Become a Site Supporter and Never see Ads again!

Author Topic: Nagra £500 Li-Ion battery exposed as ripoff containing £22 in battery parts  (Read 10880 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline voltronic

  • Trade Count: (40)
  • Needs to get out more...
  • *****
  • Posts: 4104
^ Jon, I was hoping you might join in here since you have experience making very small runs of battery powered equipment.  I realize that you are not exactly in the same realm as Nagra and your enclosures are largely pre-mde, but could you comment further on the aspect of manufacturing run vs. cost to the company?
I am hitting my head against the walls, but the walls are giving way.
- Gustav Mahler

Acoustic Recording Techniques
Team Classical
Team Line Audio
Team DPA

Offline goodcooker

  • Trade Count: (43)
  • Needs to get out more...
  • *****
  • Posts: 4639
  • Gender: Male
  • goes to 11
Its easy to claim a ripoff if you are not knowledgeable...

Greetings,

Rainer

There are a lot of folks here who are very knowledgeable about a multitude of subjects and your post, while thorough and well informed, comes off as condescending. If you want to get ripped off that's your prerogative.

At the end of the day this thing is a plastic box with a battery and a circuit card in it. No way in hell can they justify the price. I don't use Nagra gear so I don't really have a horse in this race but I'm shocked that anyone would try to defend this kind of blatant price inflation. I wouldn't buy a $1000 pair of shoes but plenty of people will. If they didn't no one would be selling them.

If it is that expensive to develop and produce how can a company like Audioroot develop and sell preamps for a similar price than a Nagra battery pack when they would presumably have many of the same fixed overhead costs and they work right next door in France

Audioroot UpreMKII - $875 -sell price in the USA, designed and built in France, 2 channel preamp and ADC, includes all breakout cabling, custom machined metal case

Nagra battery pack - $720 - sell price in USA, designed and built in Switzerland, plastic box with Lithium batteries, a circuit card and a Hirose connector.

 :-X
Line Audio CM3/OM1 || MBHO KA500 hyper>PFA|| ADK A51 type IV || AKG C522XY
Oade Warm Mod and Presence+ Mod UA5s || Aerco MP2(needs help) || Neve Portico 5012 || Apogee MMP
SD Mixpre6 || Oade Concert Mod DR100mkii

pocket sized - CA11 cards > SP SB10 > Sony PCM A10

http://www.archive.org/bookmarks/goodcooker

"Are you the Zman?" - fan at Panic 10-08-10 Kansas City
"I don't know who left this perfectly good inflatable wook doll here, but if I'm blowing her up, I'm keeping her." -  hoppedup

Offline todd e

  • Trade Count: (3)
  • Needs to get out more...
  • Posts: 3540
  • Gender: Male
  • ***Team Schoeps***
the 18650 is also used in electronic pens and ecigs, it's a tough battery to come by this month at least.  surely you can get some, but none of the 10 vape stores had it in our market.


Offline kleiner Rainer

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Taperssection Regular
  • **
  • Posts: 137
  • Gender: Male


There are a lot of folks here who are very knowledgeable about a multitude of subjects and your post, while thorough and well informed, comes off as condescending. If you want to get ripped off that's your prerogative.

Goodcooker,

Du solltest vielleicht daran denken, dass nicht jeder hier im Forum englischer Muttersprachler ist - das mag dann eventuell herablassend wirken, ist aber von meiner Seite nicht so gewollt.

Feel free to call the price of the Nagra battery pack a ripoff - I simply stated my reasons to see this differently.

If you buy Nagra equipment, you are either a professional, or a very well off amateur  ;)
Its like buying a Porsche - you should be prepared to pay $$$ for their service and spare parts.

And now to the Audioroot uPRE MkII: 54$ more (B&H) will buy you a Mixpre D - enough said.


