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Post by klauth on Sept 3, 2020 1:55:00 GMT -6
I found a dealer that's hooking me up at a pretty good discount, for my Burl rig. along with some favors on my part. I bought a few LIL Freq's direct from Empirical Labs a while back for 1k each. Quite a bit of saving actually. I think the whole covid thing has brought a light, to new ways of doing things. Selling direct can bring substantial savings!
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Post by adamjbrass on Sept 3, 2020 4:47:12 GMT -6
...along with some favors on my part.! Hope you don’t have to walk his dog on Sunday’s.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 3, 2020 11:18:21 GMT -6
Burl gear is standard priced for good gear. The mothership lets you buy the chassis with cheaper daughter boards. 2000ish for two good channels of da or ad in the bombers is fairly standard.
What’s in the cheaper multichannel interfaces is a compromise. Sometimes it sounds good like MOTU AVB, the current UAD Apollo X, Apogee Not dongle bullshit, and even the Focusrite Rednets and Red Pres. It’s not even worth talking about neither the RME Firefaces nor cheap Chinese made interfaces. They can’t hang. Open them up and you’ll see bad chinese caps, cheap crap opamps all over the place, and often noisy power supplies because they don’t want to pay for the decent switchers. In the good multichannel interfaces you’ll still see the PGA2500 chip pres, multichannel shit like multichannel opamps and ESS DAs where the channels are meant to be summed and averaged for higher SNR split up, or codec chips done really cleanly, and often volume control chips for the AD or DA. The ESS has volume control inside the DA. Usually either the AD or DA is worse (MOTU DA is great now yet the AD is only good. The same with the SPL) or the board layout, multichannel parts, and power supply can’t cope with everything being in use at once. These will still usually beat higher bom hifi gear easily.
The best two channel converters and pro manufacturers like Burl, Lynx, and Lavry have separate parts and converters for every stereo pair of channels. Yes it affects the sound in real world use. The insane but awesome Bricasti M1 even has three separate linear power supplies for L, R, and all of the digital parts. Lynx has rock solid Pcie and thunderbolt drivers and sounds great. Burl needs another interface card like Dante.
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Post by klauth on Sept 3, 2020 13:36:08 GMT -6
Im sold on the build quality and design. But, where the economy is at, it's time to get the cost of purchase down so more can enjoy. With the internet and world wide shipping now available, to most anyone. Theres really no reason to have a middle man(dealer)in the purchase price. Most often high end gear drop ships from manufacturers anyway. I've saved thousands buying direct. The general public has been programmed to have a need for dealers....its time to rethink it and buy direct. Dealers have their place but, for high end stuff, butinging direct is the win-win way to go nowadays.
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Post by Bat Lanyard on Sept 3, 2020 20:11:22 GMT -6
Im sold on the build quality and design. But, where the economy is at, it's time to get the cost of purchase down so more can enjoy. With the internet and world wide shipping now available, to most anyone. Theres really no reason to have a middle man(dealer)in the purchase price. Most often high end gear drop ships from manufacturers anyway. I've saved thousands buying direct. The general public has been programmed to have a need for dealers....its time to rethink it and buy direct. Dealers have their place but, for high end stuff, butinging direct is the win-win way to go nowadays. Dude, I've kind of skirted this thing, but look. The price is what it is. Either get onboard, or not. If you don't think their gear is worth the money, that is TOTALLY fine. Dragging Burl into a thread about middle men, the economy and such is ridiculous. Move on, please.
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Post by klauth on Sept 3, 2020 20:43:11 GMT -6
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Post by Quint on Sept 3, 2020 20:57:58 GMT -6
If Stam may serve as an example of what "can" happen when things are sold direct, keep in mind that a lot of headaches that come with selling direct are exactly the sort of thing that many gear makers simply cannot/do not want to deal with. They'd rather just create cool products and let someone else deal with customers, distribution, etc. I don't blame them. Sure, the direct model works for some companies, but to suggest that every boutique gear maker has the expertise or willingness to sell direct, ignores some basic principles of the free market. Do I like the savings I can get by purchasing certain gear direct? Yes. Has that always been a painless endeavor? Definitely not. As for the Democrat comment, that has nothing to do with anything in this discussion. It's just a lazy straw man argument, plain and simple.
