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TX-6 – Teenage Engineering

teenage.engineering

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Re: TX-6 – Teenage Engineering

#301

Post by resoluteteeth »

IAmPym wrote: post #159

"Why is it so expensive?" - commentary from someone who does this for a living at Sequential Small Volume - each unit is more expensive than a large volume product, you don't get price breaks on any components or tooling costs Design focused - Who is the product for? It isn't for people who want to spend 250$ on a Behringer mixer. It is for people who want something that is high quality and doesn't break. Reliable. F…

> Small Volume - each unit is more expensive than a large volume product, you don't get price breaks on any components or tooling costs

Teenage Engineering has made lots of low volume products that were way cheaper, though. It just doesn't seem like they're interested in doing that anymore.

I think they just realized that they can make slightly fancier products that they sell for 10x the price and that's way more profitable.

Re: TX-6 – Teenage Engineering

#302

Post by bmitc »

IAmPym wrote: post #167
lamp_book wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> doesn't break Can get behind the rest of your comment but I don't think anyone's ever accused TE of making durable products. To their credit though, they replaced my broken PO without a fuss, so I'm not a detractor.

I have used TE products on occasion and looked into them deeply from a bunch of engineering perspectives. Compared to other products in a similar price point and form factor the likelihood of a problem is far lower. When you reduce the size you eliminate structural components and if you can't mill aluminum you're left with a lot of difficult choices to make to keep things stable. TE does a good job of balancing those…

There is an entire aftermarket for OP-1 USB and audio I/O boards because they fail so often, both physically and electronically, and somewhat the same for the buttons and knobs.

But yes, the milled aluminum is solid.

I still love the OP-1 though. Nothing quite like it.

Re: TX-6 – Teenage Engineering

#303

Post by bmitc »

IAmPym wrote: post #159

"Why is it so expensive?" - commentary from someone who does this for a living at Sequential Small Volume - each unit is more expensive than a large volume product, you don't get price breaks on any components or tooling costs Design focused - Who is the product for? It isn't for people who want to spend 250$ on a Behringer mixer. It is for people who want something that is high quality and doesn't break. Reliable. F…

> Reliable. For people that rely on their tools to be creative or appreciate design. You are paying a premium. See Apple for lots of examples.

Apple is basically the opposite of what you are saying. Apple products have moderate design in them that’s useful and they are also quite unreliable, but they still come with the premium. That premium funds their marketing and silicon development.

Re: TX-6 – Teenage Engineering

#304

Post by pkdpic »

IAmPym wrote: post #159

"Why is it so expensive?" - commentary from someone who does this for a living at Sequential Small Volume - each unit is more expensive than a large volume product, you don't get price breaks on any components or tooling costs Design focused - Who is the product for? It isn't for people who want to spend 250$ on a Behringer mixer. It is for people who want something that is high quality and doesn't break. Reliable. F…

Idunno, I'm pretty sure I'm at least one of their target demographics - casual electronic musician with more money than free time who buys mostly portable gear for no easily justifiable reason whose been bought multiple battery powered mixer solutions and been waiting for a real one for almost a decade - and I still dropped my jaw pretty seriously at the price.

Im all for appreciating the engineering challenges you articulately outlined but price points like this just alienates anyone who isn't completely reckless with money. TE has gone in this direction before and my hope is always that it's the first prototype move towards a more available version of the product.

Would serious musicians buy this? Would fringe weirdo musicians buy it? Whose left other than wealthy dilettantes? I honestly don't know but I love this company and want to support them. My wife would just (rightly) leave me or put us in marriage counseling if I dropped this much money on this thing. And I really, really (really) want / need ("need") it...

Re: TX-6 – Teenage Engineering

#305

Post by ajxs »

IAmPym wrote: post #189
DoctorNick wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Crashes are definitely a problem. Knowing the chip they use and the complexity under the hood. The fact is though, all instruments suffer from issues like this. You will not find a single piece of gear on the market that doesn't have bugs. Crash issues are rare in our gear only because they are more simple by comparison. When I was writing the Tempest OS I had tons of crash bugs I had to work through because it was…

I'm just trying to give you perspective Nearly every complex instrument still has critical bugs after 10 years because development moves on after 4-5 years. Hardware bugs are != software bugs in terms of complexity because the debugging and tools you have available are simply not even close to comparable. This is why you don't get a whole lot of complex instruments from small companies. I applaud anyone who gives it…

I appreciate your obvious experience in this area, however synthesisers with more features, and more complicated user interfaces than the OP-1 have existed longer than I've been alive. I know this is not from a small company, but take for instance Yamaha's SY77 from 1989. It's built around a 16-bit Hitachi H8/500 processor, with 1MB of SRAM. It's CPU, synth engine, and peripherals are all glued together with 7400-series logic chips. Its AFM/AWM engine, sequencer, and the UI that controls them hold up well by today's standards. Compared to whatever ARM SoC the OP-1 is built around, the EE involved in designing the SY77 is much more complex. There is no comparison between the tooling available to Yamaha in the 80s, and the open-source tooling/libraries/resources available for embedded development in 2022. I understand economies of scale, however can't we expect more from a company like Teenage Engineering for the huge prices for their gear?

