What a long, strange trip it's been -- (Robert Hunter)
- Thread starter Baldr
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crazychile
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Thanks Baldr for the penetrating news on the new Schiit Johnson!
Will it be taking the place of the Asgard?
Not that there is anything wrong with that.
No, Everyone needs to buy an ASGARD to protect themselves!
madwolfa
Headphoneus Supremus
Jeez.. had me for a moment. Lol.
tonykaz
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Asia,
I wonder if he's looking for a Off-Shore supplier?
I hope those johnsons aren't intended for our backsides.
Tony in Michigan
Lol that is to funny.
johnjen
Headphoneus Supremus
I'd love a 15" johnson…
But it would probably kill me…
But oh the smile on my face would be legendary…
JJ
But it would probably kill me…
But oh the smile on my face would be legendary…
JJ
I'd love a 15" johnson…
But it would probably kill me…
But oh the smile on my face would be legendary…
JJ
I'm listening to Eric Clapton "It's In the Way That You Use It"
just sayin'
Baldr
Sponsor: Schiit Audio
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Traveling purely for pleasure to visit friends - we depend on each other to order the other into vacation since neither of us can work non-obsessively. It was Jason's time.
I'd love a 15" johnson…
But it would probably kill me…
But oh the smile on my face would be legendary…
JJ
as would be the grimace on her face!
artur9
Headphoneus Supremus
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If we go Norse I vote Jörmungandr, the Midgard Serpent. That sucker can come in any size you want.
On the other hand, isn't Johannson Norse snuf?
Cool april fools man .its good to have laugh : )
Baldr
Sponsor: Schiit Audio
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I originally wrote this as an explanation of how Schiit works. Here ya go:
I like the Yggy. It creates music reproduction which reminds me of how it sounded when I played in a Bluegrass band 50 years ago. That is why I did the megaburrito filter. The Yggy is the best I can do short of spending 4-5 times the money. You may not like the Yggy or any of our DACs. If you don't like my design priorities or our sound , I may tell you you are full of schiit even though it is none of my business and that is OK. Here is why.
In the 1970's I lived in a market controlled Peru. There was only one brand of cheese available, Queso Laive. It smelled like a locker room. It tasted like ass. It would not melt. It looked and wiggled like Tofu. One would think that they would sell schiitloads of competition free Queso Laive. Nope. Nobody bought it. Instead, everyone would buy much more expensive black market Kraft Singles from Chile. The net result was everyone had much more expensive cheeseburgers with mediocre Kraft singles.
Which leads me to my next point – I absolutely need everyone who builds gear which competes with mine. Even though I have either for myself or as a hired gun for others probably designed more dacs than anyone else – it would be impossible for Schiit (or any other company) to go it alone. Imagine a show with only one maker of gear. There would be no incentive for anyone to show up. Lots of gear from lots of makers means lots of attendees. Further, no company in such a lonely position has any incentive to make a good product.
Anyone who makes any audio product which someone likes enough to buy is creating audio value. Anyone who buys such a product is supporting and therefore perpetrating our industry, even if they buy it used, for this will probably free up funds to buy more gear. Forums such as Head-Fi, etc. promote and support our industry. I need them. We need fanboys, whether Schiit fanboys or someone else's. They all help us, directly or indirectly! If you like our stuff, great! If you don't, you still support our industry. The only people we don't need are that vocal minority who complain about everything and buy nothing, and dirty up the threads. Fortunately, we have very few of those. The just make 90% of the noise. They neither support nor create anything other than slop. So, if I want to do well, I have to compete. So the step 1 is to sell direct. That makes us twice as efficient. The Yggy all of a sudden becomes a $4600 DAC. Every time you double your price you quarter your sales. When you quarter your sales, your parts quantities drop. So now your $2300 DAC is more like $6000. On and on.
The only burden here is there is no dealer to demo the now $6000 DAC to the customer so the user can now figure out if he wants it. So we send it out for a eval with a 5% restock fee against the $2300 DAC. If we get it back, we have to sell it as “B” stock after the fact. Why do we charge restocking fees? It is not just because we lose money on returns - believe it or not, there are users who would try every product we have only to return it. (Far more than one would think. - No kidding) It is tough to keep prices down as a lending library. If you want to compete you keep prices down.
