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"Why is it so expensive?" - commentary from someone who does this for a living at Sequential Small Volume - each unit is more expensive than a large volume pro

by IAmPym 4y ago

"Why is it so expensive?" - commentary from someone who does this for a living at Sequential Small Volume - each unit is more expensive than a large volume product, you don't get price breaks on any components or tooling costs Design focused - Who is the product for? It isn't for people who want to spend 250$ on a Behringer mixer. It is for people who want something that is high quality and doesn't break. Reliable. For people that rely on their tools to be creative or appreciate design. You are paying a premium. See Apple for lots of examples. This is also one of the biggest strengths of the company, if you want something cheap you're looking in the wrong place. Complex - the amount of balance of various components here adds a lot to the design and development costs. Battery is an unusual feature but puts it in a different product category. Balancing that with the audio quality and reliability is not a trivial problem. Add in wireless, audio drivers (not trivial at ALL), Complexity increases development time and adds risk to the long term stability of the product, that is added into the cost. Most of the small features feel like somebody there thought it would be fun and/or easy to put in. It's a good way to iterate through design ideas, you have to see it in reality. That type of prototyping isn't easy. Most people don't use 90% of the features but when you are in a creative industry the 1% that does absolutely LOVES it and uses it in ways you never expected. It's difficult to balance the amount of development you put into fun things vs. business cases. If you are trying to figure out why you'd pay for this you aren't their target market. It's far more interesting (to me) to think about why some people WOULD pay for this and what a market looks like that you are not a part of