Greetings,

Rainer

recording steam trains since 1985

Offline John Willett

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Taperssection All-Star
  • ****
  • Posts: 1550
  • Gender: Male
  • Bio:
    • Sound-Link ProAudio
sigh...

how I love those forum experts...

as a design engineer, I have to estimate how much our products will cost. I will give it a try:

£500 minus 20% VAT -> £417 (£83 for her majesty)
Dealer/distributor markup of another 25% ->  abt. £333 left.
Dunno if there is an import tax from Switzerland to UK for electronics - 3% sounds reasonable:
£323 left.

The housing looks high quality and has a complicated form. I would estimate the tooling cost (mold and stamping parts) at 50000 Euro, especially if swiss made. My employer makes molds for diecast and plastics, so I know something about that.

The circuit boards look high quality, the charging circuit and the distribution board would set you back about 20 Euro complete with wiring.

Design cost for electronics including layout and EMC/compliance testing 25000 Euro minimum. Testing charging circuits takes lots of time and money - you will wear out many battery packs in the process.

The battery pack is made by Hy-Line, a well known german Distributor/manufacturer with a swiss sales office.

http://www.hy-line.de/en/product/li-ion-akku-technology/

I would estimate that the battery pack complete with protection board and all necessary certifications (air transport certification to IATA standards anyone?) costs 50 to 60 Euro.

Now lets guesstimate how many battery packs are made: if they sell 1000 per year (which seems high to me), this would give 5000 in 5 years. NRE costs divided by this gives 15 Euro design cost per piece. If the bean counters want to recoup the NRE cost in two years, or if they sell only 2000, design costs would go up to 37,5 Euro per piece...

And those are only the hardware costs. Now you have to assemble it. There is no 100% yield - plan for rework cost and rejects. After assembly, you should test it for proper function. You need test equipment and fixtures. Quality management is not free - ISO9000 anyone? Then there are regulations that you must comply with - CE, FCC, UL, CSA to name a few. Managing all this paperwork takes time, and time is money, as we all know.

Packaging is not free either. A colleague at work does nothing but packaging design - mostly drop tests to parcel service standards to ensure that our products get to the customer working and in one piece  ::)

There must be someone who writes the product documentation, and some other people who translate it into other languages. Don´t forget the service documentation.

Then there are RohS/WEEE fees for future recycling (you need a registration in every EU country where you plan to sell it - its not free of course).

Put aside spares for warranty claims and repair, and store them safely and in a way that you can find them. Each square foot of warehouse floor space costs money. Do not forget to recycle unused battery packs if they sit on the shelf for longer than 2 years - most LiIon cells are EOL then.

I am very sure that I forgot some other costs - especially the hidden costs that come with laws and regulations apart from EMC, safety CE and RohS/WEEE. The statistical office sends paperwork to be filled in, the tax office, the chamber of commerce, the board of trade... Anyone dealt with customs lately?

And then Nagra Kudelski should earn a little bit with their products - so they can design new products and pay income tax for their profit. Or do you work for the love of it?


So my advice - think iceberg when guesstimating cost of manufacture. Its easy to claim a ripoff if you are not knowledgeable...

Greetings,

Rainer


Verry sensible, but your deaaler/distribution margin was way out.

A Distributor is very different from a Dealer - there will only be one Distributor per country and the Dealer will buy from their local Distributor.

So - a Distributor should normally get about 50% off the retail price and will sell to a Dealer at between 20% to 30% off retail.

Manufacturng costs would normally be about one quarter of the selling price. But remember that manufacturing costs are not just the raw materials, but include design costs and a percentage towards the costs of building and runnng the factory.

Offline John Willett

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Taperssection All-Star
  • ****
  • Posts: 1550
  • Gender: Male
  • Bio:
    • Sound-Link ProAudio
The old model was 100% retail, 50% distributor, 25% manufacturer, but that's all compressed now.  In the US, standard MI prices to merchants is more like 40-50% of retail, less for the 364kg gorillas of the industry.  Merchants will try to get 65-90% of retail, depending on their market segment.  Manufacturers will try to command MAP to 80% of retail, but even most of those with an official policy waive that for the Amazons and GCs of the world.  Thus the distributors would pay more like 30-40% of retail to the manufacturer, whom depending on their segment would have their cost at 15-30% of retail, depending on how competitive their niche is.  Overall there is less profit at each link in the chain as there is less profit overall, but the cost relative to actual consumer price is a larger percentage than it used to be.