How else to be efficient? You minimize sales and marketing. We have no sales department at Schiit, and minimalist marketing which really is more like posturing our products with literature. Jason would probably disagree, but marketing has only two purposes. One is to sell products nobody wants and the second is to sell even more products which have already reached saturation. We don't have to do that. If the products don't sell, we sell through and pull them. (Opti-Modi and Loki.)
How else? How about $100 DACs and $100 Headphone Amps, $170 tube headphone amps, and other products to bring new users in. There are plenty of potential users who are intimidated by high end audio prices but still love music. There are many users with desktop room for a headphone system who may not have room for a full size two channel system who very much want to be involved with better audio. What such products lack in profit is more made up by vast quantities of eager to be pleased users.
What else? How about what we don't build. How do we decide? I look at the 125 year history of audio. I have been alive through just over half of that. Let me begin with a short description of an audio reproduction system - how about a collection of media with a playback device or system proper to that media. The keyword is media. Up until a dozen years or so, the media was owned or borrowed, but since then rented (streamed) media has become more popular. The elephant in this room is that whatever type/style of media has to be produced by entities beyond the control of those of us in the audio reproduction business. That is, the music providers are those in primary control of media.
In the entire history of audio playback, there have been five major transitions in media:
1. Cylinder to flat 78 RPM records
2. 78 RPM to primarily 33 and secondarily 45 RPM records.
3. Mono to compatible Stereo records
4. Stereo Records to Stereo Digital Compact Discs
5. Stereo Digital Compact Discs to Stereo Downloaded/Streamed Audio
(In all fairness, the last transition above includes lossy formats (MP3). Those of interest to audiophiles would be lossless such as PCM or FLAC.))
All of these transitions required a complete repurchase of old media to utilize the new. Since the majority of audio enthusiasts had more invested in media than their reproduction, there is an enormous amount of inertia/resistance to change in any transition of media. This resistance to change extends to those who are in the business of providing the media. The importance of this fact is not to be taken lightly. This is exactly why there have been so few changes in audio formats.
Here is a list of (by no means complete) of consumer audio failed format proposals: Four track cartridges, eight track cartridges, open reel tapes, mini cassette, microcassette, elcaset, deutsche cassette, sq quadraphonic, cd-4 quadraphonic, qs-matrix quadraphonic, surround sound audio, DAT, digital compact cassette, mini-discs, DVD-Audio, SACD, HDCD, and Blu-ray high fidelity pure audio. On probable deathwatch is DSD. What all of the above formats have in common is that none of them had a complete (or even near complete) catalog of music already available on the prior existing format. The above list is a perfect example of that definition of insanity by doing the same thing repeatedly expecting different results. (I should talk – I suckered myself into making a DSD product – the Loki)
I've been fascinated watching the audio press rolling over and wetting themselves with excitement every time one of these new format proposals requiring a re-buy of software is rolled out. The latest is MQA. Never have so many words been written about such an under-documented concept. You can bet Schiit will be a late MQA adopter only after some significant portion of the current software catalog is offered in MQA format. I think such enthusiasm excitement happens because our industry is largely bereft of significant breakthroughs. The press worries that their competition will out-scoop them, then the manufacturers race each other in a frenzy which produces dozens of new products of limited utility. I am sanguine, even yawning, until I can either download or stream MQA from companies such as, but not limited to, Amazon or Apple. After that lengthy policy argument, we produce for 99% of the market. Helps for efficiency.
Finally, our staff. They are people, not commodities. We select them carefully. The lowest paid of them is over 2x minimum wage, and well over that with bonuses. We pay them a production bonus so they are largely self managing. We have never had an employee quit. We now have 15 employees. Last year we had 14 employees who produced and shipped well over 50,000 units.
