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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

#91

Post by mc32 »

jiggawatts wrote: post #86
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…

> There’s nothing wrong with this. These are standard ratios, not some dirty secret. There's a lot wrong with this, but not in a moral sense. For all his faults, Elon Musk made a good point about the space industry near the beginning of SpaceX. He asked a team of "rocket scientists" how much a rocket cost. They said something like $100M. Then he asked them to sum up the material costs. Sheetmetal, tubing, rivets, etc…

That other 3500 - 4000 is definitely not majority profit. If they could make better profit on your purchase they would, they really don't want to leave money on the table. MFG, shipping, handling, warranty, returns, accidents, fraud, R&D, operations staff, etc. It's not getting done by volunteers.

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

#92

Post by sokoloff »

rascul wrote: post #41
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…

I've found that the local hardware store usually has the same or similar stuff as Lowe's or Home Depot, except with a higher price tag.

Worse selection, less organized, higher prices, and limited online presence? You might be in a local hardware store.

You might snag a deal on some dusty new-old-stock part, but for just about anything else, I much prefer the box stores or Amazon or supplyhouse.com (I can vouch heavily for these guys, who used to be called pexsupply.com)

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

#93

Post by post-it »

nomel wrote: post #21
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.

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, y…

Oh huh, I've certainly seen that before when I've opened a device.

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

#94

Post by sylware »

Alice brings her broken car to bob, a mechanic.

He has a quick look at the engine, then hits a specific spot with a hammer. The car was fixed.

Then Bob asks for 100 bucks and Alice replies that it is quite expensive for one single hammer strike. Bob then says, the hammer strike is 1 buck, knowing where to strike is 99 bucks.

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

#95

Post by Yhippa »

matthew-wegner wrote: post #75
jonhohle wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/speak…

Thanks for these links. Do they make kits for soundbars? I'd like to get something short to put in front of the TV and it feels like I should be able to make something. I guess the problem would be integrating ARC into it.

Edit: nevermind there is one with ARC: https://www.parts-express.com/AudioBar-powered-1.5-way-2-cha...

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

#96

Post by tradewinds »

MarcelOlsz wrote: post #25
yewenjie wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Accounting (for example the poster in the link states marketing does not make up COGS, which to someone who studied accounting is obvious). Simple economics (poster reveals "secret" that Price*Quantity can equal higher total revenue when price/quantity change disproportionately). Consumer behaviour (Dr. Dre can lead people to believe crap from pile A is better than crap from pile B). This is apparent insider-knowledge from someone who spent several years in industry - or you can go to school for the first 1.5 years of a business undergrad program and learn it that way across many more industries. In the final years of business school once you've chosen a specialization, you may learn advanced corporate finance (stocks, bonds, weighted cost of capital, different types of break-even measurement like economic break-even vs accounting break-even). Or you may specialize in accounting, operations, marketing, yada yada. Then an MBA is apparently much of what is taught in a good business undergrad but perhaps faster-paced and you get a shit ton of networking value.

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

#97

Post by mc32 »

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…

Class D amps: https://www.hypex.nl/

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

#98

Post by cschneid »

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

What do you mean? An amplifier that can drive speakers that's also a streaming device? That exists at various price points. Anywhere from a raspberry pi taped to a "dumb" amplifier all the way to various Roon streamers. Although at both super-low and higher price points, things tend toward individual components for flexibility and diy reasons. But that's easy enough to work with to get something that both looks and sounds good.

Sonos's one plays nice w/ Sonos's ecosystem, but if you don't need that there are other solutions.

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

#100

Post by lostgame »

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…

Many, many mid-to-high end headphone manufacturers offer headphones with detachable cables, both for exactly this reason; and also sometimes to allow it to either be bluetooth or cabled.

You probably have to spend more than $100 for that, though.

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