My TG77 is 33 years old. I replaced some aging capacitors because they were making the main output a bit noisy, however aside from that it's worked very well.

Re: TX-6 – Teenage Engineering

#306

Post by n42 »

TheRealPomax wrote: post #266
n42 wrote: post #73

am I missing something, or is that a giant paddle power switch that can/will be accidentally pushed downward to off while working? edit: nope, that's exactly what that is. $1,200 for a mixer you can't use live without duct taping it, I guess. https://teenage.engineering/guides/tx-6#power-on

Why would you use this live at all? You already have a proper mixer set up in those situations.

well, I wouldn’t, because it has a switch that can be easily thrown and it costs way too much for what it does. so I don’t understand its market. but if it weren’t for those reasons not to use it, then I might for the same reason I would use a 1010 bluebox or any other similar minimalist mixer. size, weight, utility. something like this would be useful for a submix of 1/8” gear. just look into the types of musicians who love the 1010 boxes

Re: TX-6 – Teenage Engineering

#307

Post by jdboyd »

dimatura wrote: post #296
IAmPym wrote: post #159

"Why is it so expensive?" - commentary from someone who does this for a living at Sequential Small Volume - each unit is more expensive than a large volume product, you don't get price breaks on any components or tooling costs Design focused - Who is the product for? It isn't for people who want to spend 250$ on a Behringer mixer. It is for people who want something that is high quality and doesn't break. Reliable. F…

Looking at all the features it has in this form factor, plus the supply shortage, I can see why it costs as much as it does. Does it mean it's a good deal? Well maybe, if you want most/all of the features, value portability in terms of form factory plus battery, and like the aesthetics. If this thing ticks a few too many boxes, some alternatives: - A portable (no battery) 6-stereo/12-mono channel mixer with FX, but n…

Thanks for the moukey reference. That looks like it might be perfect for one of my needs.

Re: TX-6 – Teenage Engineering

#308

Post by npteljes »

tomcam wrote: post #171
ketzo wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The OP-1 is one of those products that makes me want to change my entire lifestyle and personality just so I could possibly justify owning it. It's just so neat .

That is so shallow. Also, I feel exactly the same way.

You have to make sure where it's coming from - which of course we can't do from a single comment. For example, the best place where it could be coming from is self-expression. Owning and using something can be cultivating a relationship with oneself and also a signal for others, and if it's genuine, then it's basically communication of a very valid human need, which is self-expression and seeking the validation for it, thereby validation for oneself's existence and affiliation.

Re: TX-6 – Teenage Engineering

#309

Post by eternityforest »

relaxing wrote: post #217
eternityforest wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Converters are an issue when the whole point is small size. I wish they'd develop a full USB-C alternate mode for pro audio. One C cable could do dozens of channels, or one of legacy analog, and provide clean regulated power for wireless gear, and the connectors pack very densely. You could even make it daisy chainable, plus speakers could be powered over PD at small shows, and so could lights.

At 0.5mm pitch between connectors the crosstalk would be nasty.

I was thinking all-digital where possible, only using analog for 1 or 2 channel legacy connections

Re: TX-6 – Teenage Engineering

#310

Post by eternityforest »

TheRealPomax wrote: post #262
eternityforest wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't count your time whatsoever and don't go for the nice case design. I mean at the extreme case, if you can tolerate 40ms of latency and stuttering, a Raspberry Pi and some USB soundcards can do it all. The actual power needed is reasonable and ADC/DACs aren't that insane. A Teensy 4.1 connected to an ESP32 could probably do most of this, if you wanted to do $15k of software development in your spare time a…

Anyone who can tolerate 40ms of latency should stick to Bluetooth. If it's more than 3ms, it's already more latency than a good RF system gives you, if it's more than 10ms things are getting questionable, and at 20+ms you've lost the ability to monitor, because what your fingers/voice do and what your ears hear are now noticeably out of sync. Try singing while monitoring yourself at 20ms delay. It's hilarious.

I can kind of mostly sing up to 35ms or so, but at 40ms and up it's a real clown show.

My playing is already sloppy enough to not be affected till maybe 15 or so.... but it would clearly be different with a pro!

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