To recapitulate:
1. Schiit is a company happy to compete in and grateful for our arena of audio hardware manufacturers.
2. Schiit is grateful for not just our own userbase, but for those of our competitors.
3. Schiit is also grateful for our press, forum owners, bloggers, and show organizers.
3. Schiit recognizes that there a few abusers in the wild and try to minimize their impact on ourselves and our users.
4. Schiit is doing everything it can to compete and kick ass; our main tool is efficiency.
5. Another way we do that is to draw on our significant experience.
6. Yet another way we do so is to sell direct, which allows for larger runs and even lower prices.
7. We make very inexpensive entry level products, which sell by the thousand to a very low maintenance market which subsidizes our higher end products.
8. Our products sell themselves; we say what we mean and mean what we say about them. We do not depend on marketing to sell products which no one wants. We have no sales department.
9. We sell 100% products to the 99% of users. We are not interested in selling unproven formats nor products.
10. We choose and pay our staff well. Well paid employees bust their asses. Platitudes don't work.
This will be my last post for at least several days. I am going in for some spine surgery Wednesday AM. All the good mojo you could send up is appreciated to get me back here posting soon.
I like the Yggy. It creates music reproduction which reminds me of how it sounded when I played in a Bluegrass band 50 years ago. That is why I did the megaburrito filter. The Yggy is the best I can do short of spending 4-5 times the money. You may not like the Yggy or any of our DACs. If you don't like my design priorities or our sound , I may tell you you are full of schiit even though it is none of my business and that is OK. Here is why.
In the 1970's I lived in a market controlled Peru. There was only one brand of cheese available, Queso Laive. It smelled like a locker room. It tasted like ass. It would not melt. It looked and wiggled like Tofu. One would think that they would sell schiitloads of competition free Queso Laive. Nope. Nobody bought it. Instead, everyone would buy much more expensive black market Kraft Singles from Chile. The net result was everyone had much more expensive cheeseburgers with mediocre Kraft singles.
Which leads me to my next point – I absolutely need everyone who builds gear which competes with mine. Even though I have either for myself or as a hired gun for others probably designed more dacs than anyone else – it would be impossible for Schiit (or any other company) to go it alone. Imagine a show with only one maker of gear. There would be no incentive for anyone to show up. Lots of gear from lots of makers means lots of attendees. Further, no company in such a lonely position has any incentive to make a good product.
Anyone who makes any audio product which someone likes enough to buy is creating audio value. Anyone who buys such a product is supporting and therefore perpetrating our industry, even if they buy it used, for this will probably free up funds to buy more gear. Forums such as Head-Fi, etc. promote and support our industry. I need them. We need fanboys, whether Schiit fanboys or someone else's. They all help us, directly or indirectly! If you like our stuff, great! If you don't, you still support our industry. The only people we don't need are that vocal minority who complain about everything and buy nothing, and dirty up the threads. Fortunately, we have very few of those. The just make 90% of the noise. They neither support nor create anything other than slop. So, if I want to do well, I have to compete. So the step 1 is to sell direct. That makes us twice as efficient. The Yggy all of a sudden becomes a $4600 DAC. Every time you double your price you quarter your sales. When you quarter your sales, your parts quantities drop. So now your $2300 DAC is more like $6000. On and on.
The only burden here is there is no dealer to demo the now $6000 DAC to the customer so the user can now figure out if he wants it. So we send it out for a eval with a 5% restock fee against the $2300 DAC. If we get it back, we have to sell it as “B” stock after the fact. Why do we charge restocking fees? It is not just because we lose money on returns - believe it or not, there are users who would try every product we have only to return it. (Far more than one would think. - No kidding) It is tough to keep prices down as a lending library. If you want to compete you keep prices down.
How else to be efficient? You minimize sales and marketing. We have no sales department at Schiit, and minimalist marketing which really is more like posturing our products with literature. Jason would probably disagree, but marketing has only two purposes. One is to sell products nobody wants and the second is to sell even more products which have already reached saturation. We don't have to do that. If the products don't sell, we sell through and pull them. (Opti-Modi and Loki.)
How else? How about $100 DACs and $100 Headphone Amps, $170 tube headphone amps, and other products to bring new users in. There are plenty of potential users who are intimidated by high end audio prices but still love music. There are many users with desktop room for a headphone system who may not have room for a full size two channel system who very much want to be involved with better audio. What such products lack in profit is more made up by vast quantities of eager to be pleased users.
