Why is gear so expensive and why not more vintage DIY?

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joel hamilton
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Post by joel hamilton » Mon Dec 15, 2008 9:34 am

This thread has turned fairly useless.
Please cut out the BS or it will be locked.
Thanks.

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Post by Jim Williams » Mon Dec 15, 2008 9:51 am

Selling un-assembled kits can be risky. Success is dependent on the skills and knowledge of the assembler. Some folks on these forums can't even use english, much less read an detailed instruction manual. When they fail, it's on the seller to rectify or they get slammed by people that got in over their heads. Lose-lose.
Last edited by Jim Williams on Mon Dec 15, 2008 9:53 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by chris harris » Mon Dec 15, 2008 9:53 am

joel hamilton wrote:This thread has turned fairly useless.
Please cut out the BS or it will be locked.
Thanks.
Amen!

I said that I wasn't interested in that kind of immature tit-for-tat. I also said that I wouldn't respond to it. And, I won't.

My interest in this thread at this point is in hoping that the SCA or Hamptone guys will come into it and offer an opinion about wave soldering. For all I know, they don't sell enough pieces to have their PCBs made for them. Maybe they're making them in-house. But, if they are contracting the PCB manufacturing out, and they COULD order them pre-stuffed with components and wave soldered at the same cost as ordering the PCB and components separately, then I'm genuinely curious why they don't.

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Post by chris harris » Mon Dec 15, 2008 9:56 am

Jim Williams wrote:Selling un-assembled kits can be risky. Success is dependent on the skills and knowledge of the assembler. Some folks on these forums can't even use english, much less read an detailed instruction manual. When they fail, it's on the seller to rectify or they get slammed by people that got in over their heads. Lose-lose.
I agree. It's a recipe for having a bunch of wonky gear out there with your name on it. That's not good.

So, if the cost to the manufacturer is the same, why not offer as many components pre-stuffed and wave soldered as possible?

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Post by Jim Williams » Mon Dec 15, 2008 10:15 am

Then you get to a point where the thing is already built, just assemble with some screws and snap a couple of connectors in. They may as well do that themselves and offer a complete product, tested and warrenteed. At that point the costs are not much more to finish the thing themselves instead of saving a couple of bucks risking moronic mistakes from un-qualified buyers.

The best approach is to sell instructions and a blank pcb. The buyer then is responsible for the parts they want, the solder they want, etc. It should be sold as is, no warrentee, no complaints.
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Post by calaverasgrandes » Mon Dec 15, 2008 8:14 pm

I got bored so I wont claim I read everything in this thread.
I think a lot of the price premium has to do with the gear centric business we work in. There are a lot of clients out there that know a handful of brand names. They dont know how to use those brand names or even the model numbers that are significant. They just know that when they go into a studio they want to see Neve, NS10, API, Neumann etc.
In my home studio I have some soundalike gear and some genuine stuff. But then I rarely need to show anyone the inside of my studio. In commercial facilities customers are gonna name check your gear list. Who cares if the Purple 1176 clone is better than the re-issue UA 1176? I know that all other variables being equal, the studio that has several UA 1176's will get more calls. Ditto for real API 512/312 vs SCA or whatever other repro versions.
OTOH I like the idea of building diy mic pre's eq's based on old school designs. It would be awesome if there were some kits for Western Electric or RCA pres. Or a pultec. Heck I made my own pultec once, the trick actually isnt getting the EQ right. Its the line amps! That stuff was passive man!
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Post by emrr » Mon Dec 15, 2008 9:15 pm

Now that you mention it, there was an RCA BC-2B console preamp kit out there. It appears to be discontinued. Incomplete of course.
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Post by lobstman » Wed Dec 17, 2008 9:46 am

Jim Williams wrote:Then you get to a point where the thing is already built, just assemble with some screws and snap a couple of connectors in. They may as well do that themselves and offer a complete product, tested and warrenteed. At that point the costs are not much more to finish the thing themselves instead of saving a couple of bucks risking moronic mistakes from un-qualified buyers.
Thanks Jim, now we're getting somewhere. The point is not that it can't be done, but that doing so opens its own can of worms.

I wonder about the number of tech support headaches- you'd be saving yourself a lot of that by having the soldering work already done, but it's true you're then opening the field to people who don't have a clue in the first place. I know you can't idiot proof everything, but in some ways "insert tab A into slot B" type construction would make troubleshooting easier-

"Did you connect the power supply?"