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Post by Bat Lanyard on Sept 3, 2020 21:33:51 GMT -6
Just an observation. Take the fight to Burl.
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Post by thirdeye on Sept 3, 2020 22:15:53 GMT -6
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Post by m03 on Sept 4, 2020 0:41:18 GMT -6
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Post by shakermaker on Sept 4, 2020 7:27:57 GMT -6
It doesn't seem that crazy for 24 channels of Burl, if you look at any of the other high end converters you would be in the same ball park-ish. And the tech only changes often around the mid quality ones and even still its usually 4-5yrs. 24 channels of burl or any high end holds resale value and is going to get you to a place you will forget about converters or the need to upgrade for the next decade + anyways if ever (famous last words i know haha). But 24 channels of JFC AD8 would be more $$ and you could likely get them direct. The distrubtion model is burls to choose, it is what it is to get to top... \
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Post by nick8801 on Sept 4, 2020 8:01:49 GMT -6
Its always the shills....that attack...must be a Democrat. Did you get lost and think you were on Facebook for a minute?
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ericn
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Post by ericn on Sept 4, 2020 8:16:48 GMT -6
I found a dealer that's hooking me up at a pretty good discount, for my Burl rig. along with some favors on my part. I bought a few LIL Freq's direct from Empirical Labs a while back for 1k each. Quite a bit of saving actually. I think the whole covid thing has brought a light, to new ways of doing things. Selling direct can bring substantial savings! Selling direct is a PITA, the expense of sales and support staff in most cases add exponentially to the cost to the end user. Funny you bring up Burl and Emperical Labs, you think either would exist without dealers. Theses companies secure their initial financing based on orders from established dealers. Sure I’ll admit to advising a number of new start ups to go the direct sales route, but these are side gigs and I’ll bet almost all of them would prefer to have somebody else doing the sales BS. As a customer when the shit hits the fan you don’t see your dealer fighting for you. Often the weight of the potential of lost sales based on past sales volume of a large dealer can get a manufacturer to bend. A manufacturers job is to sell you his products, the job of a good dealer is to sell you the right product. As much as people hate being asked “why they are looking at...” if you had an idea of how many times I talked some of the top AE’s, producers and musicians into something that was more suited to their actual needs and saved them money in the long run. Most manufacturers won’t consider paying what a real qualified sales person demands. A gear designer can’t comprehend the idea that someone who sells the gear should make more than them, yet I know in the 90’s as they were building into what they are now 3 of the largest dealers had no problem paying the top members of their sales staff more than the owners. Look at a company like Audioscape, main selling point quality clones at a reasonable price point, the market is finite so they are constantly investing in the development of new products to keep it going. Now look at a company like Daking. How many products have they added in the last 2 years? Not only are they sold through dealers, but they use a distributor. Why? Because it’s cheaper for them to obtain the sales and revenue they need to survive by splitting the cost at both levels with others. Even if you look at just cost to the end user as the only factor you will find selling direct is not the future. In a direct sales only model their is no competition to sell an item. Even with strict MAP policies there are always ways to undercut someone.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 4, 2020 10:46:24 GMT -6
Eric, I don't know the mark up with a distributer and dealer inbetween the company but do you think a company like API & RND would sell more consoles being able to charge say 40% less ?
I mean if i was interested in buying a very expensive console from anywhere in the world, it would be a considerable saving to check out their item at their showroom and meet the manufacturers for a day or two.
I'm just talking about very high ticket items that only a small number are sold by the company yearly.
I have seen customers buying an exhibited API console off the Namm floor i presume to avoid paying these extra fees.
Just typing aloud here..