What else? How about what we don't build. How do we decide? I look at the 125 year history of audio. I have been alive through just over half of that. Let me begin with a short description of an audio reproduction system - how about a collection of media with a playback device or system proper to that media. The keyword is media. Up until a dozen years or so, the media was owned or borrowed, but since then rented (streamed) media has become more popular. The elephant in this room is that whatever type/style of media has to be produced by entities beyond the control of those of us in the audio reproduction business. That is, the music providers are those in primary control of media.
In the entire history of audio playback, there have been five major transitions in media:
1. Cylinder to flat 78 RPM records
2. 78 RPM to primarily 33 and secondarily 45 RPM records.
3. Mono to compatible Stereo records
4. Stereo Records to Stereo Digital Compact Discs
5. Stereo Digital Compact Discs to Stereo Downloaded/Streamed Audio
(In all fairness, the last transition above includes lossy formats (MP3). Those of interest to audiophiles would be lossless such as PCM or FLAC.))
All of these transitions required a complete repurchase of old media to utilize the new. Since the majority of audio enthusiasts had more invested in media than their reproduction, there is an enormous amount of inertia/resistance to change in any transition of media. This resistance to change extends to those who are in the business of providing the media. The importance of this fact is not to be taken lightly. This is exactly why there have been so few changes in audio formats.
Here is a list of (by no means complete) of consumer audio failed format proposals: Four track cartridges, eight track cartridges, open reel tapes, mini cassette, microcassette, elcaset, deutsche cassette, sq quadraphonic, cd-4 quadraphonic, qs-matrix quadraphonic, surround sound audio, DAT, digital compact cassette, mini-discs, DVD-Audio, SACD, HDCD, and Blu-ray high fidelity pure audio. On probable deathwatch is DSD. What all of the above formats have in common is that none of them had a complete (or even near complete) catalog of music already available on the prior existing format. The above list is a perfect example of that definition of insanity by doing the same thing repeatedly expecting different results. (I should talk – I suckered myself into making a DSD product – the Loki)
I've been fascinated watching the audio press rolling over and wetting themselves with excitement every time one of these new format proposals requiring a re-buy of software is rolled out. The latest is MQA. Never have so many words been written about such an under-documented concept. You can bet Schiit will be a late MQA adopter only after some significant portion of the current software catalog is offered in MQA format. I think such enthusiasm excitement happens because our industry is largely bereft of significant breakthroughs. The press worries that their competition will out-scoop them, then the manufacturers race each other in a frenzy which produces dozens of new products of limited utility. I am sanguine, even yawning, until I can either download or stream MQA from companies such as, but not limited to, Amazon or Apple. After that lengthy policy argument, we produce for 99% of the market. Helps for efficiency.
Finally, our staff. They are people, not commodities. We select them carefully. The lowest paid of them is over 2x minimum wage, and well over that with bonuses. We pay them a production bonus so they are largely self managing. We have never had an employee quit. We now have 15 employees. Last year we had 14 employees who produced and shipped well over 50,000 units.
To recapitulate:
1. Schiit is a company happy to compete in and grateful for our arena of audio hardware manufacturers.
2. Schiit is grateful for not just our own userbase, but for those of our competitors.
3. Schiit is also grateful for our press, forum owners, bloggers, and show organizers.
3. Schiit recognizes that there a few abusers in the wild and try to minimize their impact on ourselves and our users.
4. Schiit is doing everything it can to compete and kick ass; our main tool is efficiency.
5. Another way we do that is to draw on our significant experience.
6. Yet another way we do so is to sell direct, which allows for larger runs and even lower prices.
7. We make very inexpensive entry level products, which sell by the thousand to a very low maintenance market which subsidizes our higher end products.
8. Our products sell themselves; we say what we mean and mean what we say about them. We do not depend on marketing to sell products which no one wants. We have no sales department.
9. We sell 100% products to the 99% of users. We are not interested in selling unproven formats nor products.
10. We choose and pay our staff well. Well paid employees bust their asses. Platitudes don't work.
This will be my last post for at least several days. I am going in for some spine surgery Wednesday AM. All the good mojo you could send up is appreciated to get me back here posting soon.
JohnBal
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