[raisedbywolves]

   
Ah ah, I've also asked my family if they each wanted a pair, since I can get them for $129 (with mic). The new warranty is what makes me want to buy more.

i don't know if i can convince him to get them. he's had a couple of iem's i recommended to them but he broke both of them so i think these are a good fit for him but he seems to be leaning more towards buying headphones for some reason.

 

[crazyg0od33]

   
Ah ah, I've also asked my family if they each wanted a pair, since I can get them for $129 (with mic). The new warranty is what makes me want to buy more.

im like 99% sure that backerit charges $249 for mic versions, so only your pair would be at kickstarter prices...I'm not sure though
 
edit - yeah look at this post
 
http://www.head-fi.org/t/694117/aurisonics-rockets-appreciation-thread-preliminary-impressions/660#post_10235799

 

[raisedbywolves]

  im like 99% sure that backerit charges $249 for mic versions, so only your pair would be at kickstarter prices...I'm not sure though
 
edit - yeah look at this post
 
http://www.head-fi.org/t/694117/aurisonics-rockets-appreciation-thread-preliminary-impressions/660#post_10235799

if you read that correctly, it says for people who didn't pledge who want to pre-order. i did my backerkit earlier and it said i could order either non-mic versions at $149 or mic versions at $179 for myself or friends.

 

[Sinocelt]

  Got the survey today to complete my order!  It actually will allow me to buy 3 non-mic and 3 mic versions of the rockets all at the super early bird price (+30 ea for the mic).  I wonder if that's what Dale intended?  I don't want to be greedy, but damn, that could be a smoking hot deal for some of my friends!

 
They removed it. What a downer. I was going to buy four more pairs for my family. Now, no.

 

[jonnio]

   
They removed it. What a downer. I was going to buy four more pairs for my family. Now, no.

Yeah, it would have been nice, but Dale/Aurisonics limited the supersteal to 50 people for a reason (they may even be taking a loss or no profit on those).  I think it was very generous to allow each of us to buy 3 pairs, so I can't expect them to leave a bug like that in place.

 

[tomscy2000]

  Yeah, it would have been nice, but Dale/Aurisonics limited the supersteal to 50 people for a reason (they may even be taking a loss or no profit on those).  I think it was very generous to allow each of us to buy 3 pairs, so I can't expect them to leave a bug like that in place.

 
No, no way, especially not with the fact that the Rockets have been successfully funded. They've gone way beyond sunk costs for tooling and R&D; I'm quite sure they have full ROI for this campaign. They can tool and scale manufacturing accordingly to reduce costs down such that they're still making some money even with the $99 tier.

 

[geogga]

I thought he was nice letting you guys get 3 pairs at early bird price, if he let you guys get more than 3 at early bird price that would be unfair to everyone else.

Not sure which finish I should get to complement the earphones. Grey or water honed titanium(don't know what that looks like) or maybe that little shiny gold finish.

 

[jonnio]

   
No, no way, especially not with the fact that the Rockets have been successfully funded. They've gone way beyond sunk costs for tooling and R&D; I'm quite sure they have full ROI for this campaign. They can tool and scale manufacturing accordingly to reduce costs down such that they're still making some money even with the $99 tier.

 
You might be right, but we aren't talking about a stamped metal or plastic shell here, so there is just no getting around the high cost of CNC'd titanium. 
 
Even if they were running on a 75% profit margin with the retail price at $250 that'd be on the order of $62.50/pair.  Throw in the extras tips, TiN coating, etc... and it starts getting close.

 

[tomscy2000]

  You might be right, but we aren't talking about a stamped metal or plastic shell here, so there is just no getting around the high cost of CNC'd titanium.

 
Titanium may be more costly to manufacture than other materials, but the cost is dependent upon the complexity of the item being manufactured. The greatest hurdle to the successful and efficient manufacture of the Rockets is precision and size, but the shape itself is relatively simplistic. It'll require a CNC machine that has fine stepping control in the axis pointing along the length of the cylindrical shape of the Rockets, but beyond that, the manufacture process should not be complex to the degree that aerospace companies require out of their fan blade or control surfaces. Manufacture of such items is costly because of the human aspect of complex control and monitoring that goes beyond the manufacture of an IEM. As long as AS gets beyond a hurdle of financing their tooling, and provided that they have instituted an efficient SOP for manufacture, there shouldn't be any reason why the Rockets (as a package) should cost over $99 to manufacture, end-to-end.
 
ADDENDUM: Now, if we want to factor in marketing, packaging design, after-sales service, etc. then it may very well cost AS more than $99 per unit. But if we're talking purely about the manufacture of the IEM, accessories, and packaging, I doubt it goes over the super steal cost.

