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Author Topic: Continuing KM184 discussion  (Read 18756 times)

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Offline it-goes-to-eleven

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Re: Continuing KM184 discussion
« Reply #15 on: March 03, 2010, 08:10:51 PM »
Freelunch, the active circuit components in a Schoeps active (cable, gooseneck, extension tube) are by no means cheap ...

Rather than spell out chapter and verse, I would suggest that you check out what you have been led to believe, and ask the person where they got their so-called information. Nearly every material statement in your message is just not factual to begin with.

I seem to have struck a nerve.  So called information?  To say that I am very familiar with the internal workings of the KC5 is an understatement.  I've been playing with active mic circuits, on and off my workbench, for a few years.

I stand by my assertion that the parts are cheap and the circuit is trivial.  At the capsule end, the KC5 is five components.  Can anyone else list them?  I know Schoepsnbox can ;)

At the body end, it is even more simple; a capacitor and a resistor.

Now... Which of those active circuit components is not cheap?

Offline midside

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Re: Continuing KM184 discussion
« Reply #16 on: March 03, 2010, 08:37:06 PM »
I agree, but perhaps we should say it differently...the parts aren't 'cheap', they are 'inexpensive' (cheap gives the idea that they were made poorly).  I really like my schoeps gear, but I have always thought that they charge WAY too much for their trivial parts...just because they can....because of their proprietary connectors.  It doesn't always seem like the kindest way to do business...

stevetoney

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Re: Continuing KM184 discussion
« Reply #17 on: March 03, 2010, 09:23:21 PM »
...just because they can....because of their proprietary connectors.  It doesn't always seem like the kindest way to do business...

However, making the connectors proprietary is exactly the point and, in business, developing a quality product that is differentiated in the marketplace enables the owner of the product, for better or worse, to use the proprietary nature of their product to their advantage.  That's good business. 

As consumers, we don't have to like it and we're free to choose because it's a free market.  Our choice, of course is to buy Neumann, AKG, DPA, etc.

In the case of the cost of Schoeps gear, well yeah it's costly but consider that the audience is really a far larger group than us hobbyists.  The larger target market is a group of professional audio studio's that have no problem paying $700 for an active cable even if, logically, it shouldn't cost that much. 

Logic and/or materials doesn't always play the major part in setting the price of a product...as much as market.

« Last Edit: March 03, 2010, 09:25:41 PM by tonedeaf »

Offline Teen Wolf Blitzer

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Re: Continuing KM184 discussion
« Reply #18 on: March 04, 2010, 12:58:38 AM »
Well one thing we can all agree on.  Neumann's crush the Schoeps.   :P  :instagib:

Offline ghellquist

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Re: Continuing KM184 discussion
« Reply #19 on: March 04, 2010, 01:48:01 AM »
As for pricing there are a lot of different things to at least know about. For us small consumers the end result is often to either buy or not, not much choice.

Microphones of this class are speciality items sold mainly to a very small group of professional users. The yearly number of mics made is very small meaning that there is less possibilities for automation in manufacturing. Some items might sell only tens of units per year. Yield ( relation of accepted items compared to all produced ) can be quite low as every item generally is both measured and tested and compared to a narrow quality margin. The market is global meaning that there will need to be many service depots, gross sales points and resellers over the world. Each of these needs to have a high degree of competence but at the same time selling very few items yearly. The mics are designed and manufacturered with very high consistency and it is often possible to add one more mic of the same type many years later. The buying process is often quite long, testing the mics in a shootout before committing. These are all factors contributing to adding cost to the final buyer.

Now, again, it is your choice.

Contrast this with a typical mass market products. The mics in this class are made to be sold in larger quantitys. The distribution network is different, generally the manufacturer has no service network at all. The mics available change all the time depending on day-to-day ( almost ) fashion. A mic type you buy today probably will not be available next year so you cannot add one more of your favourite. All parts of the mic are "cost optimized" and yield is held high by having much looser quality control. The purchase process is generally buy or not, generally not long time testing, generally no professional support in the process. The sales people are genarally "mass shifters" instead of "professional advisors". And so on.

It is to a certain degree possible to deliver a quality product at a lower price. The key to this often is to make sure that you consistently have a high enough volume. This might be happening in some of the mic segments, probably in LDC mics where some of the manufacturers arguably are close in direct product quality at a lower price.

Well, sorry, only rambling.

