[Ableza]

  LOL, be VERY afraid of something that "just starts up and works," is my motto.
 
I was recently working on something that "just ran," and would have been very easy to give a pass through to production and crack the champagne bottles...when in fact it was so out of balance the DC servo was just barely holding things together. The only evidence of this was a larger-than-average glitch when switching gain--nothing at all was apparent on the analyzer. 
 
Or a new thing I'm working on now, which is much more complex than the average Schiit product, which similarly "just started up and ran." It was almost a relief when I found I'd reversed the polarity to the relay coils...specifically, to 10 very small SMD relays, to be exact. On a 4-layer board with the relay traces buried. Yeah. Argh.

Ha!  Well at least with burned traces you have a very clear problem indicator. 

 

[EraserXIV]

Or a new thing I'm working on now, which is much more complex than the average Schiit product, which similarly "just started up and ran." It was almost a relief when I found I'd reversed the polarity to the relay coils...specifically, to 10 very small SMD relays, to be exact. On a 4-layer board with the relay traces buried. Yeah. Argh.

Such a tease...

 

[Armaegis]

  (5) Catch on fire.
(6) Immolate your favorite shirt in the process.

 
Pfft, as a "good" engineer I made sure all the fires I started were safely within the confines of the fume hood...

 

Spoiler: Warning: Spoiler!

 
and by fire I mean eruption
 

 

[jacal01]

Wait until you find out that your hood fan motor bearings aren't high temperature material.  Good times...

 

[drez]

In terms of calling out high end audio, one does wonder whether prices reflect the bill of materials and R&D costs or some kind of gentleman's agreement among the high end not to undercut each other out of business. In any case it's great that there are companies out there th at are innovating at more sane price points and not just in high end.

 

[SoupRKnowva]

In terms of calling out high end audio, one does wonder whether prices reflect the bill of materials and R&D costs or some kind of gentleman's agreement among the high end not to undercut each other out of business.

 
there is no reason for the price of an object to be reflected in the cost of the bill of materials and R&D...that is a bit of a silly idea that is thrown around here quite a bit.

 

[ToddTheMetalGod]

there is no reason for the price of an object to be reflected in the cost of the bill of materials and R&D...that is a bit of a silly idea that is thrown around here quite a bit.

This, price reflects performance... and that's what drives innovation. Who can create the best performing product in a particular price range, while maintaining good build quality/comfort and a low cost of production/materials.

 

[davidsh]

Yet good performance isn't a standard that's agreed upon.

 

[SoupRKnowva]

Yet good performance isn't a standard that's agreed upon.

Exactly, that's why there is a market full of products rather than just one

 

[drez]

This, price reflects performance... and that's what drives innovation. Who can create the best performing product in a particular price range, while maintaining good build quality/comfort and a low cost of production/materials.

I agree, generally this holds true, you get what you pay for, but in this case where performance tracks upwards, prices follow, at least for the bleeding edge. Given time we end up at $250k for a system with remarkable performance and innovation, and wait for some kind of trickle down, which I guess is happening currently with FPGA and R2R technologies. The lack of any budget constraints for the engineers is probably what gave us this innovation?

 

[OddE]

there is no reason for the price of an object to be reflected in the cost of the bill of materials and R&D...that is a bit of a silly idea that is thrown around here quite a bit.

-I'd argue that in high end (especially in the more - ahem - esoteric corners), you are often dealing in Veblen goods - basically, that the price paid is part of the attractiveness of the product; make it cheaper, and you make it less desirable.

 

[Ableza]

The high cost of many boutique products is also due to the low volume of hand production.  If I'm hand-building ten units they are going to cost orders of magnitude more than if I'm having 10,000 made for me in a factory.

 

[ThePianoMan]

there is no reason for the price of an object to be reflected in the cost of the bill of materials and R&D...that is a bit of a silly idea that is thrown around here quite a bit.

Maybe I'm misreading this, but I believe that price is very reasonably associated with R&D. It simply factors into the total cost of the product. It has to.
The Sennheisers HD800 provably cost many thousands of dollars to develop. But it most likely costs Sennheisers no more than a few hundred dollars to make. Yet we have a headphone that well exceeds $1000. If you made a product and spent 100K on R&D, and the product cost you a $100 to manufacture, you'd be foolish to price it at $200 or even $300 dollars (assuming it performs well, and assuming it's not the next iphone) you need to recoup those R&D costs. Now, in the super high-end I'm sure there is ridiculous markup going on, but the a amount of development going in to some of the products is pretty impressive, whether it translates into better performance or not.

Happy Listening

 

[SoupRKnowva]

The post I responded to was implying that things shouldn't cost so much because it is to high above the cost of components and R&D. My point was that regardless of the cost of materials and R&D that things are typically priced based on what the market will pay for them.

It's like all the people that say apple products cost too much. It's an absurd assertion to make since not a single other company that doesn't produce oil makes as much profit as apple does.

 

[45longcolt]

List price is far too often exactly what the market will bear, in other words what the maker thinks they can get away with based on implied status, manipulated supply, anticipated demand, (mis)represented performance and the alignment of the stars. R&D, parts cost, labor, shipping etc. may have little relation to the asking price. I just read in some audio mag that the rule of thumb is to multiply parts cost by 5 to get list price. Do you really think it costs that much more to build a Porsche than a Buick? In headphones, look at the Abyss. List $5500. As compared to the LCD-X another top quality planar built by a small specialist company for one-third the price. Much as I respect the sound of the Abyss, IMNSHO it's a rip-off. Thus I exercise my right to spend my money elsewhere.
 
Like with Schiit, whose habit of delivering excellent sound at realistic prices has made me a fanboy. And more significantly, a multiple repeat customer.