revbobuk Posted January 5, 2012 Share Posted January 5, 2012 It's Android vs iOs again. Or Windows vs Mac. Apple can charge a premium for their software based products for two reasons. One, they innovate (or buy innovation) faster and more effectively than anyone else. And two - they control the whole system; it's a proprietary system. And they hold the keys. Android has to compete through volume, which means lower price. It has benefits for the users - stuff keeps getting cheaper and more powerful - but it is a cut-throat model, and many good products go to the wall. What often gets lost is compatibility - manufacturers have to compel users to buy again regularly, and making old gear obsolete is a favourite technique of the computer world, changing standards (remember ISA buses? MCA?) as often as possible. Premium prices on high-end audio gear will be threatened by the ease with which software based systems can be made feature rich, and there will certainly be manufacturers looking to exploit that - and that's good news for cash-strapped end users, even if it is a problem for some industry names that won't be able to compete. Like David, I think these are uncharted waters for the audio industry, but maybe some good results will emerge. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simon Lewis Posted January 5, 2012 Share Posted January 5, 2012 Premium prices on high-end audio gear will be threatened by the ease with which software based systems can be made feature rich, Or existing digital desk owners can be sweetened with "anniversary special" free software upgrade... just in case they like the look of new competing products? ;-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt Riley Posted January 5, 2012 Share Posted January 5, 2012 I do think that premium DSP algorithms will be a decisive factor in segmentation. You're effectively buying the algorithm design rather than the circuit design, and both of them stem from similar mathematical formulae. IIR filters are functionally equivalent to analogue filters, after all.Absoutely. Except that "premium" in analogue costs real money, and in the digital world, doesn't, or perhaps not like anything to the same degree. So although it will suit some manufacturers to continue to segment by quality, it will suit others to disrupt by the same means. This is uncharted territory. I would be intrigued to see how much the hardware cost of a PM5d actually is - just looking at what's in it - you could buy an i5 based computer, 48 channels worth of I/o and a 48 channel soundcard for about £1500 - 2000 retail. So surely the big change in digital is that hardware costs are no longer the deciding factor for price that they used to be? I always understood that a big part of the digital revolution (not just across mixers) was that the costs are based more on the software and R&D investment which needs to be recouped, and less on the actual hardware, which doesn't really differ in mechanical design. It is certainly fascinating... I think in some ways the lighting world suffers from similar fragmentation - I think the Chamsys model could possibly be a very interesting one when modified and applied to sound (not like Software Audio Console do it though). The argument about software being free from a business point of view is an interesting one. The camera industry at the moment is suffering from a similar challenge. I happen to be the lucky owner of a Panasonic GH2. In the camera market, you can buy a £800 consumer camera like the GH2, or you can buy a £10,000 broadcast camcorder like the Canon C300. Both of which have very similar innards - to the point that when the firmware is hacked on the GH2 (and the rigid market segmentation circumvented) then they both produce identical video. I don't think hacking would be a problem with digital desks, so why not introduce some artificial segmentation to give people what they really want/need at the price they're willing to pay? And to make myself clear, I'm not advocating 'crippling' desks to make them cheaper - I'm suggesting instead of having premium quality reverb algorithms, we give people more basic ones with less parameter controls, instead of having 'top quality klark tecknik (sp?) comps and gates' we remove things like side chains and give people a DBX quality comp with fewer options on it. In this scenario, I'm fairly sure that competitors wouldn't necessarily introduce products with a far better feature set at that cost, because then they would be shooting their own product ranges in the foot as well. I guess the other model to ensure that the desk industry doesn't go biting it's own tail off would be to move to a subscription model, where you sell people the hardware (cheap enough that people would buy it) , and then they can pay for the software to run off it, paying for functionality per event? Boy would the church budgets hate that one! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dbuckley Posted January 5, 2012 Share Posted January 5, 2012 I always understood that a big part of the digital revolution (not just across mixers) was that the costs are based more on the software and R&D investment which needs to be recouped That is certainly the case; although my "software is free" mantra is true on a per desk level, in the first place that software has to be written, and tested, and debugged, and managed, and all that is done by well paid people, so commercial software development is horrendously expensive, but its a one off cost. But you can amortise that cost over a long production run of many units. Your point on the PM5D hardware cost is interesting, and you also mention the Software Audio Console which is just a lump of software running on a PC that (by accounts only, never actually tried it myself) it seems to work. The comparison of video cameras is even more astounding! ...so why not introduce some artificial segmentation to give people what they really want/need at the price they're willing to pay? And to make myself clear, I'm not advocating 'crippling' desks to make them cheaper - I'm suggesting instead of having premium quality reverb algorithms, we give people more basic ones with less parameter controls, instead of having 'top quality klark tecknik (sp?) comps and gates' we remove things like side chains and give people a DBX quality comp with fewer options on it. In this scenario, I'm fairly sure that competitors wouldn't necessarily introduce products with a far better feature set at that cost, because then they would be shooting their own product ranges in the foot as well. Only manufacturers with a range of products to protect. Yamaha have a range. A&H I'm not sure do: they have essentially the same product at a few different package levels. Heres a funny example: Phonic have produced what looks like a very creditable 16 channel digital desk, [link]. Most people's experience with Phonic kit has been right at the very bottom of the audio sector, you would not expect a company like Phonic to come up with a surprising product, given they have no track record in this area. Yet they've come up with a digital mixer, and this desk has fans on the Blue Room. This desk now costs around a grand USD, same price point as a MixWiz. There are even people claiming that Phonic listen to customer requests and implement them. The only thing that I think the Phonic lacks is knobs, looks like everything is done through one big knob. Did I mention the colour touch screen? The only thing really wrong with this mixer is the badge on the front. If that badge said "Allen and Heath" the thing would sell like wildfire. It says "Phonic", so no-one gives it the time of day. But put the feature list of the MixWiz up against the Phonic, especially "An astonishing 77 signal processors are built in, including 25 dynamic processors, 25 4-band parametric equalizers, 25 delays and 2 digital effect processors with a large array of effects and user adjustable parameters". This on a 16 channel desk the size and price of a MixWiz. Phonic have expended the (claimed) 9,700 R&D hours to design the thing, now they can knock it out cheap as chips. If anyone would buy them... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chelgrian Posted January 5, 2012 Share Posted January 5, 2012 I would be intrigued to see how much the hardware cost of a PM5d actually is - just looking at what's in it - you could buy an i5 based computer, 48 channels worth of I/o and a 48 channel soundcard for about £1500 - 2000 retail. Except a PM5D isn't based on commodity PC hardware and makes guarantees about its audio pathway that a commodity x86 PC could never do. The hardware user interface on a PM-5D costs quite a bit. High quality 100mm motorised faders are not cheap and are in the tens of dollars each range even buying in bulk. Precise and robust touch screens are also not cheap. The audio pathway is based on a custom DSP setup which will pass audio even if the UI dies the UI is just providing control signals into the DSP engine. Only Yamaha know how much the hardware PM5D costs to make but it could easily be $5K to $10K or even more. Then you have to payback software development costs, ongoing support costs, then dealer profit margins and Yamaha's profit margin. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
themadhippy Posted January 5, 2012 Share Posted January 5, 2012 I guess the other model to ensure that the desk industry doesn't go biting it's own tail off would be to move to a subscription model, where you sell people the hardware (cheap enough that people would buy it) , and then they can pay for the software to run off it, paying for functionality per event?Dolby was hoping to go down this route with the lake processors,discovered it dosnt work and jumped ship. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bobbsy Posted January 7, 2012 Share Posted January 7, 2012 I would be intrigued to see how much the hardware cost of a PM5d actually is - just looking at what's in it - you could buy an i5 based computer, 48 channels worth of I/o and a 48 channel soundcard for about £1500 - 2000 retail. Besides the things Chelgrian has mentioned, if you can get 48 channels of the quality of mic pre-amps--and 48 channels of of the quality of A to D converters (plus the output D to A converters of course) that Yamaha use in the PM5D for £2000, I'd love to know where. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt Riley Posted January 7, 2012 Share Posted January 7, 2012 I would be intrigued to see how much the hardware cost of a PM5d actually is - just looking at what's in it - you could buy an i5 based computer, 48 channels worth of I/o and a 48 channel soundcard for about £1500 - 2000 retail. Besides the things Chelgrian has mentioned, if you can get 48 channels of the quality of mic pre-amps--and 48 channels of of the quality of A to D converters (plus the output D to A converters of course) that Yamaha use in the PM5D for £2000, I'd love to know where. The back of a beer mat style assumptions which I worked on for this involved: i5 computer (£400), 48 channels of Behringer ADA 8000 (£769.04) and 2x profire lightbridge soundcards (£692.96) Total cost: £1862 (inc VAT) or £1489.60 (ex VAT). I am fully aware that these aren't the same quality, but my point in including them was in context as part of the question whether the actual cost of manufacture - ie bolting and soldering the bits together was the real reason why digital consoles cost more? And if not, whether it would be feasible to introduce better segmentation into the market so that more of it was able to properly access the unique advantages posed by modern digital formats. Only Yamaha know how much the hardware PM5D costs to make but it could easily be $5K to $10K or even more. Then you have to payback software development costs, ongoing support costs, then dealer profit margins and Yamaha's profit margin I don't know why everyone's correcting me on this! I didn't claim to know what the manufacture cost of a 5d was, and I think our estimates as a proportion of the cost aren't a million miles off - you're suggesting 10-20% of the RRP of the console, I'm guesstimating around the 7% + cost of faders and metal bits mark! For the record I'm also aware (having used both) of the differences between professional broadcast cams and the GH2/5d, but thought it an interesting comparison in the context of the discussion and the point being made. Peace out, Matt Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mervaka Posted January 7, 2012 Share Posted January 7, 2012 http://www.dv247.com/news/GLD%20Live%20Digital%20Mixing%20System%20Unveiled%20by%20A%26H/133025 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dbuckley Posted January 7, 2012 Share Posted January 7, 2012 Now thats interesting. Up to this point I'd ASSumed that the minimum entry was a surface and the GLD-AR2412 rack for 32 inputs, but the DV247 page suggests you can use the surface and just an expander for a 16 input system at an even lower cost... Of course, had I looked closely at the GLD pictures on A&H's site, I would have known that as it is illustrated! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
techywhizz Posted January 7, 2012 Share Posted January 7, 2012 Interesting.. When I spoke to Allen and Heath this week, tey haven't officially launched by prices yet. It all part of the new distribution with audio technica. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
savman Posted January 10, 2012 Share Posted January 10, 2012 Hardly a "budget" digital mixer at those RRP's :blink: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScottishCol Posted January 11, 2012 Share Posted January 11, 2012 Forget price, features, quality... I am I the only person who thinks this is the most beautiful desk theyve seen in years? Also... how about a 19" GLD20/40??? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
david.elsbury Posted January 11, 2012 Share Posted January 11, 2012 I agree, a GLD surface in the form factor of a Mixwizard would be ideal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DavidHart Posted January 22, 2012 Share Posted January 22, 2012 Has anybody seen any recent Namm info/ pics/ videos on this? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.