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In Reply to: RE: Rick Schultz, former ownwe of Virtual Dynamics posted by 4everyoung on September 20, 2016 at 15:23:08
Found it. Here it is.
I knew it was the same guy... LOLI heard he 'apologized.. Yeah, but did he refund them all?
I remember some said they forgave him. He still should have done the right thing and gave them the money back. It would have been the Christian thing to do.Maybe some other folks also remember..
"Fool me once...."
Edits: 09/21/16Follow Ups:
What the parts cost, and what the product sells for often bear no relationship to one another.
It is not at all uncommon for appliances, clothes or other consumer products to sell for ten times or more what the materials cost.
These are mainstream consumer goods, manufactured in quantity and with every cost reduction benefit known to man and machine.
See:
http://www.AudioAsylum.com/audio/cables/messages/34038.html
Given the manufacturing methods of the high-end, $15 worth of parts can easily turn into a $300 retail price. This would be with what are considered "normal" profits for a manufacturer, nothing out of the ordinary at all.
What my referenced post and comments above refer to, are typical industry mark-ups of 50% to 100% throughout the product distribution chain.
Tell me, why should anyone manufacturing an audio product take LESS profit margin than someone else making blue jeans or refrigerators?
Jon Risch
Sure there exists a relationship between parts, cost and retail?
Additionally, it is very helpful for a designer or manufacturer to disclose the hour(s) of workmanship that goes into a completed piece of gear and / or cabling.
Bet those $20,000 cables take a real long time to make. Months probably.
Edits: 09/29/16
No problem- so long as all of the details are disclosed. This includes country of manufacture- since many are guilty of junk-sourcing to china.
I have assembled power cords from THNN and any number of other wire topologies. For the most part each cord contributed it own sound to the audio presentation. As a hobbyist, I have enjoyed the experimentation with differing power cable topologies and the resultant sound. Cost was the last thing I considered as to what sounded good or bad in my system.
It has been better than a decade ago since I last performed these experiments. I tried shielded and unshielded, Teflon clad, individual copper shielding for each conductor, etcetera, etcetera.
Overall, I found that I shared Jon Risch's preference for Teflon clad wire. I prefer copper over silver or silver plated copper. Over time I just narrowed my choice for power cables to the Belden topologies recommended by Jon Risch. In most instances I have used various plugs on each end suggested by Duster or Jon.
I have not taken the time to listen to the various plugs on power cables. I am quite satisfied with Pass & Seymour plugs for terminating my cables. The P&S plugs sold at big box stores like Home Depot and Lowes are quite often "contractor grade." That is, some corners have been cut on the big box offerings. Purchasing parts from electric supply houses, in my experience, are more expensive and of higher quality than the big box offerings.
I am fascinated by those that post here about the cost of components. One setting the price of something may or may not denote quality. Those that place cost of an item over all else, to me, is why this is an Asylum. I am more interested in listening to performances, rather than beating my chest about the cost a component.
Trumpeter, Clifford Brown, was told to buy a trumpet and he came back with a student horn. When questioned why he didn't purchase a more expensive horn, he responded, "it's not the horn that makes the music -its me."
There is an old adage: It not the wand that makes the magic - its the magician!
Caveat emptor. YMMV
DaveT
It is true some cheap stuff can be great.
My issue is charging a lot extra.. for what? Maybe "god designed it"?
Some audiophile manfacturers/sellers think they can automatically charge more. just because.
Others just price the item at what is a fair profit.
So some guy finds 10,000 ft of silver wire at $0.20 a foot. makes up some wires and thinks 'silver IC cost a LOT'. so 'naturally' he asks $900 a pop for stuff which cost him twenty minutes and $20 to make.
Where some other guy, same deal, sells his cable for $90.
(the original Western Union wire was this sort of situation)
Why should anyone praise the dude selling them for $900. He is IMO a moral crook. Cheating anyone who cannot figure it all out. No one forced anyone to buy them? SO why IS he a crook???
On the other hand some proprietary things may (or may not) be 'worth' the extra. Bybee gizmos.. They cost little, and the parts are cheap parts.. But the product is based on the 'idea'. SO he charges a lot.
Anyone could make them for the small amount it takes to build them. Yet the Bybee still sell.
Like Shakte sticks. A few bucks of wood. Sells for $800.
So is it a fair price?
To each their own figuring that out.
Particularly in cables, it is very hard to have any idea what the actual value is..
Go only by the ear?
Take into account the maker? Brand's general quality and appeal?
I tend to buy ONLY stuff like Cardas or Kimber since they have the track record..
(The only reason I bought Pangea powercords was they cost LESS than I could have made myself!)
Anyway, it irks me that no small makers of any sort of Audiophile cables can be "TRUSTED" to sell cables at a fair market value. I guess I am just no willing to trust folks 'At their word'. Other are.
