Dayem, balanced in/out i hope ?
(praying it's less than 23 DPDT's total, otherwise i'm in need of a new phono stage
)
So I have to pay 30 to 50 times the labor rate to assemble hundreds of parts as I would if they were assembled in China. Ever hear of cost containment? That's something engineers who have to work for others are constantly reminded of. And I suppose you have them hand soldered instead of using a wave soldering machine. Do your products meet ISO 9000 criteria or are no two exactly alike? What are your QC procedures like?
You could use mercury wetted relays. No contact resistance, no contact bounce. But there is one restriction. You have to fasten your seatbelts and return your table trays, seat backs, and mercury relays to their full upright position. Crew, prepare for a crash landing.
I'm not sure this thing will fly...on the open market that is. Yet you still only have to sell a few a year to make a handsome profit from it. There must be shieks in Saudi Arabia or Dubai somwhere who still have money to burn.If a phono preamp takes 100 transistors and weighs 94 pounds, what would your power amp be like?
Oh Dear, i can imagine you not being interested in a view of the underside insides of a Goldmund Ref2.
I think the "snake oil" and similar comments miss the point entirely. The preamp will undoubtedly perform as well as less expensive but well-engineered units (not always the case in the high end!), but the whole point of having a 94 pound hugely overbuilt $40,000 unit is for the luxury factor. A Rolex doesn't tell time any better than a Timex, but it DOES tell time and it DOES convey that the person wearing it has the money to buy it and show it off. It's performance art, in a sense.
John knows his audience- rich Arabs and Singaporeans (and presumably Russians) and designs to that demographic. It's a pity that someone else will make the bulk of the profit, but that's the way of the world, and at least he'll be able to pay his rent.
John knows his audience- rich Arabs and Singaporeans (and presumably Russians) and designs to that demographic. It's a pity that someone else will make the bulk of the profit, but that's the way of the world, and at least he'll be able to pay his rent.
You seem to be missing something important. John IS an "engineer who works for others". He gets paid to design the circuits.
He does not decide how much the chassis will weigh, what the retail price will be, how it is soldered or who gets paid how much to assemble it.
I won't lose any sleep over it. But once he gets someone to write a great review like JA, he can sell them by mail order and the world will beat a path to his door. Since he's retired anyway, he can build them himself and save all the labor cost. What else has he got to do...unless he'd rather spend his time designing his new megaton amplifier and pay someone else to solder zisters for him. Just what the world needs, another new world's best audio power amplifier. Does NASA know about this? Rocket science!!!
Can you tell me where there is someone who would hire an engineer to design a $40,000 94 pound phonograph preamplifier? There's a bridge to a place called Brooklyn I'd like to sell him. Check the want ads on Monster.com or CareeBbuildier.com and see what they pay for engineers and what kind of jobs are available, what kinds of products investors think will make them a profit. Solar panel arrays are big now. I'll bet you'd be hard pressed to find a job description to design a phonograph cartridge preamp stage. I live in the cold cruel real world.
WHIZZZZZ! That was the sound of the point flying over your head once again.
I can design a pair of pants. Who cares? Now, get LaCroix to design the same pair of pants and it's worth $$$$. John is, in this tiny niche, a brand name. That has value. It's irrelevant that a no-name can design a phono stage (look at me, for example). The guy laying out $40k wants to have a known Designer behind the product- that's part of its worth.
I can design a pair of pants. Who cares? Now, get LaCroix to design the same pair of pants and it's worth $$$$. John is, in this tiny niche, a brand name. That has value. It's irrelevant that a no-name can design a phono stage (look at me, for example). The guy laying out $40k wants to have a known Designer behind the product- that's part of its worth.
Having a bridge or Tunnel named after you gets much more attention from people in general. They remember it far longer too. Imagine how long people will remember the time they were tied up in traffic for seven hours on that *&^%ing George Washington Bridge or in that *&^% ing Lincoln Tunnel behind an old bus with all those fumes. And how about having a car named after you. Who could forget the time they waited for a tow truck for four hours in the freezing cold when that *&^%ing Fix Or Repair Daily broke down and died in the left lane of the Long Island Expressway during rush hour? There are a lifetime of memories for a lot of people right there. So how about that bridge to Brooklyn? Even Wheatstone had a bridge named after him. What else was he ever famous for? 🙂
In high school I had a beautiful Telefunken radio with a solid copper chassis (140lb).
- Status
- Not open for further replies.