lamp_book 4y ago
> doesn't break Can get behind the rest of your comment but I don't think anyone's ever accused TE of making durable products. To their credit though, they replaced my broken PO without a fuss, so I'm not a detractor.
- IAmPym 4y ago
  I have used TE products on occasion and looked into them deeply from a bunch of engineering perspectives. Compared to other products in a similar price point and form factor the likelihood of a problem is far lower. When you reduce the size you eliminate structural components and if you can't mill aluminum you're left with a lot of difficult choices to make to keep things stable. TE does a good job of balancing those things. Customer service is where you see the end result of this. Replacing things quickly and easily means they aren't struggling to support bad design decisions in terms of stability.
  - thih9 4y ago
    Another data point, I own OP-1 and I find it of low durability, especially for the price. E.g. its knobs, buttons and jacks seem delicate compared to other gear in similar price range.
  - prmoustache 4y ago
    Tell that to all the bent Op-Z owners whose dials pop out randomly from the case.
  - lamp_book 4y ago
    Good to know! Very jealous of your line of work, btw, seems like a great place to be!
  - LegitShady 4y ago
    this has not been my experience with several TE products. My experience suggests that TE charges a lot because they 1) they're a status symbol so they can and 2) they replace a lot of devices. TE to me does not at all signify high quality or 'good build quality'. Just 'ok' and 'it will likely fail long before its purchase price justifies itself'. They're the pre-intel apple of the synth world - overpriced and not worth the cost, but status symbols for those who want them.
  - bmitc 4y ago
    There is an entire aftermarket for OP-1 USB and audio I/O boards because they fail so often, both physically and electronically, and somewhat the same for the buttons and knobs. But yes, the milled aluminum is solid. I still love the OP-1 though. Nothing quite like it.
- relaxing 4y ago
  The PO series are a different beast entirely. You can’t compare their $80 toy synths made of PC board to their high end stuff.
  - LegitShady 4y ago
    OP-Z - bends straight out of the box and causes double trigs, keyboard is plastic welded so can't be repaired outside of depot. custom battery only so once TE stops supporting it this thing is dead. OP-1 - commonly has power switch issues, as well as other quirks that are harder to nail down, as well as keyboard issues. Teenage engineering support is extremely slow sometimes taking a week+ to reply to support issues. I've heard of people not getting responses at all. Their high end stuff is just expensive - the high price tag doesn't mean high quality. I say all this as an op-z owner and former owner of multiple pocket operators who wishes it was a better device than it is. It isn't. I wouldn't pay them $1200 for anything.
- aetherspawn 4y ago
  TE is a trademark of Tyco Electronics, a very popular connector and electrical device supplier (audio included), and could be a confusing acronym to use for Teenage Engineering.
  - imwillofficial 4y ago
    In the context of the linked post, nobody is confused.
koof 4y ago
I've been looking for a tiny mixer with 3 band eq + FX sends per channel for a while to run synths and/or decks through. This look like this might fit the bill. The compressor on each channel is a bonus. I'm not entirely sure if there's alternative products that would work for me instead, but this has my attention.
- prova_modena 4y ago
  1010music bluebox might work for you and is 1/2 the price.
  - djs070 4y ago
    Yes. If that was an audio interface too it would be a no brainer.
- skinpop 4y ago
  Mcmillen K-mix. I think they released a new version last year.
wyager 4y ago
> Reliable. It is for people who want something that is high quality and doesn't break. My TE OP-1 synth has not really matched these adjectives. One of the keyboard keys is misconstructed, so it’s on a hair trigger. The lightest brush will cause it to get set off. I have to replace the keyboard at some point to fix it. This should have been caught in QC. It also undergoes fairly frequent software crashes (esp. for a musical instrument). I’ve crashed it at least 3 times doing random UI interactions. Given that this is one of their flagship products, and a lot of people use adjectives like “reliable” and “quality” to describe it, I’m very skeptical that these descriptions are actually accurate when applied to other TE products.
- IAmPym 4y ago
  Small sample size bias Small companies don't have the same QC that a large corporation does, you'll never get the same consistency across products at the early stages of a company. Unfair to compare against that. You should definitely contact support and let them know, my guess is they'll take care of the keyboard. Could be debris inside it somewhere, could be a number of other tolerance issues or something else. Crashes are definitely a problem. Knowing the chip they use and the complexity under the hood. The fact is though, all instruments suffer from issues like this. You will not find a single piece of gear on the market that doesn't have bugs. Crash issues are rare in our gear only because they are more simple by comparison. When I was writing the Tempest OS I had tons of crash bugs I had to work through because it was ambitious and quite complex, nearly all of which got fixed as the OS matured. Same with the OP-1 I'd imagine. Professional musicians learn to work around things and create systems to deal with inevitable problems. It's just the reality of the game.
  - kjs3 4y ago
    I shall remember the next time I drop a large dime to pick up something marketed as 'reliable', 'high-end', etc., that if it doesn't meet expectations I should just suck it up and limp along with whatever the vendor gave me. Good to know.
  - DoctorNick 4y ago
    > Crashes are definitely a problem. Knowing the chip they use and the complexity under the hood. The fact is though, all instruments suffer from issues like this. You will not find a single piece of gear on the market that doesn't have bugs. Crash issues are rare in our gear only because they are more simple by comparison. When I was writing the Tempest OS I had tons of crash bugs I had to work through because it was ambitious and quite complex, nearly all of which got fixed as the OS matured. Same with the OP-1 I'd imagine. It’s been on the market for TEN YEARS. They have had plenty of time to defuckulate the software.
hpvic03 4y ago