// Gunnar

Offline DSatz

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Re: Continuing KM184 discussion
« Reply #20 on: March 04, 2010, 08:12:17 AM »
I will probably regret this, but let me try to inject just a few (shudder, gasp) facts into this discussion. I suspect that many of the other people in this thread are too young to remember what things were like in the 1970s and 80s. I'm not; I was already buying and using AKG and Neumann and Schoeps condenser microphones for concert recording in the early 1970s, so I lived through all these developments first-hand.

First of all, Schoeps invented and patented the technology of active extension devices such as cables, goosenecks and extension tubes. As an example of the prior state of the art, consider Neumann's extension goosenecks for the KM 83/84/85 (see picture attached below), which were nothing more than a single wire encased in a metal tube. These were lovely to look at but limited in their usefulness due to unavoidable risks of interference, high-frequency losses and distortion. AKG had something similar for their C 451 series, with a built-in swivel as I recall. So the state of the art was basically rigid, passive extensions that were quite limited in length and that brought a real risk of degrading the sound quality.

Schoeps' patented design overcame these problems by placing an active FET stage at the head end of the cable, gooseneck or extension tube. (This meant that the extension accessory also had to have wires in it for capsule polarization voltage and for the DC to operate the FET circuit.) Under the RF conditions of the time, suddenly it was practical to use extension cables as long as 100 feet, though nowadays that would be avoided since the RF environment is so much more intense. TV broadcast engineers and film/video sound recordists particularly loved this system, but the fact is, most customers bought the microphones for their quality as microphones, and didn't know or care about the active extensions. That's important when you're trying to suss out the economics. (So is the patent, which people nowadays tend to forget.)

Schoeps introduced the only microphone series that could use active accessories, the CMC ("Colette") series, in late 1973. It was ten years (!) before anyone found (in effect) a way around the patent--the first thing that could be called a "competing product" was the Neumann KMF 4, a nice small cardioid with a passive extension cable that couldn't be removed (you always had to mount the capsule and the body separately). At around the same time AKG also came out with a set of electret capsules that could be attached to their C 460-series amplifiers, but those clearly weren't their best capsules, nor is it altogether clear (to me at least, as a non-attorney) whether that was an infringing design or not--it's right at the water's edge. At any rate, neither product got terribly far in the market and both were soon withdrawn. In effect, for about 15 years Schoeps had the entire field of studio microphones with active accessories to themselves. The Neumann KM 100 series wasn't introduced until 1988--again, based on passive extension accessories but with active capsules. That approach gets the job done, but makes the capsules much more expensive than they would otherwise have to be (for the majority of customers who don't use extension accessories).

Contrary to remarks in this thread, there was no particular economic incentive for Schoeps to develop "proprietary" connectors such as the ones used by Colette extension cables. For one thing the whole scheme was patented, so there was no legal way (without a license agreement) for any third parties to manufacture equipment that might have interfaced with Schoeps' amplifiers and capsules; thus Schoeps' choice of a connector wouldn't have been any barrier for such a third party. It's just basic reality that ALL manufacturers use their own choice of connectors for their capsules and amplifiers--you can't screw an AKG C 451 capsule onto a Neumann KM 84 body or vice versa.

As to overall pricing: The predecessor series at Schoeps, which continued in production and was only gradually phased out over a period of years, was the CMT series. According to the factory price lists from this period of time, the prices of the new Colette series amplifiers and capsules look as if they were about 10% higher than the prices for the corresponding earlier microphones. And that was in a period of considerable price inflation world-wide. In other words, Schoeps had always been very high-priced and remained so; they hardly raised their prices at all with the introduction of the Colette series, even though they were offering exclusive technology which caused their sales volume to increase considerably.

The majority of their customers weren't using active accessories, so there was economic pressure from less expensive competitors (including Neumann) all along, as usual. Besides, in an international market one manufacturer can't raise prices arbitrarily, because that plus the variations in exchange rates (this all being before the Euro existed) would cause a total choke-off of sales in some countries, and an increase in "grey marketing" (a big concern back then). The 1970s were years of tremendous variations in the exchange rate between the dollar and the Deutsche Mark, the U.S. distributor took a rather high mark-up on all microphones sold here, and there can be absolutely no doubt that Schoeps' very high prices slowed the growth of their sales in the U.S., where Dr. Schoeps (who was still alive then) had very much wanted them to expand. This was compounded by the U.S. distributor's long-time lack of interest in setting up dealerships--he as an individual directly sold all Schoeps microphones in the entire country, until after many years he was finally persuaded by Schoeps to allow a few other companies to become dealers.

