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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

#71

Post by organsnyder »

Spooky23 wrote: post #46
MarcelOlsz wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Mostly how to make certain types of spreadsheets, some finance stuff and how to talk business crap with other business people. It’s not rocket science.

A good business school teaches organizational dynamics, change management, and leadership skills. Not rocket science, but potentially just as hard.

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

#72

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

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.

Lord no. I was surprised that it was as high as 30%. I was always taught to aim for no more than 20% and that was for industrial products that sold in relatively low volumes.

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

#73

Post by wmf »

fruit2020 wrote: post #42
lmm wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I already knew the rule of thumb that a retail store needs 50% markup, so 30% seems reasonable in that context (indeed I'd've guessed 25%).

So when I buy an Oled tv, does the store procure it for half the price from the distributor? Sounds like a huge margin. How about from an ecommerce store, which a lot of times have slightly less but close prices to regular stores, can the distributor force them to keep prices up not to upset the other resellers?

So when I buy an OLED TV, does the store procure it for half the price from the distributor?

Generally yes.

can the distributor force them to keep prices up not to upset the other resellers?

Retailers upsetting other retailers is called channel conflict and is often solved with minimum advertised price policies. High-end companies like Apple and Sony often have this policy which is why you see the same price everywhere.

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

#74

Post by jasonwatkinspdx »

jonhohle wrote: post #66
fasteddie31003 wrote: post #57

I 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 m…

Were there any guides or tutorials you followed? 20 years ago or so, I knew someone who built their own speaker cabinets and I couldn’t believe DIY speakers could match companies that spent hundreds millions on audio engineering. I’ve heard enough anecdotes that I would be interested in learning more.

https://www.diyaudio.com/community/ is the main online forum. There's a fair bit of discussion over at parts-express.com's forums as well.

There's a variety of books out there. Sound Reproduction by Dr Toole is a very comprehensive reference to the big picture, but doesn't really get into speaker and crossover design specifically. There's other books you can find for that, but I'm unaware of the most recent good ones as I read most of this stuff decades ago. In that era the Vance Dickenson book was a big one.

The main reasons DIY can rival hifi are: 1. Good components are available to DIY builders. Yeah there's some proprietary stuff that's cool you can't get. But there's a ton of very top quality stuff you can get. 2. Retail hifi has insanely restrictive costs. They'll save every penny possible. So simply by buying better capacitors, etc, or using a slightly more complex crossover, or building a bigger box than is fashionable you can gain an edge. 3. The digital room correction systems offered on most home AV receivers today do a lot to fix simple flaws in DIY designs, giving more slack.

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

#75

Post by matthew-wegner »

jonhohle wrote: post #66
fasteddie31003 wrote: post #57

I 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 m…

Were there any guides or tutorials you followed? 20 years ago or so, I knew someone who built their own speaker cabinets and I couldn’t believe DIY speakers could match companies that spent hundreds millions on audio engineering. I’ve heard enough anecdotes that I would be interested in learning more.

If you're in the US, this is a great first kit ($160 shipped for a pair): https://www.parts-express.com/Overnight-Sensations-MT-Speake...

These are a good step up for a living room, although $240/ea: https://www.parts-express.com/Amiga-MT-Tower-Speaker-Kit-Wit...

There are a few other sites that sell kits, either just the electronics or including pre-cut cabinets, i.e. https://meniscusaudio.com/product-category/speaker-kits/

I have a pair of these in my garage to build as a summer project (although getting a bit late for "summer"): https://www.parts-express.com/Solstice-MLTL-Reference-Tower-...

Paul Carmody has quite a few designs: https://sites.google.com/site/undefinition/diy

Jeff Bagby is another big name in the DIY speaker world, although he died of COVID in March 2020 and I'm not sure there's a centralized site of his designs :(

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

#76

Post by [deleted] »

Spooky23 wrote: post #46
MarcelOlsz wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Mostly how to make certain types of spreadsheets, some finance stuff and how to talk business crap with other business people. It’s not rocket science.

[deleted]

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

#77

Post by leeoniya »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #65

> The cost of building a consumer audio product is generally no more than 30% of retail. 30% COGS (cost of goods sold) is virtually a maximum for items sold at mainstream retailers. There’s nothing wrong with this. These are standard ratios, not some dirty secret. The cost of goods sold is only a fraction of the costs that go into getting products all the way into the customers’ hands and supporting them (customer su…

yeah, it's quite typical that wholesale = 2x COGS and retail = 2x wholesale.

for high end stuff it's likely far higher. that $75 Intel AX210 WiFi 6e upgrade is likely a $5 part at wholesale in 10k quantities. upgraded op-amps for $100? probably $4 each on digikey or aliexpress (and thats already marked up from maybe $2 COGS)

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

#78

Post by wellthisisgreat »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #65

> The cost of building a consumer audio product is generally no more than 30% of retail. 30% COGS (cost of goods sold) is virtually a maximum for items sold at mainstream retailers. There’s nothing wrong with this. These are standard ratios, not some dirty secret. The cost of goods sold is only a fraction of the costs that go into getting products all the way into the customers’ hands and supporting them (customer su…

yeah the person who suggests that COGs (or even BOM) should be more than 30% of MSRP cannot be taken seriously on any other business-related statements. That is shows a gross misunderstanding of the fundamentals of unit economics and electronics business models.

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

#79

Post by Cyphus »

ilaksh wrote: post #56

I 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 B…

The wires are usually the first thing to go out for me too. Have you considered buying a pair of headphones with detachable cable?

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

#80

Post by other_herbert »

intrasight wrote: post #51

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. https://www.sonos.com/en-us/shop/amp

I'd point you to many smaller retailers...

https://outlawaudio.com/shop/

https://emotiva.com/collections/amps

and parts-express...

I've owned things from all of these places so there's that I guess :)

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