Hey! While you’re here, could you share why the Tempest doesn’t allow you to use your own samples? Could you guys open source some parts of Tempest so people could keep working on it? Asking as a Tempest owner and huge Sequential fan.
- IAmPym 4y ago
  Chip/hardware complexity. We actually put some serious resources into trying to get this to work, wish we could have made it a reality And no, open sourcing would be incredibly difficult to do with hardware that has multiple chips and requires people to have expensive programming tools. If it was an ARM you could just plug a USB cable into that'd be one thing, this just wouldn't work without a ton of support And glad you liked it! I'm quite proud of it all in all
  - hpvic03 4y ago
    Interesting. There are those pre-installed samples there already, they couldn't just be swapped out with an imported file – there's something special about those files? Anyway I think it's hugely underrated, hopefully you guys can do a v2 sometime. I'm blown away whenever I use it, it feels like a huge technical achievement.
    - IAmPym 4y ago
      Technically they could and that as well was something we looked into. Honestly it was the most complicated thing I've ever done. Would love to give it another shot some day!
repiret 4y ago
I’m part of a team that makes low volume high priced electronics. Component costs don’t contribute that much: the price difference between qty 1 and qty 1k is usually much larger than between qty 1k and anything more. The things I see contributing to the cost of low quantity hardware are: 1. The need to amortize development costs over fewer units. This is not just software and hardware engineers, but office space, lab equipment, mechanical engineering for enclosures, prototype builds, emissions and compliance testing (FCC, CE, UL, TÜV, depending device and on target market) 2. Higher manufacturing costs. Low cost overseas manufacturing has fairly high fixed costs, especially if you want to maintain high quality.
- IAmPym 4y ago
  Component cost increases due to the pandemic and supply chain issues easily increased the price by 25-30% in our industry due to several factors outside of the norm, like some single source parts most companies relied on with factory problems, fires, etc In my experience over the past 6-12 months this is significant
  - repiret 4y ago
    Oh component costs have gone up for sure the last year or so. But I'm saying the per-unit component costs wouldn't be that different between making 1,000 per year or 10,000 per month. [1] [1]: Except that in the current supply chain environment, it would change the "should we pay scalper prices for that component or should we spend the fixed costs to redesign with a different, more available component" calculus.
    - IAmPym 4y ago
      Your making the assumption that one can buy 1000 of any part, which is likely incorrect These ain’t normal times
      - krageon 4y ago
        Are you lecturing someone who does this for a living on the environment of their specific professional setting? Why do you assume you know better?
blub 4y ago
I agree with you mostly about why it would be expensive, but Teenage Engineering doesn't have a reputation for building reliable devices. I own an OP-1, owned two POs and considered getting an OP-Z only to be scared away by all the reports about poor hardware quality and support. The OP-Z plastic casing apparently bends. Sometimes it comes like that out of the factory (or more likely gets that way during storage and transport) often times it bends with use. This means that buttons will slide out of position, keys will trigger multiple times, etc. The manufacturer doesn't have any solution to the above problem and returning it for a replacement may result in a straight case or more of the same. All signs indicate that it's a design defect, but TE haven't recognised this and they're getting punished in reviews. The POs are flimsy, and the knobs tend to be imprecise and "jump" between values. One came with rust on a metal part because of TEs creative open packaging which exposes the devices to the surrounding environment. The OP-1 itself seems solid as far as hardware goes so far, but it has other issues. It's noisy for one, which goes against claims of audio quality. The software's buggy and it records clicks together with the incoming audio, especially when recording external instruments. These are all well known problems. And given that the OP-1 is supposed to be a synth, or at least a groovebox, it's surprisingly hard to create good sounding patches with it.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
erichmond 4y ago
As an owner of a Rev2 and a P6 really cool to see you here Pym!
- ostenning 4y ago
  p6 here :)
- IAmPym 4y ago
  Good to be here occasionally, considering writing up some blog posts I figured this community might find interesting. Seems like we are well liked enough that it might be fun
twobitshifter 4y ago
I didn’t have the why is it so expensive reaction at all. Mine was “looks really expensive but maybe it’s not”, and then disappointment in the cost. However I totally expected it to cost around $1000. I don’t qualify as anything other than a noodler so I wouldn’t spend that money on it, but as you say professionals would.
nkozyra 4y ago
> Design focused - Who is the product for? It isn't for people who want to spend 250$ on a Behringer mixer. Seems like it's competing against the Tascam model line. I have a model 12 that I'll bet blows it out of the water in the reliability department at almost half the price. It's not as small but it's pretty and rock solid, Tascam has a great track record (no pun intended)
H1Supreme 4y ago
> $250 on a Behringer mixer. Yamaha, Mackie, Allen & Heath, Soundcraft, and ART all make mixers with at least 6 channels on them in the $250 price range. So, there's more to the mixer landscape than Teenage Eng. and Behringer. I can't comment on all the brands, but I've used Yamaha and Mackie for years, with virtually zero problems. My old Yamaha 12 channel (which would retail for $300 today) was an absolute tank. It did countless shows in dirty warehouses, clubs, fields, and never even had a road case! Which, I I'd qualify as pretty reliable. > If you are trying to figure out why you'd pay for this you aren't their target market I actually think that I am their target market. I've got many thousands of dollars worth of eurorack modular (which is the same niche), synthesizers (including Sequential), guitars, and studio equipment. I obsess over this stuff, and spend money on it. But, I cannot figure out why I would spend $1200 on this 6 channel mixer. The Burr Brown ADC? I guess you could argue the size is the selling point. But, that seems more like a solution looking for a problem. And, frankly, if you intend to use a mixer in your performance, the size could do more harm than good.
