Thanks Ed.
You touch upon one of the issues. When a part leaves the CNC mill, it looks like having a mirror finish. Not enough for aircraft world. It will go for further surface finish, mechanical or chemical process or both. Then the heat treating. Then the final surface hardening. And all the interim meticulous cleaning steps. And then surface passivation, painting.
But I wrote of lack of crack (and corrosion) propagation control, i.e. past the surface initiation level.
Cal, yw. Up to 20 years ago, US space vehicles aluminum construction still followed the B707 design options (you have to see it to believe it)
George
Like M. Headr**m? The name tells the program!
Like the overloaded resistor: Sorry, could not resist.
That’s why the industry moved over to the fab model - TSMC, UMC etc. Most companies can’t afford dev and marketing costs plus the capex to maintain a SOTA fab. Better for companies to focus on product design and dev and leave manufacturing to specialists. I think analog is a bit different because of the process specifics so where I worked, that was in-house (RF and power controller IC’s).
Back in 2012/2013 a mobile phone chip mask set cost us $1.5 million per chip on 8”.
Given the fact that you couldn't bring up a cite, your answer is basically "yep, it was attacking a strawman" ....
In this short subtopic exchange, John Curl explicitly stated that he wouldn't choose the AD797 for sonic reasons, further, he argues that -by using the same reasoning when blaming "hi-end-audio" as a rip of - the price target for the IC should be considered as a rip of too.
As soon as something becomes a 'lifestyle' product it generally is a ripoff in performance:cost ratio. The value judgement is completely different. However the AD797 as an instrumentation amplier is not poor value IF it is the only part that will give the required performance. If newer parts work better then its a case of the price is due to having to hold stock for legacy products. Seems to be apples to eggs comparison going on, which JC loves to do to stir things up a bit.
WBT phono sockets at $50 a pair...How could anyone defend those?
As you've said, it needs more than just comparing material costs to end price if one wants to judge the "fairness" of a price point. I'd assume that John Curl wanted to point to this fact, which seems to be often forgotten when talking about ripoffs in "high-end-audio" .
Regarding the WBTs - if it is the "NeXt-Gen" one could argue that it is a special case of ingenious design work (afaik no other plug-socket combo exists as a match), manufactured in Germany with presumably quite high initial costs, worldwide distribution in quite small quantities.
Good example for the difficulties to judge about price tags; reminds me to the our discussions around the EAR phonopreamplifier in another thread. It seems that most people grossly underestimate the investments and costs (and difficulties) of running a (small) company.
It's kind of oversimplification, but it is easier to judge for big business; if a company is able to generate profits in the range of 20 - 50% from revenue, it is almost certain that ripoff takes place.
It surely works with any plug, but the unique impedance feature will be ensured only with an accordingly designed plug; I think currently there is still no other plug of this kind available.
We've talked about the Hypertac and Odu solution earlier (an ODU chinch plug was around 50 DM ~1990 in small quantities) and IIRC the Lemo stuff was quite expensive as well already 35 years ago.
It is a flawed connector concept overall wrt compatibility but a combo from WBT surely isn't flawed (am I missing something any parameters worse?) and one still can't neglect the huge base.
I'm moving to sub-D connectors for audio
Try to find a sub-D with Odu or Hypertac elements and then lets talk about prices again.
I don't see a 75Ohm RCA as being something the world needs. BNC already meets that requirement very well and is a better connector to boot.
Installed base is fine, but since the early levinsons only Naim has had the testicles to stick with what they believe is better (and ok keep the user base tied in).
For me if a normal D-sub is good enough for studio work (and good enough for space) then its good enough for me.
Installed base is fine, but since the early levinsons only Naim has had the testicles to stick with what they believe is better (and ok keep the user base tied in).
For me if a normal D-sub is good enough for studio work (and good enough for space) then its good enough for me.
Fair point, but that's mainly another discussion.
When considering the price tag (or it's justification) we can't neglect it.
WBT isn't a device manufacturer, instead they started ~1985 to fix some problems of the flawed connector design; it's a different situation, isn't it?
Sure, different needs.
You learn to love products like Odu/Hypertac if something like testing of equipment is your concern where dozens of plug-in/pull-out cycles per day are needed.
Depends how you view it. For me the solution is a better connector type. Even DIN (bar horrid 2 pin speaker connectors) is superior in almost every way.
From working in space and telco I love high performance connectors. Lousy at soldering the big circular ones though.