I am perhaps too cynical. But maybe I just refuse to buy the 'pig in a poke'?
SmellySsocks,
I think I get your point. You have a set of internal values whether; it be brand name or material cost; that inspires you to make a purchase. You are entitled to your values, but to belittle someone for exercising a choice contrary to "your internal" values is comes off as rather pious.
I agree with you regarding what I view as snake oil. However, I don't tend to lambast those that do not share my "internal" values. Seldom, if ever, do I purchase components on brand name alone. The only exception I make is in TVs, I compare everything to the picture of a Sony, but I digress.
After reading your response, I thought about the time and effort I put into building one of my experimental power cords. I started with THNN cable. I stripped the insulation off and then wrapped each cable in two layers of Teflon plumbers tape. I stripped the copper sheathing off a Belden coax cable. The Teflon clad THNN was then inserted into the stripped copper sheathing. This sheathed cable was wrapped with another layer of Teflon tape. I then braided 3 of these assemblies together and held the braid together with a few plastic zip ties. I terminated this braided cable assembly with a Hubbell male plug on one end female spade connectors on the other end.
Now, material cost at the time was probably $25. The bulk of that cost would be in the Hubbell plug. My employer at the time charged clients $225 an hour for my time. I estimate it took me maybe 16-hours of labor to complete the cable. So, if I had been in the business to sell this cable my employer would have marketed the cable for $4,000 dollars per cable. The extra $400 would be for research, inspiration, material gathering, and marketing.
So, I would presume you would say the above cable was a rip off because $25 worth of parts would be selling for $4,000. Take into account my employer would have to provide another employee to replace me at $3,600 while I assembled cables. The intangibles of research, inspiration, perspiration, material gathering, and marketing are not reflected in the $25 cost of materials.
Most likely you would poo-poo the above cable based on cost of material and my lack of brand name recognition. However, if my employer at the time (a major defense contractor) marketed the cable it probably would be applauded by the audio press as a testament to viability of hi-end audio, because the defense/space industry had ventured into the market bringing there eons of years of .....expertise.
There may well be any number of persons who would buy the cable and praise it to the heavens just because of brand name. Marketing wise phrases like: materials developed for the space race (Teflon); based on experience copper that has been extruded for the demands of outer space; etc.
So, if the name was Davet's Diamond Dynamic cable be a rip-off? Or if cable developed for the most rigorous demands of space and the defense industry sold by the likes of General Dynamics, Lockheed-Martin, Boeing, or Raytheon make it worth price?
I built the above cable as a labor of love for this hobby with no thoughts of renumeration. My internal value is based on how it sounds. I don't know Ric nor have a used or heard his power cord. There seems to be room enough for Rics or Davets in this hobby. I, personally, don't equate price with quality in all instances.
I am curious what you assessment of the above?
DaveT
When you are taking a wire, stripping off insulation then hand re wrapping it, That is not a business model of work. That is a hobby based fooling around.
IF someone thinks they should be paid for such stuff.. I guess if they make it clear what they are doing. (If you asked ME to pay for you stripping THNN then hand wrapping it in teflon tape? I would say your work is ridiculous, dangerous and totally unsafe, Since the voltage rating of the Teflon tape is not given, nor is just wrapping with it safe practice. I would have 'expected' you to actually BUY Teflon coated wire with proper voltage ratings to make a product to 'sell'. Since your hand wrapped wire is most likely no legal for sale as intended use is to carry 120V current.) stuff like that is the problem... And thinking you CAN sell it is also a problem!
In the original case the problem is the person under discussion does not say how of under what conditions he make his product.
What is actually IN his $13,000 or $20,000 cable?
Well, an issue is his own way of saying why his stuff is worth...
"God designed' and the EE claim when he has no such degree.
Both explained away by apologists.. But still left as nagging anyone wanting to have an honest playing field.
Maybe he is also stripping wire and re wrapping it, doing things which make the product unsafe and unfit for commercial sale?
I do not know. No one knows. I guess saying God designed it and making EE claims is supposed to make it all right?
On the other hand yes he can sell his toys, but some of us think folks should have a heads up. And this whole set of posts is to just allow folks to think about what sort of crazy stuff they may be buying.
You can make anything you want for your own use. When you start selling it for $13,000 or $20,000.. Some folks may ask questions, or make comments. Particularly when past issues show up.
