I was just looking at the WBT 75 Ohm connector to see how they do it. It seems to be a mix of compromises. The RF shielding is not good with significant gaps. Those come from introducing some inductance in the outside ring. That must be how they get 75 Ohms from a 30 Ohm connection based on the physical dimensions of an RCA. I'm not about to buy a pair to test but it would be interesting to see a TDR or VNA test of the connection.
The high price is necessary to get any respect from the intended market.
The high price is necessary to get any respect from the intended market.
I'm not taking in terms of performance/cost ratio, this would be for another discussion (where I'm sure Jakob would jump at the rescue of the "high end audio" swindlers, spreading "strawman" qualifiers everywhere), but in absolute dollars.
If a product sells for 10k, even with an absurdly low (for the "high end audio" market) 5% profit margin, then complaining about extra $5 for an op amp (or any other part) is IMO ridiculous. That extra $5 would erode 1% of the 5% profit margin.
It is true about the cables, having worked in a "high-end" audio store there are such deals made all the time...indeed in most retail.
Regarding the AD797; having worked in an optical disc factory with fixed overhead, and being the engineer who created the pricing modules in the accounting software, I know pricing was dominated by quantity. Pricing was determined by looking at operating costs + margin at each step including all setup and testing at the beginning of the run. We charged that total amount per hour, no matter how many discs were ordered. Indeed if someone wanted a single disc we would do it for them.
For example (amounts ficticious), if the hourly cost assigned to production was, say $2000 and it took an hour to setup, tweak and test 2000 discs, we charged $1 each. If the run took an hour to set up a job, tweak and test it before doing production and the customer wanted one disc, that one disc cost $2000.
Most factories cannot shift production from one product to another in a slipstream fashion, so setup, downtime and changeover are part of the job cost, and that cost is entirely folded into that job run, regardless of quantity.
All of this being said, I have no idea if the AD797's cost is partly or completely due to these factors. Perhaps wafer testing discards a higher percentage of them than for other parts as well? Only AD management and their barbers know for sure...
Cheers,
Howie
Ed: If they do a Mil spec version I'm interested. Space qual ideal
Here ya go!
https://media.digikey.com/pdf/Data Sheets/Amphenol PDFs/M55116,TAC_Brochure_2.pdf
You're on the right track. Let me repeat and explain, the factory does not support direct sales of small quantities. This is handled by distributors who are set up to fulfill and track orders as small as one piece. Distributor pricing is usually better than the 1000 piece price (I assume) so I doubt the factory sees more than $2-3 on one that is sold by Digikey for $10. I will point out also they don't incur any more cost in selling you one 5534, so you can figure out who is doing the hosing.
BTW if you try to buy one piece of the latest Pentium processor from a distributor it probably costs more than the MSRP of the laptop it goes into.
There are 37 797's in a Stanford Research SR1
. They don't pay $10.
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Still, the price of the AD797 does stand out over competing parts from TI, etc. Of course, very expensive hi end products may find the AD797 a bargain, compared to a discrete design like I make, but when we are trying to make a cost effective product that can compete with more expensive competition, we found the price of the AD797 an impediment to its use. That is why we went for a National part instead. However, we originally designed the Parasound preamp with the AD797 in mind, but changed over when equally sonically effective and measured parts were tried. Now, not all competing parts worked well in the phono circuit that I designed. Some failed the listening test. It was interesting (for me) to note that the AD797 had a certain sound quality, compared to the one we selected. It wasn't like there was NO difference, just that the part we selected sounded, in its way, just as good, and it was perhaps 1/3 the price. Go figure, same distributor probably.
I want to thank ADI for the 797's at a reasonable price in my SR-1. Heck, the entire SR-1 cost less than a single CTC Blowtorch. What a deal!
I want to thank ADI for the 797's at a reasonable price in my SR-1. Heck, the entire SR-1 cost less than a single CTC Blowtorch. What a deal!