- bombcar 4y ago
  Yeah, these knobs look very small to be adjusting in a hurry in the dark backstage but I’m not the target market.
  - adrusi 4y ago
    I doubt this will see much backstage use. I expect to see it used by buskers, who need portability (and sometimes the ability to pack up in seconds), and by artists who make fiddling with their equipment part of their performance. That and people who put it on their desk because they like the design.
- dimatura 4y ago
  I'm not sure what the target market is either, but I suspect people who highly value portability would be a large part of it. This thing packs a lot of features in a really tiny form factor (potentially replacing bigger mixers and an FX pedal, dunno if the sequencer/synth is worth anything), and has a battery. If you have a lot of studio equipment including eurorack, big keyboard synths and other gear I suspect you wouldn't quite fit that description, this thing would get lost in the studio.
bigiain 4y ago
> This is also one of the biggest strengths of the company, if you want something cheap you're looking in the wrong place. Well, they can do cheap. Their range of Pocket Operator stuff is cheap and hilariously fun. I gotta admit, I did click through to see if this was gonna fall into the “cheap and fun” category l8ke them, or the “more serious and priced appropriately” like the OP Z. I’m not the target market for a $1100 mixer, if it’d been more toylike and in the few hundred dollar range, I’d be very tempted. )
- Globot 4y ago
  Pocket Operator was their Clay Christensen. They're past that phase now.
mastazi 4y ago
> high quality and doesn't break When it comes to build quality, I no longer trust TE as a brand. I have the Modular 16 from TE and both build quality and usability are terrible. Here's a review of the thing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpjgwTTKeqc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpjgwTTKeqc
HNHatesUsers 4y ago
elihu 4y ago
> If you are trying to figure out why you'd pay for this you aren't their target market. It's far more interesting (to me) to think about why some people WOULD pay for this and what a market looks like that you are not a part of That's assuming there is a sufficient market to justify TE's development and manufacturing costs. Not every product is successful, and it may be some time before if we figure out if this one was or not. I could see how some people would find the OP-1 to be an indispensable part of their workflow, but it's not clear to me why someone would think they need this particular mixer. (Some people will buy it because it looks cool, or they want some particular built-in feature, but are there enough of those people?)
dimatura 4y ago
Looking at all the features it has in this form factor, plus the supply shortage, I can see why it costs as much as it does. Does it mean it's a good deal? Well maybe, if you want most/all of the features, value portability in terms of form factory plus battery, and like the aesthetics. If this thing ticks a few too many boxes, some alternatives: - A portable (no battery) 6-stereo/12-mono channel mixer with FX, but no bluetooth or USB-audio interface: 1010bluebox, I have one and it's nice. About $500-600 - A portable battery-powered, 5-mono channel: bastl dude, about $200 - A portable battery-powered 2-mono channel dj mixer: raiden rpm-100, about $200 - A portable battery-powered or usb-powered mixer from unknown brands with possibly questionable audio quality: lots of choices on alibaba and even amazon, for as low as $15. I use a 6-stereo-channel usb-powered moukey on my office desk that cost $25 and is adequate for day-to-day usage but clips easily - Less portable but still small traditional mixers with ~4 inputs: lots of choices from mackie, behringer, yamaha, etc in the $50-200 range - Also: passive mixers that pretty much just sum the signals, can be found for cheap ($20 or less), but you'll usually need to connect them to something that will amplify the output
- jdboyd 4y ago
  Thanks for the moukey reference. That looks like it might be perfect for one of my needs.
resoluteteeth 4y ago
> Small Volume - each unit is more expensive than a large volume product, you don't get price breaks on any components or tooling costs Teenage Engineering has made lots of low volume products that were way cheaper, though. It just doesn't seem like they're interested in doing that anymore. I think they just realized that they can make slightly fancier products that they sell for 10x the price and that's way more profitable.
bmitc 4y ago
> Reliable. For people that rely on their tools to be creative or appreciate design. You are paying a premium. See Apple for lots of examples. Apple is basically the opposite of what you are saying. Apple products have moderate design in them that’s useful and they are also quite unreliable, but they still come with the premium. That premium funds their marketing and silicon development.
pkdpic 4y ago
Idunno, I'm pretty sure I'm at least one of their target demographics - casual electronic musician with more money than free time who buys mostly portable gear for no easily justifiable reason whose been bought multiple battery powered mixer solutions and been waiting for a real one for almost a decade - and I still dropped my jaw pretty seriously at the price. Im all for appreciating the engineering challenges you articulately outlined but price points like this just alienates anyone who isn't completely reckless with money. TE has gone in this direction before and my hope is always that it's the first prototype move towards a more available version of the product. Would serious musicians buy this? Would fringe weirdo musicians buy it? Whose left other than wealthy dilettantes? I honestly don't know but I love this company and want to support them. My wife would just (rightly) leave me or put us in marriage counseling if I dropped this much money on this thing. And I really, really (really) want / need ("need") it...
jason0597 4y ago
I was close to agreeing with you, and then I noticed that TE does the classic Apple tactic of taking the USD price of $1200 and simply changing it to GBP and claiming it's £1200 without taking into account the exchange rate at all. So, I highly highly doubt these prices are due to low volume. I would understand if it was $600-$800, but not $1200 come on...
- Globot 4y ago
  Try shipping/receiving anything from UK post-Brexit, clearing customs, etc.