 

[jonnio]

   
Titanium may be more costly to manufacture than other materials, but the cost is dependent upon the complexity of the item being manufactured. The greatest hurdle to the successful and efficient manufacture of the Rockets is precision and size, but the shape itself is relatively simplistic. It'll require a CNC machine that has fine stepping control in the axis pointing along the length of the cylindrical shape of the Rockets, but beyond that, the manufacture process should not be complex to the degree that aerospace companies require out of their fan blade or control surfaces. Manufacture of such items is costly because of the human aspect of complex control and monitoring that goes beyond the manufacture of an IEM. As long as AS gets beyond a hurdle of financing their tooling, and provided that they have instituted an efficient SOP for manufacture, there shouldn't be any reason why the Rockets (as a package) should cost over $99 to manufacture, end-to-end.

 
Exactly my point -- You can't tool and scale anything on the body of the rockets -- If this were a stamped metal back screwed into a molded plastic housing, then you can make bigger and bigger molds/dies/etc... to significantly drop the per part cost.  With the Rockets, each body will take x minutes on a CNC machine (in the US mind you), period.  It doesn't matter if they are making 1 or 1000.
 
I agree with you that it's probably not over $99 to make them, but I still think that price probably leaves very little headroom to pay the electric bill and employee salaries.

 

[alpha421]

i think it's funny when one speculates profits margins and assumes it may cost this and that when there's so many other significant factors that comes into play that's completely transparent from the consumer.

 

[tomscy2000]

  Exactly my point -- You can't tool and scale anything on the body of the rockets -- If this were a stamped metal back screwed into a molded plastic housing, then you can make bigger and bigger molds/dies/etc... to significantly drop the per part cost.  With the Rockets, each body will take x minutes on a CNC machine (in the US mind you), period.  It doesn't matter if they are making 1 or 1000. I agree with you that it's probably not over $99 to make them, but I still think that price probably leaves very little headroom to pay the electric bill and employee salaries.

We're not really disagreeing with each other; we're just concentrating on different aspects. The Kickstarter campaign raised 200k+, and that in turn needs to be leveraged into something significantly greater in order for the endeavor to work out anyway. I think the point here, at least for me, is that AS won't be hurting if they allow people to buy more units at the $99 tier (and its derivatives). The truth is that most of those 50 super steal backers (I am one of them) won't be buying 10 of them at once. Most, including me, are just buying one. I think a potentially bigger issue here is one of perceived fairness. Why do these 50 all of a sudden get to purchase so many more at that price? This wouldn't even have been an issue of discussion on here if AS had upped the original quota of super steal backers to 200, but not allowed for the add-on purchases. The math would've worked out the same, though the potential risk would've been much, much greater.

 

[jonnio]

  i think it's funny when one speculates profits margins and assumes it may cost this and that when there's so many other significant factors that comes into play that's completely transparent from the consumer.

My profit margin was just to help illustrate a point.  I have no idea what margins they are operating on, but I have spent enough of my career designing equipment and processes for manufacturing on all scales (anywhere from 5 units a day on a high per unit margin down, to a unit coming off the line every 16 seconds where we had hours of meetings determining whether we had to add a 2 cent screw to the product.)  that while the particulars may be transparent to me, the concepts are not.
 

 
We're not really disagreeing with each other; we're just concentrating on different aspects. The Kickstarter campaign raised 200k+, and that in turn needs to be leveraged into something significantly greater in order for the endeavor to work out anyway. I think the point here, at least for me, is that AS won't be hurting if they allow people to buy more units at the $99 tier (and its derivatives). 

Yeah, I guess my way of thinking of it is that there is little benefit to AS to allowing people to get a whole bunch of units at $99 and it has all of the associated drawbacks that you mentioned.

 

[tomscy2000]

One thing I should add is that Rockets are not the end but a means to an end. While I can't profess to know what AS has in mind for the future, the smart money is that the Kickstarter campaign is merely a demonstration of operational readiness and an ability to raise money. This will give venture capitalists confidence to inject money into a company like AS, and ultimately, that is what will allow a company like the way Aurisonics has been run to thrive in the future. Even though consumer benefits from campaigns, we must remember that Kickstarter is not something created out of benevolence; it is a launchpad for companies wishing to fully utilize social media for fundraising, no more no less. Indeed, there are tiny companies struggling to make their mark that have been able to garner attention with KS, but their success has hinged on highly innovative ideas that have resonated with social media. Crowdfunding from the entrepreneurial end is changing in its nature, though. Fewer companies are true, one/two person operations. Larger (not necessarily large) companies have taken to KS as well, and are now the ones dominating the campaigns. If keeping the lights on and paying the insurance premium for employees are question marks for a fledgling company, they probably shouldn't be embarking on a large scale Kickstarter campaign anyway.

 

[alpha421]

  My profit margin was just to help illustrate a point.  I have no idea what margins they are operating on, but I have spent enough of my career designing equipment and processes for manufacturing on all scales (anywhere from 5 units a day on a high per unit margin down, to a unit coming off the line every 16 seconds where we had hours of meetings determining whether we had to add a 2 cent screw to the product.)  that while the particulars may be transparent to me, the concepts are not.

 
I can empathize.  I spent most of my first career in large conference rooms with accounts, engineers from all points of the life cycle, and PMs' writing up specs/reqs for large software and airplane companies.  I'm glad those 15 years are behind me. Where I was coming wasn't really the concepts, but the dollar figures behind every one of them.