First, I only cited my homebuilt cable as an example, and not as a real world example. However, I do have the electrical background to embark upon such a quest. The defense contractor I was working for at the time could easily have taken my idea, and mass produced the cable in its entirety without human intervention from source to packaging. To have custom automation machines made would be no problem. The R&D money of these companies and development of products rival the GDP of many countries.These companies have the resources to have Belden and any number of other wire manufacturers build cable to their specifications at the same time. Reels of unused cable were often tossed to make room. Although, the company would via economies of scale manufacture the cables at a fraction of the cost of my example. But I can insure you that they would not discount the product one penny, and if anything they probably would use Jon's multiple of 10-times. Where I worked in the company the prevailing multiple was 7-times. Once the R&D and startup cost were recovered the price of the product dropped. Once the initial cost were recovered, from the company's perspective every penny, thereafter, was 100% profit. So they could position the product's cost to meet or undercut the competition.
SS, I could have easily and affordably opted for pre-clad Teflon wire, but for me that was not the fun. I did not undertake the project with the intent of manufacture. If I had - my approach would have been much different. You attributed intent to my example and then went on to make what I took to be a personal attack as to the folly of my experiment.
You stated you had a problem with Rick, his company, products, and his marketing statements. Again, I agree with you, that I feel there are many products that are ridiculously priced and the marketing hype is so much hot air. I don't bellyache all over the net because I think some products and the hype are crap.
On the other hand ,if you are forewarning us of possible safety concerns (as you did with my example) then I applaud you. Ranting for the sake of ranting is your right, but dismissing other factors that are involved (as a few of us here have done regarding labor, R&D) is not fair. I am not attacking you. If anything I was augmenting your argument. I just don't understand your concerns UNLESS it is specifically about Rick.
As I read your post, I, initially, read that you were saying the product was over priced based on the value of the components (period). If it is personal - count me out! I don't know you or Rick and I have no desire to intervene in a personal pissing contest.
DaveT
Edits: 09/26/16
I don't know if you bothered to read the referenced post, so just in case you (and/or others) didn't, I am copying it down below.
The reason I suspect you didn't, is because you continue to rail on about labor as if it were free. As I noted in my referenced post, and as DaveT noted, labor is not cheap, and skilled labor to do proper soldering and mechanical assembly is even more costly than general purpose labor.
You also talk about wrapping teflon tape as if it were some sort of hazard, except that in the example DaveT gave, he was wrapping what were already 600V rated wires, with ADDITIONAL insulation. It would not suddenly degrade to less than 600V, so I don't know where you were going with that comment, other than some sort of general negativity to high end cottage industry practices.
Finally, one thing I seldom see mentioned, is the cost to get Safety Agency listing or approvals for an AC power cord. This runs on the order of $5000 to $8000 for UL, and multiple samples must be submitted to the agency.
If you only manage to sell a hundred cables over a period of a year or so, your cost for the UL portion is now a significant amount per cable.
It is also an amount that has to be paid "upfront", not on a running basis as you make cables to order.
Jon Risch
COPY OF REFERENCED POST
***************************************************************
Re: Why are cables sooo expensive???
Cables costs can be higher than you think.
Lets take a look at a well known DIY coaxial cable, Belden 89259.
It currently costs around $1 a foot (now up to around $1.80 a foot, so increase all following costs appropriately)), and this is a stock item for the manufacturer that they make in quantity when they manufacture it. The cost here is mostly due to the teflon insulation material and teflon jacket. If you wanted a custom run of it, say changing just one thing that did not cost any more for Belden to make, then it might cost $3 or 4 a foot, and you would have to commit to a minimum quantity buy of say, 50,000 feet. This uses a good grade of ETP copper, not 99.999% pure, or some umpteen nines purity silver.
Let's say that you wanted OFHC 99.99% copper, this might jack the price up to almost double what it was as a custom cable, now in the range of $5-7 dollars a running foot.
Not so bad you might think, as you only use about 3 feet per side in a 1M stereo interconnect cable for a total of say approx. 7 feet of cable. So only $35-49 worth of cable in the product. Ah, but then there is now the cost of the RCA plugs, these can run up into the range of $10-20 apiece wholesale for the really fancy ones milled from solid material and quality plated and finished.
Then there is the HS, maybe some Techflex covering, silver solder, etc. Then the most expensive thing of all: hand labor to assemble them, as there is no way to afford machine termination for custom cable sizes AND off the beaten path RCA plugs for the smaller companies. In many cases, the simple act of soldering them up PROPERLY costs as much as the materials. So $100 worth of raw materials may cost another $50 to $100 OR MORE to assemble and test/check.
Then there is the packaging, advertising, distribution, overhead, and so on.
In the electronics industry, the usual rule of thumb is to multiply the parts cost by 5X to reach what the retail price should be. This is for mass market consumer gear. High end gear, due to the limited production (loss of large scale production efficiency), tends to run around 10X the parts cost in order to assure making some amount of profit from selling the gear. (It needs to be kept in mind that many items typically get sold for 10X their cost to manufacture: clothes, many toys, many appliances, etc.)
