Taperssection.com
Gear / Technical Help => Ask The Tapers => Topic started by: hi and lo on February 22, 2016, 09:51:45 PM
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxZDzXv4fnM
Wow, this is truly a dick move, the likes of which hasn't been seen since the era of Sony Memory Sticks. Considering it's the same company that now offers the 'totally not rebranded' Lino recorder from China, I guess I'm not surprised.
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I watched this up to the point where he takes the 6 X 18650 LiIon batteries out. Those things are 4 or 5 bucks each...maybe. Sad but no different than people paying $400 dollars for a DPA ORTF mount that's made out of rubber.
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My favorite part is when he discovers the sponge. ;)
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Sponge worthy?
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^ NOT! ;)
I was actually compelled to watch the whole 14+ minute video. Amazing gear or not, and even taking R&D into account, Nagra's got some balls. As Markus Fuller remarked at one point in the video (~13:43), "And they haven't even got the decency to wear a balaclava when they rob you."
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It's being discussed at GS also - see replies from #15 onwards. I don't think I agree with the justifications for the cost being given there.
https://www.gearslutz.com/board/remote-possibilities-acoustic-music-location-recording/947941-nagra-v-li-ion-batteries.html (https://www.gearslutz.com/board/remote-possibilities-acoustic-music-location-recording/947941-nagra-v-li-ion-batteries.html)
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I have a CPAP battery that has 8 X 18650 LiIon batteries inside of it, and I only paid $250 US.... :-X :o
I got a better deal...... ::) :facepalm:
The medical device industry is ripping people off the same way NAGRA is, but their sales volume is much greater. Gub'mint just gave the industry a sales tax exclusion, too.
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I don't see it as a rip-off at all.
Nagra designed a battery pack that was an integral part of the recorder - the R&D of the recorder with battery box was not inexpensive and only sell in relatively small quantities.
Most of the cost of the battery box is in the R&D and manufacture of the box itself and not in the battery pack.
Nothing wrong in having the foam in the box in the space where the second battery pack goes in the high capacity version - though the price difference between the two boxes is rather high if the only difference is the second battery pack.
The video only considered the raw cost of the batteries and made no allowance for the thermo detector and accompanying PCB; nor the manufacturing costs of putting all the components tigether and making them into an integral pack.
I would have thought that Nagra would either sell the battery packs if a battery box died, or, do a refurbish service on the box and replace the battery.
It was rather silly of someone just to buy a new box without asking Nagra if they could refurbish the existing one.
One could query Nagra's decision to make a special box at a high cost, rather than using standard "video" battery packs like AETA and Sound Devices (the high capacity pack for the AETA 4MinX is a standard Sony type and costs £80 in the UK). Though, I guess, that Nagra wanted to keep the long term integrity of the recorder and be able to re-battery a pack with different batteries should anything be discontinued - if a specific "video" type of battery goes out of production then any equipment using one would quickly be unuseable.
I am sure that Nagra would have the battery boxes at a much lower price were it economic to do so.
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I am sure that Nagra would have the battery boxes at a much lower price were it economic to do so.
:crazy:
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I don't see it as a rip-off at all.
Nagra designed a battery pack that was an integral part of the recorder - the R&D of the recorder with battery box was not inexpensive and only sell in relatively small quantities.
Most of the cost of the battery box is in the R&D and manufacture of the box itself and not in the battery pack.
Nothing wrong in having the foam in the box in the space where the second battery pack goes in the high capacity version - though the price difference between the two boxes is rather high if the only difference is the second battery pack.
The video only considered the raw cost of the batteries and made no allowance for the thermo detector and accompanying PCB; nor the manufacturing costs of putting all the components tigether and making them into an integral pack.
I would have thought that Nagra would either sell the battery packs if a battery box died, or, do a refurbish service on the box and replace the battery.
It was rather silly of someone just to buy a new box without asking Nagra if they could refurbish the existing one.
One could query Nagra's decision to make a special box at a high cost, rather than using standard "video" battery packs like AETA and Sound Devices (the high capacity pack for the AETA 4MinX is a standard Sony type and costs £80 in the UK). Though, I guess, that Nagra wanted to keep the long term integrity of the recorder and be able to re-battery a pack with different batteries should anything be discontinued - if a specific "video" type of battery goes out of production then any equipment using one would quickly be unuseable.
I am sure that Nagra would have the battery boxes at a much lower price were it economic to do so.