by IAmPym 4y ago

lamp_book 4y ago

> doesn't break Can get behind the rest of your comment but I don't think anyone's ever accused TE of making durable products. To their credit though, they replaced my broken PO without a fuss, so I'm not a detractor.

IAmPym 4y ago
I have used TE products on occasion and looked into them deeply from a bunch of engineering perspectives. Compared to other products in a similar price point and form factor the likelihood of a problem is far lower. When you reduce the size you eliminate structural components and if you can't mill aluminum you're left with a lot of difficult choices to make to keep things stable. TE does a good job of balancing those things. Customer service is where you see the end result of this. Replacing things quickly and easily means they aren't struggling to support bad design decisions in terms of stability.
- thih9 4y ago
  Another data point, I own OP-1 and I find it of low durability, especially for the price. E.g. its knobs, buttons and jacks seem delicate compared to other gear in similar price range.
- prmoustache 4y ago
  Tell that to all the bent Op-Z owners whose dials pop out randomly from the case.
- lamp_book 4y ago
  Good to know! Very jealous of your line of work, btw, seems like a great place to be!
- LegitShady 4y ago
  this has not been my experience with several TE products. My experience suggests that TE charges a lot because they 1) they're a status symbol so they can and 2) they replace a lot of devices. TE to me does not at all signify high quality or 'good build quality'. Just 'ok' and 'it will likely fail long before its purchase price justifies itself'. They're the pre-intel apple of the synth world - overpriced and not worth the cost, but status symbols for those who want them.
- bmitc 4y ago
  There is an entire aftermarket for OP-1 USB and audio I/O boards because they fail so often, both physically and electronically, and somewhat the same for the buttons and knobs. But yes, the milled aluminum is solid. I still love the OP-1 though. Nothing quite like it.
relaxing 4y ago
The PO series are a different beast entirely. You can’t compare their $80 toy synths made of PC board to their high end stuff.
- LegitShady 4y ago
  OP-Z - bends straight out of the box and causes double trigs, keyboard is plastic welded so can't be repaired outside of depot. custom battery only so once TE stops supporting it this thing is dead. OP-1 - commonly has power switch issues, as well as other quirks that are harder to nail down, as well as keyboard issues. Teenage engineering support is extremely slow sometimes taking a week+ to reply to support issues. I've heard of people not getting responses at all. Their high end stuff is just expensive - the high price tag doesn't mean high quality. I say all this as an op-z owner and former owner of multiple pocket operators who wishes it was a better device than it is. It isn't. I wouldn't pay them $1200 for anything.
aetherspawn 4y ago
TE is a trademark of Tyco Electronics, a very popular connector and electrical device supplier (audio included), and could be a confusing acronym to use for Teenage Engineering.
- imwillofficial 4y ago
  In the context of the linked post, nobody is confused.

koof 4y ago

I've been looking for a tiny mixer with 3 band eq + FX sends per channel for a while to run synths and/or decks through. This look like this might fit the bill. The compressor on each channel is a bonus. I'm not entirely sure if there's alternative products that would work for me instead, but this has my attention.

prova_modena 4y ago
1010music bluebox might work for you and is 1/2 the price.
- djs070 4y ago
  Yes. If that was an audio interface too it would be a no brainer.
skinpop 4y ago
Mcmillen K-mix. I think they released a new version last year.

wyager 4y ago

> Reliable. It is for people who want something that is high quality and doesn't break. My TE OP-1 synth has not really matched these adjectives. One of the keyboard keys is misconstructed, so it’s on a hair trigger. The lightest brush will cause it to get set off. I have to replace the keyboard at some point to fix it. This should have been caught in QC. It also undergoes fairly frequent software crashes (esp. for a musical instrument). I’ve crashed it at least 3 times doing random UI interactions. Given that this is one of their flagship products, and a lot of people use adjectives like “reliable” and “quality” to describe it, I’m very skeptical that these descriptions are actually accurate when applied to other TE products.