"The what?"

That sort of thing is easier to deal with than finding where somebody put the wrong resistor in R28, but maybe you'd have to deal with more of it which would be its own headache.

Your point about "snap together" kits being one step away from being completed product to sell at a higher price point is well taken. I wonder though about the legal distinctions between "kit" and "product"- UL and all that. Does it make a difference?

I'm not saying that selling kits this way is necessarily a great idea, just that until Jim's post nobody's really come up with any solid reasons why it isn't.
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emrr
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Post by emrr » Wed Dec 17, 2008 11:18 am

lobstman wrote:
Jim Williams wrote:Then you get to a point where the thing is already built, just assemble with some screws and snap a couple of connectors in. They may as well do that themselves and offer a complete product, tested and warrenteed. At that point the costs are not much more to finish the thing themselves instead of saving a couple of bucks risking moronic mistakes from un-qualified buyers.
Thanks Jim, now we're getting somewhere. The point is not that it can't be done, but that doing so opens its own can of worms.
I said that already, several pages back. Apparently no one wanted to hear it. :P
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calaverasgrandes
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Post by calaverasgrandes » Wed Dec 17, 2008 11:24 am

otoh just because a board is pre stuffed doesnt mean its done.
What with resistors and capacitors having general;y wide variances it is not unusual for the most expertly built circuit to require tweaking to get out of osciallation. using 1% components would avoid this, as would laser trimmed components and surface mount. But I think most of us shy away from surface mount right? I know the surface mount and discrete component versions of a certain multipattern mic sound different.
I personally like populating PCBs. But if it really is the same price...
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Post by lobstman » Wed Dec 17, 2008 11:47 am

emrr wrote: I said that already, several pages back. Apparently no one wanted to hear it. :P
God dammit, you did- and on page 4, no less!
emrr wrote: An example. Roger Foote offered a number of Pico 500 series compressors as both full and partial kits. The full kit cost $400. He found his 'free' postmortem assistance to clueless builders ate all his time, and he had product out there that appeared to be of poor quality. He now only sells them completed, and they are only $500. He can build, test, and guarantee the units in almost the same amount of time as he can sort and bag up all the parts for someone else to do it, without the hassle of endless remote troubleshooting eating into his time. Eisen Audio discontinued kits for the same reason.
In other words it's possible, but it doesn't seem to work as a business model.
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calaverasgrandes
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Post by calaverasgrandes » Wed Dec 17, 2008 12:02 pm

Or just offer no tech support.
I dont believe craig anderton did for any of his projects in his book. And you could buy the cards and parts from a 3rd party... valpak? Dont remember, dont recall...
Like I said earlier, I am super interested in Western Electric and RCA stuff. Also Langevin and Quad Eight. You know... I actually have a schematic of a quad eight mic pre left over from when I went to audio school at Leo De Gar Kulka's CRA back in the late 80's. I dont think it mentions particular parts though (transformers, transistors) hmmm....
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Post by chris harris » Wed Dec 17, 2008 12:19 pm

emrr wrote:I said that already, several pages back. Apparently no one wanted to hear it. :P
I know. I also said something along the lines of this:
Jim Williams wrote:moronic mistakes from un-qualified buyers.
and, this:
lobstman wrote:you're then opening the field to people who don't have a clue in the first place.
and, I was excoriated for it! looking back, "real DIY" seems pretty mild compared to "don't have a clue".

Regardless..... someone with impeccable credentials (Jim Williams) has made an argument that is acceptable to lobstman. Time for me to turn the page on this thread.

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Post by Jim Williams » Wed Dec 17, 2008 12:28 pm

calaverasgrandes wrote:Or just offer no tech support.
That was long before the internot. Now days if that's tried, the wrath of pissed off bloggers with too much time on their hands can wreck a company's rep, whether deserved or not. "He sold me this crap and I can't fix it, what an a**hole!"

Who needs that?

I still love to see pcb kits without parts. That leaves the qualified builder creative options to expand upon. I like choices.
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Post by lobstman » Wed Dec 17, 2008 1:24 pm

subatomic pieces wrote: Regardless..... someone with impeccable credentials (Jim Williams) has made an argument that is acceptable to lobstman. Time for me to turn the page on this thread.
What is your problem with me? Did I fuck your wife or something?

How soon we forget-
subatomic pieces wrote: I said that I wasn't interested in that kind of immature tit-for-tat. I also said that I wouldn't respond to it. And, I won't.
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