This may be far more information than anyone here wanted to know, but I'm posting it just to show that the kind of inference and speculation that hobbyists commonly indulge in (and that this particular thread keeps coming back to again and again) is NOT a royal road to the truth. The truth is more complicated than what most people generally like to suppose, and it contains all sorts of details that no one would ever guess.

--best regards
« Last Edit: March 05, 2010, 01:09:22 AM by DSatz »
music > microphones > a recorder of some sort

stevetoney

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Re: Continuing KM184 discussion
« Reply #21 on: March 04, 2010, 09:24:01 AM »
This may be far more information than anyone here wanted to know, but I'm posting it just to show that the kind of inference and speculation that hobbyists commonly indulge in (and that this particular thread keeps coming back to again and again) is NOT a royal road to the truth. The truth is more complicated than what most people generally like to suppose, and it contains all sorts of details that no one would ever guess.

Dear David:

Speaking for myself, and I think most others, I truly appreciate the details and input you provide, and the previous post is no exception.  While I suspect from your post that there are times when your historical knowledge and insights causes you to perhaps lose patience with hobbyists, please remember that this site is mostly made up of hobbyists and, as such, we like to sit around our computers at night and waste time...which I suppose is partially included in the definition of hobbyist. 

Sometimes the details of what we're attempting to communicate (vis-a-vis your reference to 'the royal road to the truth') with each other gets lost either in translation because this is the internet, gets missed because we're simply hobbyists conversing from our keyboards (we hit send without knowing and/or before 'thinking'), or details simply get lost over time in the minutia of historical fact.  However, I think that for the most part, there's a common spirit and passion that we all have and that's the common bond that keeps taperssection interesting.  I suspect that there would be a significantly different 'flavor' to many threads if this list were composed mostly of recording professionals (perhaps more 'facts' and less bullsh**, LOL!).  While it's a great objective to correct all of the inaccurate bullsh** that's spread on this forum, I think the bullshi** is symptomatic of the fact that we're a bunch of couch potatoes sitting around our computers at night with nothing better to do.   ;D

I'm not suggesting with this statement that I think you should change any of your detailed comments.  I'm only providing this comment, hopefully to help with any frustration you might have dealing with a group of hobbyists.  I'm really only saying this because I sensed from the subtle injections of sarcasm in your earlier posts in this thread, that there are times when you seem to become rather aghast at the hobbyist discussions.

Regards,

Steve
« Last Edit: March 04, 2010, 10:10:41 AM by tonedeaf »

Offline su6oxone

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Re: Continuing KM184 discussion
« Reply #22 on: March 04, 2010, 09:33:05 AM »
This may be far more information than anyone here wanted to know, but I'm posting it just to show that the kind of inference and speculation that hobbyists commonly indulge in (and that this particular thread keeps coming back to again and again) is NOT a royal road to the truth. The truth is more complicated than what most people generally like to suppose, and it contains all sorts of details that no one would ever guess.

Fascinating post as always Mr. Satz... and a wee bit more accessible than the more technical details you more frequently post.  ;D

Offline fleish

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Re: Continuing KM184 discussion
« Reply #23 on: March 04, 2010, 12:37:14 PM »
:coolguy: scintillating  as always dsatz :coolguy:
Mics: AT853, MC930, AK40/AK50 > LC3 > KM100, ADK TL51
Cables: Audio Magic XStream silver, Kind Kables, Zaolla M1.5
Decks: D8, Busman Hybrid R4

My LMA tapes: http://archive.org/search.php?query=taper%3A%22Todd+Fleisher%22

My LMA transfers: http://archive.org/search.php?query=-taper%3A%28Todd%20Fleisher%29%20AND%20transferer%3A%28Todd%20Fleisher%29

My LMA uploads: http://archive.org/search.php?query=collection%3Aetree%20AND%20uploader%3A%28todd%40fleish.org%29

Awesome. David said you were like The Wolf in Pulp Fiction. Shows up just in time with tons of gear, does a pro job, and disappears into the night! :-)

Offline it-goes-to-eleven

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Re: Continuing KM184 discussion
« Reply #24 on: March 04, 2010, 01:02:57 PM »
Well, that's all very interesting product history...  But you plainly stated that I was spreading misinformation.  And when called on that, you have not clarified or corrected your assertion that "the active circuit components in a Schoeps active (cable, gooseneck, extension tube) are by no means cheap".