IAmPym 4y ago
Small sample size bias Small companies don't have the same QC that a large corporation does, you'll never get the same consistency across products at the early stages of a company. Unfair to compare against that. You should definitely contact support and let them know, my guess is they'll take care of the keyboard. Could be debris inside it somewhere, could be a number of other tolerance issues or something else. Crashes are definitely a problem. Knowing the chip they use and the complexity under the hood. The fact is though, all instruments suffer from issues like this. You will not find a single piece of gear on the market that doesn't have bugs. Crash issues are rare in our gear only because they are more simple by comparison. When I was writing the Tempest OS I had tons of crash bugs I had to work through because it was ambitious and quite complex, nearly all of which got fixed as the OS matured. Same with the OP-1 I'd imagine. Professional musicians learn to work around things and create systems to deal with inevitable problems. It's just the reality of the game.
- kjs3 4y ago
  I shall remember the next time I drop a large dime to pick up something marketed as 'reliable', 'high-end', etc., that if it doesn't meet expectations I should just suck it up and limp along with whatever the vendor gave me. Good to know.
- DoctorNick 4y ago
  > Crashes are definitely a problem. Knowing the chip they use and the complexity under the hood. The fact is though, all instruments suffer from issues like this. You will not find a single piece of gear on the market that doesn't have bugs. Crash issues are rare in our gear only because they are more simple by comparison. When I was writing the Tempest OS I had tons of crash bugs I had to work through because it was ambitious and quite complex, nearly all of which got fixed as the OS matured. Same with the OP-1 I'd imagine. It’s been on the market for TEN YEARS. They have had plenty of time to defuckulate the software.

hpvic03 4y ago

Hey! While you’re here, could you share why the Tempest doesn’t allow you to use your own samples? Could you guys open source some parts of Tempest so people could keep working on it? Asking as a Tempest owner and huge Sequential fan.

IAmPym 4y ago
Chip/hardware complexity. We actually put some serious resources into trying to get this to work, wish we could have made it a reality And no, open sourcing would be incredibly difficult to do with hardware that has multiple chips and requires people to have expensive programming tools. If it was an ARM you could just plug a USB cable into that'd be one thing, this just wouldn't work without a ton of support And glad you liked it! I'm quite proud of it all in all
- hpvic03 4y ago
  Interesting. There are those pre-installed samples there already, they couldn't just be swapped out with an imported file – there's something special about those files? Anyway I think it's hugely underrated, hopefully you guys can do a v2 sometime. I'm blown away whenever I use it, it feels like a huge technical achievement.
  - IAmPym 4y ago
    Technically they could and that as well was something we looked into. Honestly it was the most complicated thing I've ever done. Would love to give it another shot some day!

repiret 4y ago

I’m part of a team that makes low volume high priced electronics. Component costs don’t contribute that much: the price difference between qty 1 and qty 1k is usually much larger than between qty 1k and anything more. The things I see contributing to the cost of low quantity hardware are: 1. The need to amortize development costs over fewer units. This is not just software and hardware engineers, but office space, lab equipment, mechanical engineering for enclosures, prototype builds, emissions and compliance testing (FCC, CE, UL, TÜV, depending device and on target market) 2. Higher manufacturing costs. Low cost overseas manufacturing has fairly high fixed costs, especially if you want to maintain high quality.

IAmPym 4y ago
Component cost increases due to the pandemic and supply chain issues easily increased the price by 25-30% in our industry due to several factors outside of the norm, like some single source parts most companies relied on with factory problems, fires, etc In my experience over the past 6-12 months this is significant
- repiret 4y ago
  Oh component costs have gone up for sure the last year or so. But I'm saying the per-unit component costs wouldn't be that different between making 1,000 per year or 10,000 per month. [1] [1]: Except that in the current supply chain environment, it would change the "should we pay scalper prices for that component or should we spend the fixed costs to redesign with a different, more available component" calculus.
  - IAmPym 4y ago
    Your making the assumption that one can buy 1000 of any part, which is likely incorrect These ain’t normal times
    - krageon 4y ago
      Are you lecturing someone who does this for a living on the environment of their specific professional setting? Why do you assume you know better?