While you raise a number of good points, I have to disagree with the last statement. Even taking into account all the factors you described, I think they could sell these batteries for far less. Nagra is simply employing a "whatever the market will bear" pricing, much like the shockingly overpriced shockmounts and stereo bars sold by Schoeps and DPA, among others. The market for these products is rather well-heeled, and the pricing of their accessories reflect that. A Nagra VI costs nearly $10,000 so the folks at Nagra may rightly assume that the price of these batteries would be no big deal for their customers. This is like the multi-thousand-dollar service prices on high-end sports cars - it's an easy profit because of the exclusivity of the product and the nature of the customer who isn't going to complain.
All that said, business is business, and if you can get people to buy your product at the price you're asking, then good for you, I guess.
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Thread on JWSound including a written response from Nagra, and the original video maker's response to their response:
http://jwsoundgroup.net/index.php?/topic/27111-inside-a-nagra-battery/ (http://jwsoundgroup.net/index.php?/topic/27111-inside-a-nagra-battery/)
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Thread on JWSound including a written response from Nagra, and the original video maker's response to their response:
http://jwsoundgroup.net/index.php?/topic/27111-inside-a-nagra-battery/ (http://jwsoundgroup.net/index.php?/topic/27111-inside-a-nagra-battery/)
Watched most of it.
His original video was full of half-truths and taking no account of the R&D and manufacturing a product in small qualtities.
His follow-up video compared Nagra to Apple and Samsung - what! - Apple and Samsung sell at least a million of their products per one single Nagra. You can't compare what a company does in bulk manufacture to a small company producing what is, in effect, a bespoke product.
He also complained that the battery pack was not on the website - silly - I know of hardly *any* company that put service items on the website. You normally contact the manufacturer if a product needs repair/service and go from there.
All he needed to do was to contact Nagra and they would have given him the price for replacing the battery pack and a service check of the box to make sure that all was working perfectly.
Nagra are certainly *not* ripping anyone off - it just costs that amount to produce such a product.
That is exactly why Sound Devices and AETA went for generic Sony type video batteries that are readily available and cost a lot less.
Nagra wanted their recorder to be future-proof, so went for a bespoke battery pack that, unfortunately, is not cheap.
But Nagra *do* do a re-battery service for a pack and you do *not* have to buy a new complete battery box if an internalbattery pack fails - they will even upgrade a standard pack to a high capacity one if asked.
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Since learning that Nagra will in fact just charge you to replace the cell pack, I've changed my tune on this a bit. I agree that the video maker was a bit lazy in not calling or emailing his Nagra dealer to investigate the cell pack replacement, and he just assumed it wasn't an option and you have to buy a whole new pack.
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Thread on JWSound including a written response from Nagra, and the original video maker's response to their response:
http://jwsoundgroup.net/index.php?/topic/27111-inside-a-nagra-battery/ (http://jwsoundgroup.net/index.php?/topic/27111-inside-a-nagra-battery/)
Watched most of it.
His original video was full of half-truths and taking no account of the R&D and manufacturing a product in small qualtities.
His follow-up video compared Nagra to Apple and Samsung - what! - Apple and Samsung sell at least a million of their products per one single Nagra. You can't compare what a company does in bulk manufacture to a small company producing what is, in effect, a bespoke product.
He also complained that the battery pack was not on the website - silly - I know of hardly *any* company that put service items on the website. You normally contact the manufacturer if a product needs repair/service and go from there.
All he needed to do was to contact Nagra and they would have given him the price for replacing the battery pack and a service check of the box to make sure that all was working perfectly.
Nagra are certainly *not* ripping anyone off - it just costs that amount to produce such a product.
That is exactly why Sound Devices and AETA went for generic Sony type video batteries that are readily available and cost a lot less.
Nagra wanted their recorder to be future-proof, so went for a bespoke battery pack that, unfortunately, is not cheap.
But Nagra *do* do a re-battery service for a pack and yo do *not* have to buy a new complete battery box if an internalbattery pack fails - they will even upgrade a standard pack to a high capacity one if asked.
The price of this battery is completely ridiculous.
I don't agree at all that the price tag is justified by the cost of R&D and manufacturing. They are simply going with a couple of different marketing strategies employed by other companies as well. One is charging what the market will bear. If you have a $10K recorder then a $500 battery doesn't seem so bad.
The other is exclusivity - they have an expensive niche product and they don't want compatibility with other products. They want their customers to come back to them for accessories even if they are outlandishly over priced.
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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
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^ 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?
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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
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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.
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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
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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.
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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.
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Ah fuck it... Why beat a dead horse
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Nagra found a way to "sell air"....all major companies do it.
It's our job to not buy it.
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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.
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I define "selling air" as when something is obviously overpriced.
You might have more money than me, and not notice this.
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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.
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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".
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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!
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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.