When you buy single chips at DK, you usually pay twice the price of a 1000
or 3000 piece reel. And they have multiple full reels only for mass articles. I don't
think they give them away for less than the full reel price that they buy them for.
That would not be sustainable. They have often 2900 pcs. of some thingy.
It's easy to imagine what has happened. Some guy wanted 100 and they opened
a complete reel, and now they are hoping that many people come who buy the rest
in 100s.
Distributors usually have to pass the really big fish to the manufacturers. They then
get just some provision. We constructed a cell phone base station with 10Meg machines
planned over 10 years, and each € saved would be 10Meg€ in the end. Xilinx made it
absolutely clear that they would not lose that because of the price.
That were numbers from a different universe.
cheers, Gerhard
or 3000 piece reel. And they have multiple full reels only for mass articles. I don't
think they give them away for less than the full reel price that they buy them for.
That would not be sustainable. They have often 2900 pcs. of some thingy.
It's easy to imagine what has happened. Some guy wanted 100 and they opened
a complete reel, and now they are hoping that many people come who buy the rest
in 100s.
Distributors usually have to pass the really big fish to the manufacturers. They then
get just some provision. We constructed a cell phone base station with 10Meg machines
planned over 10 years, and each € saved would be 10Meg€ in the end. Xilinx made it
absolutely clear that they would not lose that because of the price.
That were numbers from a different universe.
cheers, Gerhard
Mhm, could you post some parameters that are really subpar in a high quality chinch combo?
As usally it depends on the application; if doing automated tests on (or by hand) equipment you want high perfomance connectors combined with low forces for engaging and pull-out. That' s exactly where the ODU type shine (Hypertac seem to follow the same route, but with different core construction which might be due to patent restriction), this feature is obviously less preferable in other applications.
@scottjoplin,
May I suggest, that you ask the AES for some explanations?
Surely the term "audio engineering" is also a total mistery and "audio technology" as well; although I can't remember that you were complaining about these terms, I've surely just missed it.
Advantage is that these guys are often native speakers and so better prepared to discuss the meanings.
@syn08,
Yep would be ridicolous; but obviously you are now pretending to believe in your own strawman and that is funny or some might say ....ridiculous?
Yes you can, but that's already a different story. You like the AD797, you got it.
Parroting the strawman word doesn't make anywhere accurate. Have fun, though.
Bonsai must buy them by the thousands. Otherwise, it's 9 pounds in singles, that is some 10 euros, CHF 11 or USD 11.3 You get free shipping if you order over a certain limit. Taxes are taxes everywhere.
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€9,90 for the A-version. B costs slightly more.
Transport costs nothing if you order stuff for > 50€.
They add the VAT of your country, you have nothing to do with customs.
Order now and in 2 days the UPS man will ring your bell.
The record here was 38 hours in my small town in Germany.
Could not be simpler. Mouser is pretty much the same.
Prices have gone up. I watched them when I built this
20-parallel-opamp low voltage noise amplifier. It adds up.
ADA4898-2 was the better deal & denser package.
Gerhard
€9,90 for the A-version. B costs slightly more.
Transport costs nothing if you order stuff for > 50€.
They add the VAT of your country, you have nothing to do with customs.
Order now and in 2 days the UPS man will ring your bell.
The record here was 38 hours in my small town in Germany.
Could not be simpler. Mouser is pretty much the same.
Prices have gone up. I watched them when I built this
20-parallel-opamp low voltage noise amplifier. It adds up.
ADA4898-2 was the better deal & denser package.
Gerhard
Anything that connects signal first is subpar. Period. I can no long think of a good reason to support RCAs. The fact that, at the end of the current upgrade round I will have no unbalanced connections between units is the final nail. I do not need any compatibility with anything else.
What follows is entirely my personal view. RCA/Cinch are and always have been a bad idea. Herculean efforts to poop polish this by WBT and others does not change my view. Better options start at a couple of $. If cost is a parameter there is your answer.