Nagra seems to be able to sustain the old pricing model based upon their reputation.  Good work if you can get it.

Yes I do agree with this - but this is for mass market products.

Top end high quality products still use the old model - I even know of some where the distributor only gets 30% off retail and can only therefore give 15% or max. 20% to a dealer.

You will find most of the top end stuff using the 50% distributor model (or less) which is why the retail discounts off top end stuff are virtually non-existent - however, the prices have not been inflated in the first place, so it's still a very reasonable street price.

Offline hi and lo

  • Trade Count: (38)
  • Needs to get out more...
  • *****
  • Posts: 2294
Ah fuck it... Why beat a dead horse
« Last Edit: July 03, 2016, 04:42:21 PM by hi and lo »

Offline capnhook

  • All your llamas are belong to us....
  • Site Supporter
  • Trade Count: (20)
  • Needs to get out more...
  • *
  • Posts: 4843
  • All your llamas are belong to us....
Nagra found a way to "sell air"....all major companies do it.

It's our job to not buy it.
Proud member of the reality-based community

BSCS-L->JB-mod [NAK CM-300 (CP-3) and/or (CP-1)]->LSD2->CA CAFS-Omni->Sony ECM-907**Apogee MiniMe Rev. C->CA Ugly II->**Edirol OCM R-44->Tascam DR-22WL->Sony TCD-D8


"Don't ever take an all or nothing attitude when it comes to making a difference
and being beautiful and making the world a beautiful place through your actions.
Every little bit is registered.  Every little bit.  So be as beautiful as you can as often as you can"

"It'll never be over, 'till we learn."
 
"My dream is to get a bus and get the band and just go coast to coast. Just about everything else except music, is anti-musical.  That's it.  Music's the thing." - Jeb Puryear

Offline John Willett

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Taperssection All-Star
  • ****
  • Posts: 1550
  • Gender: Male
  • Bio:
    • Sound-Link ProAudio
Nagra found a way to "sell air"....all major companies do it.

It's our job to not buy it.

This is rather silly thing to say.

Nagra use the same case for both the low capacity and high capacity battery pack - the "empty space" would be filled by the second battery pack for the hgh capacity pack.

In fact, a sensible way of doing things, as making two different sized cases would be more expensive.

What the original video was doing was actually extremely dangerous - Lithium batteries need to be properly balanced - replacing a cell is very dangerous. 

These sort of batteries have been known to catch fire or explode - so Nagra ensure that the batteries fulfill all conditions for them to be taken on-board an aircraft.

Yes, a Nagra battery pack is expensive, but not unreasonable when you consider that the pack is a high quality unit made in small quantities.

And Nagra *do* re-battery a battery box at a very reasonable price and should a battery pack fail - you do *NOT* have to buy a complete new box - just get the batery pack replaced.

Don't forget, You Tube videos can earn the producer lots of advert revenue - so hyping something up and saying something contreversial will earn the video maker *lots* more advert money if it goes viral - so it pays the producer to hype things up, rather than giving a proper reasoned explanation.

Offline capnhook

  • All your llamas are belong to us....
  • Site Supporter
  • Trade Count: (20)
  • Needs to get out more...
  • *
  • Posts: 4843
  • All your llamas are belong to us....
I define "selling air" as when something is obviously overpriced.