So I ask again, which of those five active circuit components is not cheap?


stevetoney

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Re: Continuing KM184 discussion
« Reply #25 on: March 04, 2010, 01:31:18 PM »
Well, that's all very interesting product history...  But you plainly stated that I was spreading misinformation.  And when called on that, you have not clarified or corrected your assertion that "the active circuit components in a Schoeps active (cable, gooseneck, extension tube) are by no means cheap".

So I ask again, which of those five active circuit components is not cheap?

Whether the parts are cheap or expensive is irrelevant.  He explained, at least to a reasonable degree of detail, how the actives are constructed, but he also explained that it is patented technology that, for a long time, didn't have any competitive equal. 

Isn't it obvious that the price of the product is mostly paying for the fact that Schoeps owns the patent and that when Neumann developed a product, Neumann used Schoeps pricing as their market lead-in for pricing the Neumann actives? 

This is hardly a new concept.  For example, how much does it REALLY cost to make an iphone? 

You may not be, but I'm fine with this, since as discussed, that's what the market has determined the price of a set of actives for Schoeps mics to be.  Sure, I wish it was less, but it's not!
« Last Edit: March 04, 2010, 01:33:15 PM by tonedeaf »

Offline it-goes-to-eleven

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Re: Continuing KM184 discussion
« Reply #26 on: March 04, 2010, 02:04:20 PM »
Whether the parts are cheap or expensive is irrelevant.  He explained, at least to a reasonable degree of detail, how the actives are constructed, but he also explained that it is patented technology that, for a long time, didn't have any competitive equal. 

I don't think he needs you to reply for him.  The patent stuff was specious.

He said I was spreading misinformation.  When called on it and challenged to give specifics, he gave us a schoeps history lesson and ducked the issue.

stevetoney

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Re: Continuing KM184 discussion
« Reply #27 on: March 04, 2010, 02:21:52 PM »
Whether the parts are cheap or expensive is irrelevant.  He explained, at least to a reasonable degree of detail, how the actives are constructed, but he also explained that it is patented technology that, for a long time, didn't have any competitive equal. 

I don't think he needs you to reply for him.  The patent stuff was specious.

He said I was spreading misinformation.  When called on it and challenged to give specifics, he gave us a schoeps history lesson and ducked the issue.

He didn't duck the issue.  He made an above board response and, in the process, it's fairly obvious that he also was choosing not to engage in a childish game of tit-for-tat with you, which is what I'm going to do after hitting 'send' to this message.
« Last Edit: March 04, 2010, 02:33:10 PM by tonedeaf »

Offline it-goes-to-eleven

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Re: Continuing KM184 discussion
« Reply #28 on: March 04, 2010, 03:02:13 PM »
Well, that's all very interesting product history...  But you plainly stated that I was spreading misinformation.  And when called on that, you have not clarified or corrected your assertion that "the active circuit components in a Schoeps active (cable, gooseneck, extension tube) are by no means cheap".

So I ask again, which of those five active circuit components is not cheap?

Whether the parts are cheap or expensive is irrelevant.

Re-read my original post - that is exactly what this is about.   That, and he said I was posting BS and implied I did not know what I was talking about.  That was insulting. When called on it, he had an opportunity...  Instead he chose to duck the issue.

That's weak.

It should probably be noted that the Schoeps "active" parts (KC5, for example), though exceptionally well engineered, consist of very basic components that cost only a couple dollars.  I assume the guts of the Neumann circuit are not much different.  Including them in the capsule design should not necessarily increase the cost much.

Offline Nick's Picks

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Re: Continuing KM184 discussion
« Reply #29 on: March 04, 2010, 03:23:18 PM »
huh.
I always thought the km14x series cable was active..soley on the amount of crap you can see on stuffed into the threaded ends where the cap/body screw on.
as opposed to other passive ext. cables like MBHO, Rhode..etc etc. where it is obviously "just a cable".

but...I can now understand why the neumann caps cost so much. 
DSatz..., its always good to have someone post on this forum who *obviously* knows of what they speak.   
I'm more of the 1/2 assed guess / speculation type.
:)

 

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