What technologies are disqualified from the outset? No use suggesting answers that won't fly in the fashion world.
Use a stepper motor to move the pot. Although on power up the stepper motor will have to either have a stored memory of position or reset itself.
The other method is to use a servomotor. Some of these have optical encoder discs built in and know their exact position.
FYI It is least expensive to use two pots and two stepper motors. With a calibration cycle at manufacturing the pots do not need to track.
The other method is to use a servomotor. Some of these have optical encoder discs built in and know their exact position.
FYI It is least expensive to use two pots and two stepper motors. With a calibration cycle at manufacturing the pots do not need to track.
I think I'd use a optical encoder from a volume control. run that to a volume IC chip or PIC. Then use the IC for a DB readout.
This would be the same as a typical IC volume control except the volume is actually the wire wound.
Second option would be a servo. There are enough servo ICs out there plus Microchip has canned software for doing it with a PIC that it shouldn't be too difficult.
This would be the same as a typical IC volume control except the volume is actually the wire wound.
Second option would be a servo. There are enough servo ICs out there plus Microchip has canned software for doing it with a PIC that it shouldn't be too difficult.
This might be quite unsuitable, but worth investigating. Tortuga Audio has an interesting implementation of a LDR volume control. What makes their implementation interesting IMHO is the fact that they actively correct for the LDR's departure from linearity with a microprocessor. It ought to be a dawdle for them to reprogram to work with 1 LDR per channel as a cartridge load.
Tortuga Audio | Handcrafted audio gear for music loversTortuga Audio
Cheers,
Rob.
Last edited:
The problem is the distortion of the LDR on the phono input for the MC. For example an XP 25 has 76 dB gain @ 1K or almost 100 dB @ 20 Hz that is 100,000 times amplification. I also plain don't like the linearity of the little guys even if it is worked out in the software.
I am sure you know better than me, but I thought the LDR's distortion fell dramatically at low levels?
Scott,
The main problem as I see it in high end audio and even mid-range products is the cost of not only the marketing dollars you have to spend but also the small amount of sales outlets that you have for the products. Here in Los Angeles we have only a few real audio dealer even left. Most are long gone from the market. So how do you sell the product if you are trying to use a traditional sales method? I plan on selling direct and using the internet for marketing purposes, I just don't see any other way unless you have been long established now and have a huge marketing budget to sell traditionally. Lynn Olson was saying that the current cost of a display room at the CES show has now gone up to $25,000 and that is only the cost of the room!
I worked as a vendor for JBL/Harmon at one time and was told discretely that the markup on their products was 10X actual costs to cover marketing and sales costs. So a $500.00 speaker cost them $50.00 in the box ready to ship. Though we all poo poo Bose I assume that they are spending massive amounts of money on the marketing, more than likely the highest cost of the entire operation. I turned down an offer to work for Sonance a while ago as I would have to agree that anything I was working on or could in the future would belong to them and I wasn't willing to do that. I didn't think I should hand over my IP just to have a job working for a company making a low end consumer product.
Today I have to redo my resume for an offer at another aerospace company supervising an injection molding operation. Hate to go back into that area as there is just no job security at all. Perhaps my kids idea to get me crowd funding for my project is the smartest thing I can do today?
The main problem as I see it in high end audio and even mid-range products is the cost of not only the marketing dollars you have to spend but also the small amount of sales outlets that you have for the products. Here in Los Angeles we have only a few real audio dealer even left. Most are long gone from the market. So how do you sell the product if you are trying to use a traditional sales method? I plan on selling direct and using the internet for marketing purposes, I just don't see any other way unless you have been long established now and have a huge marketing budget to sell traditionally. Lynn Olson was saying that the current cost of a display room at the CES show has now gone up to $25,000 and that is only the cost of the room!
I worked as a vendor for JBL/Harmon at one time and was told discretely that the markup on their products was 10X actual costs to cover marketing and sales costs. So a $500.00 speaker cost them $50.00 in the box ready to ship. Though we all poo poo Bose I assume that they are spending massive amounts of money on the marketing, more than likely the highest cost of the entire operation. I turned down an offer to work for Sonance a while ago as I would have to agree that anything I was working on or could in the future would belong to them and I wasn't willing to do that. I didn't think I should hand over my IP just to have a job working for a company making a low end consumer product.
Today I have to redo my resume for an offer at another aerospace company supervising an injection molding operation. Hate to go back into that area as there is just no job security at all. Perhaps my kids idea to get me crowd funding for my project is the smartest thing I can do today?
It's one thing to crowd fund a project, but that doesn't guarantee that the item would sell. And in such a saturated market as loudspeakers...
se
se
Dave Slagle has some that he showed me in Denver, and he actually likes to sell them 😉
Saves you reinventing this particular wheel.
You have Dave's email/phone number?
Jan
- Status
- Not open for further replies.