Quote:
Originally Posted by t_s
hey dude,
The reason I don't like the $60 cmoys is cause most of them are portable and I wanted something for home use with a decent power supply to boot. I want the extra power, not the portability... hence they're not the most suitable for me.
yes, I completely agree that if glites (or any other amp in that range... I just picked that model completely randomly) were as popular as ipods then they'd be dirt cheap. However, just because it's my hobby doesn't mean I should be condemned to always pay a premium (but this is currently the case). Computers in general are a far bigger hobby for me... in fact a lot of my life/work revolves around it... but I totally don't have the same feeling that I'm paying way more than what I should even though the absolute dollar amount I spend far exceeds that of audio related equipment. It's more of a rant than anything, but with the knowledge that given the circumstances it is completely understandable. Hence the label of "rant".
As for $120 for labour on an M3... well real intention was trying to draw a general example but since I obviously yet again picked a specific case... Frankly I don't see that work as worth $150 (naturally another number that's at best a ballpark). For a few hours work, that's a lot of money for something like reading off a schematic and some soldering... There are people who do soldering at work and it's more comparable to an entire work day's pay...
I can see this heading down in an undesireable path - don't get me wrong - I really appreciate all the people who provide these services and choices, whether it'd be companies like headamp or individual builders who put together DIY designs... they make a great, valuable, and very much needed contribution to this market. Without them we would have no hope of getting to where we want to be... more suppliers, more buyers, greater economies of scale, better prices... I absolutely mean no offence but merely trying to explain my logic.
Anyway, I'm about to go bid on a 4 input behringer mixer board for like 20 bucks on ebay. 2 mins left... muhahaha... Probably won't win though. Ah well.
EDIT: Got outbid in the last 4 seconds. lol. See I was right. Hey it means I just saved myself $20 bucks
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(please be warned that there are grammatical errors and missing words in there and I'm too tired to fix them tonight)
I see so you'd like a nice home amp. Some of those Firestone amps seem to be getting good reviews here I think they cost around $100-120 if I'm not mistaken.
The reason why I say what I say is that Economics was one of my college majors and we have been inculcated to believe in the capitalist system. I actually do believe in the capitalist system, it may be perfect but then again no system is.
I agree that $150 is expensive to get one M3 built. However nobody wants to do it for less for whatever reason. If anything you have the edge in that you know people who do soldering work and you could see if one of them might do it for say $50 as an example. Maybe if one of them saw a market for these amps they could start building them at maybe a $70 labor charge.
The thing about this is that in order to build these amps and sell them then you start having risks about whether you'll sell all the parts you ordered as amps and the risk of getting amps back for repair. These things add up to little more than the hourly rate for soldering. From what you are saying the going rate for hand soldering work is around $20 an hour. Assuming they can build these amps in 4 hours they would have to charge an $80 building fee. If start selling them as a built product they have to deal with those risks and things like marketing and such. They might have to charge $100 per amp to cover that. However if even one other builder got into this business then pretty much everyone will get their amps for $50 less than before.
Now by that logic if 3 builders got into this business one might start doing it $90 bucks. Now the big problem is that the demand for these amps is limited. If you have suddenly 4 people selling these amps at $80 building cost the builder might find that they are only selling 4 per month (or some other low number). One of them might say that it isn't worth his time and headache to keep parts around and market and do all the other administrative things even a small business needs to sell only 4 amps a month and so he drops out. Then we go right back to $90 to build these amps. And so forth depending mostly on demand.
So you are right in saying that we need to get everyone interested in headphone amps and I try by letting people listen to mine. However it is an uphill battle. Even some of my "gadgethead" friends just straight up say that they are not audiophiles and they don't care about the "wierd" stuff we do and put up with for good sound. Most people want thumping bass speakers at home and believe that headphones are only to used late at might or on the go. They would never be sold on being tethered to headphones at home. Similarly for on-the-go use they would never carry an extra device.
All these points notwithstanding I still try my best, and even those who like it simply shudder at the thought of spending what a pair of Etymotics costs. I wish I had an SR60 to demo but really most people see even $70 headphones as over the top excessive.
The bottomline is that we have fortunately or unfortunately cultivated a taste for something few other people care for. This also creates this feeling of exclusivity that many manufacturers capitalize on by selling us more and more expensive products that some people buy as they believe it makes their particular tastes even more exclusive. This has created a vicious circle that puts more and more expensive products on the market and the common man sees this and thinks we are all insane as a group. Being called an audiophile sometimes sounds like an insult these days. I try to let people know that you don't have to drop thousands to get a good stereo and that appreciating good sound doesn't necessarily involve large amounts of cash.
As an example, I went home for Thanksgiving surprised to see a Tivoli stereo in the house and I listened to it. I came away completely impressed by how good it sounded connected to a CD player. The whole thing costs $200 and is very musical. I could definitely replace my computer speakers with it and just listen to it. I could try to sell the system to others, but I'll hear questions and objections like "It doesn't have a CD player?" or "How many watts?" or "There's no bass" or "It doesn't look like a stereo" or something along those lines. It never stops me from trying though. In all the years I've tried to get people away from crappy stereos I managed to get only one person converted to good sound. It's very tough and in ways we are blessed and cursed with this hobby.
Things are looking better these days slowly as Best Buy started to carry Athena speakers and now when a friend asks for advice (which he will invariably not follow and get a Sony reciever and Bose speakers -j/k) at least I can tell them to go to Best Buy and try the Athena Line which are good especially for the money. Before I'd send them to <insert private audio store name here> and they got overwhelmed.
So it is looking up on the home audio front but that is because innately everyone wants a good stereo at home though it seems to driven more by a "I don't want the same Sony receiver the neighbor has" than by a geniune interest to audio itself. This is why a Tivoli stereo is a hard sell. They want Denon receivers to trump their neighbor's Sony instead. Then the third guy will try to trump the Denon guy with a Marantz receiver. Then they start looking for more exclusive esoteric stuff and manufacturers are ready and willing to pump out more and more expensive stuff for these people. Anyway it is getting better either for the wrong reason or the right reason.
When it comes to home headphone listening, that is a really hard sell. That requires a real paradigm shift, one where people really do care about the sound and enjoyment they derive. Very few people have that sense of good sound. Few will put up with being tethered to phones or even limited to the sweet spot for that sonic nirvana we so crave. I'll tell you that when I put the phones on and the amp is singing I forget about every possible worry in the world. Few people even think of music reproduction that way.