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Post by adamjbrass on Sept 4, 2020 14:02:20 GMT -6
Eric, I don't know the mark up with a distributer and dealer inbetween the company but do you think a company like API & RND would sell more consoles being able to charge say 40% less ? I mean if i was interested in buying a very expensive console from anywhere in the world, it would be a considerable saving to check out their item at their showroom and meet the manufacturers for a day or two. I'm just talking about very high ticket items that only a small number are sold by the company yearly. I have seen customers buying an exhibited API console off the Namm floor i presume to avoid paying these extra fees. Just typing aloud here.. The Dealer markup is not 40% And again. Manufactures set the prices, AND the markup.
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ericn
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Post by ericn on Sept 4, 2020 14:31:13 GMT -6
Eric, I don't know the mark up with a distributer and dealer inbetween the company but do you think a company like API & RND would sell more consoles being able to charge say 40% less ? I mean if i was interested in buying a very expensive console from anywhere in the world, it would be a considerable saving to check out their item at their showroom and meet the manufacturers for a day or two. I'm just talking about very high ticket items that only a small number are sold by the company yearly. I have seen customers buying an exhibited API console off the Namm floor i presume to avoid paying these extra fees. Just typing aloud here.. For midsized consoles, no the support costs would eat up any savings in a second, plus at this point in time they are both probably making far more money selling rack and 500 series modules. Nobody wants to piss off a dealer by taking a product away and ending the real profit center. Console sales are time sinks, your going to have to either pay a high hourly or high commission. You also have the tire kickers, ask Adam JK, or any gearpimp how many quotes they send out on the large items and then how many of those buy. You still have to take them seriously because the worst thing is to learn that guy you thought wasn’t serious bought from your competition because they treated him like he was. Of course you still have to pay the guy for the time he spends with the possers. The other thing is really simple, sales people make a living based on repeat business, how many 1608’s do you think somebody is going to buy? Consoles are for the most part one and done, so your not going to see to much of a discount if your buying direct, people have to eat! I actually know somebody who gave up a job at a major dealer who took a 50% pay cut when they left to do large scale console sales for a manufacturer. Large scale buyers the ones who really drive the industry want one stop shopping, they are not going to even look at Audioscape, sorry guys but your not going to take a PO and they are not going to cut one to a vendor they never heard of for one piece the can get the equivalent of from a dealer they can buy everything else they want. The other thing to remember if you were to buy say a 1608 your probably going to need a bunch of cabling, that’s a high margin area where a dealer will probably cut you a deal with the console. The other thing to remember from a manufacturers point of view is how many bid proposals will I miss out on if I sell direct? The dirty secret is 95% of the bid packages are written with the help of a dealer. As a dealer I am not spacing something I don’t make money on.
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ericn
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Post by ericn on Sept 4, 2020 14:35:16 GMT -6
Eric, I don't know the mark up with a distributer and dealer inbetween the company but do you think a company like API & RND would sell more consoles being able to charge say 40% less ? I mean if i was interested in buying a very expensive console from anywhere in the world, it would be a considerable saving to check out their item at their showroom and meet the manufacturers for a day or two. I'm just talking about very high ticket items that only a small number are sold by the company yearly. I have seen customers buying an exhibited API console off the Namm floor i presume to avoid paying these extra fees. Just typing aloud here.. The Dealer markup is not 40% And again. Manufactures set the prices, AND the markup. Yes it is on cables😁 and it was on a single piece order of tape! But yeah in reality 40% is a dream even with MAP.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 4, 2020 16:09:42 GMT -6
Thanks Eric, Very interesting to hear the inner perspective on the other side of the consumer.
Apologies RGO's for derailing the thread any further, congratultions to Klauth on the mothership.
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Post by drumsound on Sept 6, 2020 15:27:08 GMT -6
Listen to Eric, everyone. Everything he's saying here is true.
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ericn
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Post by ericn on Sept 7, 2020 18:23:00 GMT -6
Listen to Eric, everyone. Everything he's saying here is true. Always New you were a great AE Tony, now we all know your brilliant to😁
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