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RE: Tympani 1d ad

Posted by josh358 (P) on August 3, 2012 at 18:04:08

In Reply to: RE: Tympani 1d ad posted by Roger Gustavsson on August 3, 2012 at 17:12:21:

Well, yeah, the $40,000 is too high. It would be more expensive than the 20.7, though.

I asked Jim Winey about it. I'd read an interview years ago in which he said that the Tympanis had gotten too expensive to make and when I asked him, he confirmed that.

If you're talking a new Tympani, say you're talking the same technology as in the 20.7, plus one extra driver. So you start with the cost of a 20.7, then add the driver, the extra frames, shipping, bigger boxes, driver testing, etc. In addition, as you said, they're big and either need a dedicated room, or something with which to blackmail your wife. The smaller the model the more they sell so as you say they wouldn't sell as many Tympanis as 20.7's. That means that R&D has to be amortized over fewer units and it would presumably be more expensive on that count too. Then they'd need some new tooling, CNC programming, etc. -- not sure what if anything they still have that they could reuse. All of that means it would have to be more expensive than the 20.7's, though not I think $40,000.

The market has changed -- expensive speakers are selling well, many much pricier -- so I don't think they'd have any trouble selling them today. Wendell's concern with the price has more to do with the company's reputation for value. He takes that very seriously and its integral to their philosophy, going back to Jim Winey who told me that he doesn't want to be a company that sells only a few ultra-high-priced speakers like most other high end speaker companies.

There are also some other arguments against, e.g., would dealers make room to show them. At this point, a lot of people can't even hear the 20.7's. They also have limited resources and other new products they're working on, so they have to decide if it's the best use of their resources. Still, as others have reported, it's been under consideration.

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