In addition to "secrets" there are "mysteries" - like why doesn't anyone make an "Amp" except Sonos, and why is it that one so darn expensive? I guess because they are the only one.
“Secrets” about the consumer audio business you may find interesting
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Re: “Secrets” about the consumer audio business you may find interesting
#52As the owner of a pair of high-end Audeze, this article makes me wonder how much of the cost is marketing, as opposed to going towards "quality", for whatever definition of it. It's nicely built, sounds great, very neutral for production work, but.. $1000 great? Could I have gotten comparable performance for 1/10th the price?
Is there an objective way of measuring "quality" in this space for premium products?
Re: “Secrets” about the consumer audio business you may find interesting
#53I bought some cheap "chinese" (very odd named brand) bluetooth headphones on Amazon, and they sounded great. Eventually they died, so I went with Sony which was twice the price, and the sound is quite noticeably worse. Unsurprisingly my previous headphones aren't for sale any longer [1].
Re: “Secrets” about the consumer audio business you may find interesting
#54This 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.
Ancient history, but the way Apple skirted around FCC regulations for the Apple II while Atari got bogged down in expensive remediations for their 400/800 systems that added to the BOM is an interesting business study.
Re: “Secrets” about the consumer audio business you may find interesting
#5530% seems a bit off, though yeah dense metal magnets in transformers and speakers are probably what keeps these products >= $100. Transistors, etc, are cheap as hell though. Some of this assembled gear is thousands of dollars and beyond, per single unit... So if you can build your own magnets, cases and push shipping off to the customer while providing 2x greater than behringer *quality*, I want to believe.
Re: “Secrets” about the consumer audio business you may find interesting
#56I guess I'm the worst type of customer for audio retailers. I recently switched from buying $50-$100 gaming headphones to $5 wired earbuds with a built in microphone.
They are still working perfectly after months, and I got a spare for another $5.
The reason I decided to try that is because the wires in my headphones always get partially broken after a few months and so I end up with only one channel. And the cheap Bluetooth earbuds I had which were great for several months eventually went to a single channel also for some reason.
If that happens again, $5 is no big deal to get more. Assuming I can find those cheap earbuds again.
Re: “Secrets” about the consumer audio business you may find interesting
#57I built my own speakers for under $200 and I honestly think they are some of the best I've ever heard for a personal setup. They were inspired by https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKIye4RZ-5k (Tech Ingredients) . I built the speakers from foam board, the subwoofer from car audio parts and the amp is a standard class D amp. The best part is whenever someone comments on how good my speakers sound I can say I built them myself.
Re: “Secrets” about the consumer audio business you may find interesting
#58What 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…
$5 wired earbuds with built in microphone at Walmart.
Re: “Secrets” about the consumer audio business you may find interesting
#59This is actually true of many businesses/industries.
There was an article just like this about the clothing business, and how at the high price points the quality is equivalent - any price delta is due to branding.
Once you use the highest quality material, the highest quality stitching for the price point, well, you're stuck. That's when you sprinkle the magic fairy dust on it to raise the price, which usually consists of a nameplate or logo.
Re: “Secrets” about the consumer audio business you may find interesting
#60I'm just happy niche communities using old school forum software still exist!