blub 4y ago

I agree with you mostly about why it would be expensive, but Teenage Engineering doesn't have a reputation for building reliable devices. I own an OP-1, owned two POs and considered getting an OP-Z only to be scared away by all the reports about poor hardware quality and support. The OP-Z plastic casing apparently bends. Sometimes it comes like that out of the factory (or more likely gets that way during storage and transport) often times it bends with use. This means that buttons will slide out of position, keys will trigger multiple times, etc. The manufacturer doesn't have any solution to the above problem and returning it for a replacement may result in a straight case or more of the same. All signs indicate that it's a design defect, but TE haven't recognised this and they're getting punished in reviews. The POs are flimsy, and the knobs tend to be imprecise and "jump" between values. One came with rust on a metal part because of TEs creative open packaging which exposes the devices to the surrounding environment. The OP-1 itself seems solid as far as hardware goes so far, but it has other issues. It's noisy for one, which goes against claims of audio quality. The software's buggy and it records clicks together with the incoming audio, especially when recording external instruments. These are all well known problems. And given that the OP-1 is supposed to be a synth, or at least a groovebox, it's surprisingly hard to create good sounding patches with it.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

erichmond 4y ago

As an owner of a Rev2 and a P6 really cool to see you here Pym!

ostenning 4y ago
p6 here :)
IAmPym 4y ago
Good to be here occasionally, considering writing up some blog posts I figured this community might find interesting. Seems like we are well liked enough that it might be fun

twobitshifter 4y ago

I didn’t have the why is it so expensive reaction at all. Mine was “looks really expensive but maybe it’s not”, and then disappointment in the cost. However I totally expected it to cost around $1000. I don’t qualify as anything other than a noodler so I wouldn’t spend that money on it, but as you say professionals would.

nkozyra 4y ago

> Design focused - Who is the product for? It isn't for people who want to spend 250$ on a Behringer mixer. Seems like it's competing against the Tascam model line. I have a model 12 that I'll bet blows it out of the water in the reliability department at almost half the price. It's not as small but it's pretty and rock solid, Tascam has a great track record (no pun intended)

H1Supreme 4y ago

> $250 on a Behringer mixer. Yamaha, Mackie, Allen & Heath, Soundcraft, and ART all make mixers with at least 6 channels on them in the $250 price range. So, there's more to the mixer landscape than Teenage Eng. and Behringer. I can't comment on all the brands, but I've used Yamaha and Mackie for years, with virtually zero problems. My old Yamaha 12 channel (which would retail for $300 today) was an absolute tank. It did countless shows in dirty warehouses, clubs, fields, and never even had a road case! Which, I I'd qualify as pretty reliable. > If you are trying to figure out why you'd pay for this you aren't their target market I actually think that I am their target market. I've got many thousands of dollars worth of eurorack modular (which is the same niche), synthesizers (including Sequential), guitars, and studio equipment. I obsess over this stuff, and spend money on it. But, I cannot figure out why I would spend $1200 on this 6 channel mixer. The Burr Brown ADC? I guess you could argue the size is the selling point. But, that seems more like a solution looking for a problem. And, frankly, if you intend to use a mixer in your performance, the size could do more harm than good.

bombcar 4y ago
Yeah, these knobs look very small to be adjusting in a hurry in the dark backstage but I’m not the target market.
- adrusi 4y ago
  I doubt this will see much backstage use. I expect to see it used by buskers, who need portability (and sometimes the ability to pack up in seconds), and by artists who make fiddling with their equipment part of their performance. That and people who put it on their desk because they like the design.
dimatura 4y ago
I'm not sure what the target market is either, but I suspect people who highly value portability would be a large part of it. This thing packs a lot of features in a really tiny form factor (potentially replacing bigger mixers and an FX pedal, dunno if the sequencer/synth is worth anything), and has a battery. If you have a lot of studio equipment including eurorack, big keyboard synths and other gear I suspect you wouldn't quite fit that description, this thing would get lost in the studio.