You might have more money than me, and not notice this.
Proud member of the reality-based community

BSCS-L->JB-mod [NAK CM-300 (CP-3) and/or (CP-1)]->LSD2->CA CAFS-Omni->Sony ECM-907**Apogee MiniMe Rev. C->CA Ugly II->**Edirol OCM R-44->Tascam DR-22WL->Sony TCD-D8


"Don't ever take an all or nothing attitude when it comes to making a difference
and being beautiful and making the world a beautiful place through your actions.
Every little bit is registered.  Every little bit.  So be as beautiful as you can as often as you can"

"It'll never be over, 'till we learn."
 
"My dream is to get a bus and get the band and just go coast to coast. Just about everything else except music, is anti-musical.  That's it.  Music's the thing." - Jeb Puryear

Offline hi and lo

  • Trade Count: (38)
  • Needs to get out more...
  • *****
  • Posts: 2294
You did not seriously just write that? Silly? I deleted my scathing response, but I guess that was a mistake. You clearly haven't even watched the full video or understand EE 101.

Offline John Willett

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Taperssection All-Star
  • ****
  • Posts: 1550
  • Gender: Male
  • Bio:
    • Sound-Link ProAudio
I define "selling air" as when something is obviously overpriced.

You might have more money than me, and not notice this.

Why is it overpriced?

Yes, it's expensive - yes, the raw battery packs are not expensive.

But the box itself *is* an expensive product to design and manufacture - made in small quantities and having to comply with various international reguations it's not a cheap option.

BUT - it is priced at what it costs.

It's an expensive option, but it's not "overpriced".

This is the reason that Sound Devices and AETA use a standard Sony type battery as this can be realised much cheaper.

Nagra wanted something that they had control over and not be at the mercy of another company that could stop manufacture of a battery pack that would then make their product useless.

Unfortunately it's an expensive way of doing things - but it's NOT overpriced for what it is and is certainly not a "rip off".

Offline goodcooker

  • Trade Count: (43)
  • Needs to get out more...
  • *****
  • Posts: 4639
  • Gender: Male
  • goes to 11
Why is it overpriced?
Nagra wanted something that they had control over and not be at the mercy of another company that could make the same thing for a much lower price and cut into their outrageously priced niche market.

Fixed that for you.

I don't have a Nagra so I don't really have a dog I this race but I am just astounded that anyone would try to defend this kind of blatant rip off of a product. It's a plastic box with $25 dollars worth of Chinese batteries in it for $500!
Line Audio CM3/OM1 || MBHO KA500 hyper>PFA|| ADK A51 type IV || AKG C522XY
Oade Warm Mod and Presence+ Mod UA5s || Aerco MP2(needs help) || Neve Portico 5012 || Apogee MMP
SD Mixpre6 || Oade Concert Mod DR100mkii

pocket sized - CA11 cards > SP SB10 > Sony PCM A10

http://www.archive.org/bookmarks/goodcooker

"Are you the Zman?" - fan at Panic 10-08-10 Kansas City
"I don't know who left this perfectly good inflatable wook doll here, but if I'm blowing her up, I'm keeping her." -  hoppedup

Offline John Willett

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Taperssection All-Star
  • ****
  • Posts: 1550
  • Gender: Male
  • Bio:
    • Sound-Link ProAudio

I don't have a Nagra so I don't really have a dog I this race but I am just astounded that anyone would try to defend this kind of blatant rip off of a product. It's a plastic box with $25 dollars worth of Chinese batteries in it for $500!

Actually it's not as you describe and you have no idea of the design and R&D costs to make the machine.

Anyway - the battery box is delivered as part of the recorder and, if you have a faulty battery, you don't buty a new box, you just have a new battery pack inserted.

You cannot compare a high end product that sells a few hundred to the costs of a consumer product that sells in millons.

It is expensive, but only because it costs that much to make and not because Nagra rip anyone off - if they did that they wouldn't have the loyal customers they do.  Their customers do understand what high quality design and engineerin cost, which obviously you don't.

 

RSS | Mobile
Page created in 0.092 seconds with 42 queries.
© 2002-2024 Taperssection.com
Powered by SMF