For the above mentioned example interconnect cables, this would amount to a reasonably fair selling price of nearly $1000 for a 1M pair of what amounted to a simple variation on good old Belden 89259 (using OFHC 99.99% pure copper). This is for a simple coaxial geometry, if the cables used a fancy geometry, or required even more labor to assemble, or used pure silver as the conductor, then the costs and final retail price would be even higher.
Now, once we get past this point, we are starting to enter the realm of what the market will bear, what the consumer thinks the product is worth, and is willing to pay for it. Whether it is due to brand name prestige, or some other marketing ploy, if consumers are willing to fork over the cash, then they will make it and sell it. This is NOT unique to the cable or audio industry, just pounced upon by some who like to see it as some sort of conspiracy or such.
As for these particular MIT speaker cables, I am not immediately familiar with the details of their construction, but if they use the typical MIT network box, then these parts costs and assembly time can be added to the equation, and likely the cable costs would be higher still for significant amounts of copper in the cable (speaker cable vs. interconnect cables).
For a ten foot pair of not very fancy high end speaker cables, the costs to manufacture might easily reach $200 or more, if the 10X rule of thumb is used, then the retail price would be somewhere on the order of $2000 or more. How much more might depend in part on the actual materials and labor involved.
The difference between $2000 and $3400 might be partially due to particularly expensive materials and construction, or a portion of it a result of what the market will bear. Use of pure silver alone would pretty much make up for the difference.
More ambitious cables, such as some of the woven/braided types that interleave the wires in a helical criss-crossing winding around a core can involve tremendous amounts of labor, very costly materials, and so on, so that actual costs to manufacture would stagger your mind. Again, with very limited production, no economy of scale, these are one off hand-built products, and they need to recoup their expenses every time they sell a set.
A fully hand built custom car can easily cost 10 to 100 times what most cars sell for. Should everyone run out and buy one? Many folks are quite happy with their mass produced Chevy's and Fords, so I don't see the custom car business putting them into any trouble anytime soon. Same with the really high priced cables, they are there and exist for the same kinds of reasons as custom cars, etc. Someone knows how to build them ever so tweaky to the nth degree, and then offers them for sale.
Jon Risch
Great points about Teflon tape. From memory, some of it is rated to 400V along with a very high heat rating. I took a look at my stash, and a couple of rolls are even marked "mil-spec"....and that's ordinary, Home Depot or Ace Hardware-bought tape. In other words, it's inherently safe.
because you continue to rail on about labor as if it were free
And a special thank you for saying this. Such an attitude is far too prevalent, and I've seen it for decades. Yes, perhaps there are abuses within the industry/hobby re: pricing, but very small economy of scale is something also not taken into consideration. While I build a modest amount of labor into my products, to be fair to my effort, I certainly am not going to work for 50 cents an hour. I am thankful many appreciate that effort, but understand there will always be those who don't.
"Once this was all Black Plasma and Imagination" -Michael McClure
LABOR. No one else spoke about this. Far too many naysayers and DIY gents only mention parts costs (or what they believe them to be), NEVER mentioning the labor, i.e. time that goes into building a given product.
And that labor can be all over the map, as many steps are unseen. While $225 per hour billable is quite high in audio circles, I don't doubt that's the case for aerospace. We could certainly agree that $25 to $50 is customary in the audio repair business. Using that as a model, your cable would require $400-$500 in labor alone....and that's at COST, without any reasonable markup for a distributor or dealer.
Thank you again for a thought-provoking and cogent post.
I like to think I shed some light in my corner of the asylum. There are a lot of loonies here - that's why it is called an asylum. In my corner I just feel some of the constraints of the real world need to be observed - gravity, light, dark, hot, and cold. Screaming at the dark is just one of the attributes of the asylum.
Labor, R&D, initial concept, manufacturing, marketing, distribution are just some of the functions of the real world beyond the confines of the asylum. All too often more of the sense of sight is addressed than the beauty of sound. Post regarding visuals such as: price tags, topologies, component composites, specifications, etc. There are a number of august contributors who try to describe the aural impacts that various things have on the sound.
"Things are not always as they appear!"
DaveT
How can you be too cynical in reference to god designed $12-20K cable. Especially if someone actually bought them.
...and only charges half as much :-)
As it turns out, dilithium may be the best tweak of all. Less violence where there is more of it in the drinking water and it looks like it can slow and protect against Alzheimer's... It might be the best neuroprotective agent known. Very easy to get and use in microdose. Don't even need a spaceship. Tweaker
" And it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall" Robert Allen Zimmerman
have you been using dilithium in your drinking water?
Laughing...
Charging more would be illogical.
:)
Ok Sue, you win. Spock trumps Casper. Well, that's if the dilithium was mined on Rigel XII?? That's the good stuff. T456
.
I wonder if god designed them also. Probably not, god designed stuff demands the big bucks. What a crock.
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