bigiain 4y ago

> This is also one of the biggest strengths of the company, if you want something cheap you're looking in the wrong place. Well, they can do cheap. Their range of Pocket Operator stuff is cheap and hilariously fun. I gotta admit, I did click through to see if this was gonna fall into the “cheap and fun” category l8ke them, or the “more serious and priced appropriately” like the OP Z. I’m not the target market for a $1100 mixer, if it’d been more toylike and in the few hundred dollar range, I’d be very tempted. )

Globot 4y ago
Pocket Operator was their Clay Christensen. They're past that phase now.

mastazi 4y ago

> high quality and doesn't break When it comes to build quality, I no longer trust TE as a brand. I have the Modular 16 from TE and both build quality and usability are terrible. Here's a review of the thing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpjgwTTKeqc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpjgwTTKeqc

HNHatesUsers 4y ago

elihu 4y ago

> If you are trying to figure out why you'd pay for this you aren't their target market. It's far more interesting (to me) to think about why some people WOULD pay for this and what a market looks like that you are not a part of That's assuming there is a sufficient market to justify TE's development and manufacturing costs. Not every product is successful, and it may be some time before if we figure out if this one was or not. I could see how some people would find the OP-1 to be an indispensable part of their workflow, but it's not clear to me why someone would think they need this particular mixer. (Some people will buy it because it looks cool, or they want some particular built-in feature, but are there enough of those people?)

dimatura 4y ago

Looking at all the features it has in this form factor, plus the supply shortage, I can see why it costs as much as it does. Does it mean it's a good deal? Well maybe, if you want most/all of the features, value portability in terms of form factory plus battery, and like the aesthetics. If this thing ticks a few too many boxes, some alternatives: - A portable (no battery) 6-stereo/12-mono channel mixer with FX, but no bluetooth or USB-audio interface: 1010bluebox, I have one and it's nice. About $500-600 - A portable battery-powered, 5-mono channel: bastl dude, about $200 - A portable battery-powered 2-mono channel dj mixer: raiden rpm-100, about $200 - A portable battery-powered or usb-powered mixer from unknown brands with possibly questionable audio quality: lots of choices on alibaba and even amazon, for as low as $15. I use a 6-stereo-channel usb-powered moukey on my office desk that cost $25 and is adequate for day-to-day usage but clips easily - Less portable but still small traditional mixers with ~4 inputs: lots of choices from mackie, behringer, yamaha, etc in the $50-200 range - Also: passive mixers that pretty much just sum the signals, can be found for cheap ($20 or less), but you'll usually need to connect them to something that will amplify the output

jdboyd 4y ago
Thanks for the moukey reference. That looks like it might be perfect for one of my needs.

resoluteteeth 4y ago

> Small Volume - each unit is more expensive than a large volume product, you don't get price breaks on any components or tooling costs Teenage Engineering has made lots of low volume products that were way cheaper, though. It just doesn't seem like they're interested in doing that anymore. I think they just realized that they can make slightly fancier products that they sell for 10x the price and that's way more profitable.

bmitc 4y ago

> Reliable. For people that rely on their tools to be creative or appreciate design. You are paying a premium. See Apple for lots of examples. Apple is basically the opposite of what you are saying. Apple products have moderate design in them that’s useful and they are also quite unreliable, but they still come with the premium. That premium funds their marketing and silicon development.

pkdpic 4y ago

Idunno, I'm pretty sure I'm at least one of their target demographics - casual electronic musician with more money than free time who buys mostly portable gear for no easily justifiable reason whose been bought multiple battery powered mixer solutions and been waiting for a real one for almost a decade - and I still dropped my jaw pretty seriously at the price. Im all for appreciating the engineering challenges you articulately outlined but price points like this just alienates anyone who isn't completely reckless with money. TE has gone in this direction before and my hope is always that it's the first prototype move towards a more available version of the product. Would serious musicians buy this? Would fringe weirdo musicians buy it? Whose left other than wealthy dilettantes? I honestly don't know but I love this company and want to support them. My wife would just (rightly) leave me or put us in marriage counseling if I dropped this much money on this thing. And I really, really (really) want / need ("need") it...

jason0597 4y ago

I was close to agreeing with you, and then I noticed that TE does the classic Apple tactic of taking the USD price of $1200 and simply changing it to GBP and claiming it's £1200 without taking into account the exchange rate at all. So, I highly highly doubt these prices are due to low volume. I would understand if it was $600-$800, but not $1200 come on...

Globot 4y ago
Try shipping/receiving anything from UK post-Brexit, clearing customs, etc.