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“Secrets” about the consumer audio business you may find interesting

audiosciencereview.com

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Re: “Secrets” about the consumer audio business you may find interesting

#21

Post by nomel »

mschuster91 wrote: post #9
edrxty wrote: post #3

This seems to apply across the entire Small Plastic-covered Electronics sector. I worked for an instrumentation/sporting goods manufacturer among others and this reads like I wrote it myself. The CEO, even of a small operation, likely has no idea what the performance characteristics of their devices are. They exist to raise capital and deal with paperwork. We operated at about a 25% bom cost which was muuuuch higher…

> random FCC compliance stuff Nothing better than designing a product and actually producing a batch of it... and then finding out you have some EMI problem requiring a redesign. If you're lucky, you can remedy it by manually adding some shielding tape, if not... you might as well file for bankruptcy in the worst case.

I worked in a semi anechoic test chamber for measuring radiated emissions.

We had a few cases like this that one of the engineers was especially good at solving.

In one, we had a cheaper network switch that was failing one of the limits. One of our engineers walked in with a can of metalized spray paint, applied a single squirt to the inside of the plastic case, and fixed the issue. If you bought one and opened it, you would see a single squirt of silver looking paint on the inside, right where he put his. I've seen a few of these squirts in the devices I've taken apart, so I guess it's not a secret.

Re: “Secrets” about the consumer audio business you may find interesting

#22

Post by christoph »

Nition wrote: post #20
yalogin wrote: post #14

This post answered the one question that I couldn’t find answer for many years, that is why he did Dr.Dre get into the beats business or the other way why would the founders include Dr.Dre Now I understand that the equipment manufacturing is already commoditized and so the onus is fully on marketing and so he provides a great value.

Reminds me of Intel hiring will.i.am from the Black Eyed Peas as Director Of Creative Innovation.

While we're here, let's not forget Alicia Keys having the role of Global Creative Director at BlackBerry.

https://www.blackberry.com/us/en/company/newsroom/press-rele...

Re: “Secrets” about the consumer audio business you may find interesting

#23

Post by teuobk »

edrxty wrote: post #3

This seems to apply across the entire Small Plastic-covered Electronics sector. I worked for an instrumentation/sporting goods manufacturer among others and this reads like I wrote it myself. The CEO, even of a small operation, likely has no idea what the performance characteristics of their devices are. They exist to raise capital and deal with paperwork. We operated at about a 25% bom cost which was muuuuch higher…

Ain't this the truth. If COGS for the electronic gizmo is over about 10% of retail price, and you're making boutique-scale runs (I strongly suspect that, to a rounding error, 100% of new small-electronics products on, say, Kickstarter, sell at a massive per-unit loss. And yet people will still bitch about the price.

Re: “Secrets” about the consumer audio business you may find interesting

#24

Post by GuB-42 »

crims0n wrote: post #7
soared wrote: post #2

Articles like these make me appreciate my business degree, because this list is the basics of any business. 30% COGS, high shipping costs, outsourced manufacturing, big box focusing on low end market, etc is all very normal for almost any industry.

30% COGS surprised me… I always estimated it would have been around 50%. Learned something new.

Just look at the prices on AliExpress. They are a fraction of the prices at retail stores, and it includes the sellers margins. And AliExpress products are not always counterfeits and can be acceptable in quality.

A COGS of 30% is, as they say, on the upper end. For brands that have to offer a certain amount of quality in order to sell instead of going purely for ads and brand recognition.

50% is the retail store margin. I thought it was 40%, but that's probably a global rate, with electronics being higher.

Re: “Secrets” about the consumer audio business you may find interesting

#25

Post by MarcelOlsz »

yewenjie wrote: post #17
soared wrote: post #2

Articles like these make me appreciate my business degree, because this list is the basics of any business. 30% COGS, high shipping costs, outsourced manufacturing, big box focusing on low end market, etc is all very normal for almost any industry.

Is there some online course I can take to learn the crux of a business degree?

I'm not joking when I say this, I have no idea how business works. I get it in theory, hell I even sold one. But I still don't know. One of my space-cadet day dreams is trying to figure out just what someone could possibly learn in business school and I can't come up with anything.

Re: “Secrets” about the consumer audio business you may find interesting

#26

Post by sidpatil »

m463 wrote: post #18

What I'd like as a consumer is the antidote to this. I saw something like this trying to get a replacement plumbing fitting at my parent's house a few years back. The local hardware store with the high-quality stuff had been closed down by the big-box stores. Perusing the possibilities at lowes and home depot showed plastic and fake chrome when I would have paid extra for high quality brass or even metal. It was just…

> Perusing the possibilities at lowes and home depot showed plastic and fake chrome when I would have paid extra for high quality brass or even metal. It was just gone.

Both Lowe's and Home Depot sell metal faucets, taps, knobs, etc., in a variety of styles.

Re: “Secrets” about the consumer audio business you may find interesting

#27

Post by killion »

This is why I like Monoprice, they have a limited selection of high-quality products at reasonable prices.

I just wish they would make an AV receiver – that seems like a space where they could bring the price down but still have good room correction and Atmos. The Monolith is a good start, but something for the average consumer is what I'm thinking of.

Re: “Secrets” about the consumer audio business you may find interesting

#28

Post by buescher »

edrxty wrote: post #10
mschuster91 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> random FCC compliance stuff Nothing better than designing a product and actually producing a batch of it... and then finding out you have some EMI problem requiring a redesign. If you're lucky, you can remedy it by manually adding some shielding tape, if not... you might as well file for bankruptcy in the worst case.

Ha! I've seen this. We had one screw that was close enough to a trace on the board that it would lock up the device and fail ESD testing. Ended up plugging the top of that one screw hole with RTV on the whole batch.

Precompliance EMI test is cheaper than ever to put together, but a proper ESD setup is still going to be impossible to justify on a shoestring. I’ve seen other people use leak detectors and record zappers and I won’t even get into the things that won’t credibly work. I feel your pain.

Re: “Secrets” about the consumer audio business you may find interesting

#29

Post by tarakat »

edrxty wrote: post #3

This seems to apply across the entire Small Plastic-covered Electronics sector. I worked for an instrumentation/sporting goods manufacturer among others and this reads like I wrote it myself. The CEO, even of a small operation, likely has no idea what the performance characteristics of their devices are. They exist to raise capital and deal with paperwork. We operated at about a 25% bom cost which was muuuuch higher…

> whatever voodoo the S&M team is up to

Those teams rarely justify their cost, especially if you factor in all the sexual harassment lawsuits that they're a breeding ground for.

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