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“Plus then it makes you want that much better EVERYTHING ELSE to go with it …”
Ah… system balancing… hmmmmm… where to put the bucks?
I wonder what the mathematics are for mass production costs of high-end audio? What does the unit cost curve look like and where is that sweet spot?
For example if say 10 units cost $3K each to make… what is the unit cost for 20, then 100, then 1000 units?
Of course the demand curve comes into play here, and I think the right side of that demand curve kinda goes haywire as there is a growing population in the world that will pay virtually anything for “the best”. How else can you explain these stupid high prices for highest end stuff? At some point, all costs across manufacturers is the same as the highest quality caps, for example, are what they are. Engineering, like software, is an upfront, sunk cost… the money is in the margin.
BTW, just when I delude myself and think this stuff has to cost this much, well… I just purchased a Roland RD-2000 keyboard/piano. $2400 and what an amazing product… besides the electronic wizardry of modeled piano sound engine and the amazing sampled sounds, it has a pretty sophisticated mechanical system of key hammers. Of course, Roland is a global company with massive unit sales… but still, $2400 for incredibly complex digital processing triggered by 88 mechanical mechanisms and sensors… sheesh!
No I am not saying PS Audio is ripping us all off and Paul laughing all the way to the bank, but why can’t high-end be more mass produced and getting that unit cost down could trigger huge demand? California Audio Labs did it, Audio Alchemy did it, Sonic Frontiers did it. (Of course they aren’t around any more, but was that more a business discipline problem?) Prima Luna is doing it now… they do point-to-point wiring of audio circuitry… but they do make in China. (Look what Bose has managed to do with crazy promotion selling high-end sound without delivering it!!! High-end sound sells and Bose proved it.)
Peace
Bruce in Philly
Except for a few years in early college I’ve only shaved a handful of times. My wife likes my beard (which is good.) Shaving took too much time and I always had other things I wanted to be doing.
Roughly 60. I had been programming professionally for years before Unix or C came along, I never thought they would catch on 
Ok, have to ask… given the super-human work you have done… are you an alien?
Peace
Bruce in Philly
My coworkers used to claim that it’s not that I’m an alien, it’s that I’m an alien spacecraft and all of the aliens come out at night do the work and reembark before anyone else comes in.
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This is awesome. Actually I thought teds look was more like a Walter White look from Breaking Bad. Ha.
In regards to pricey items. I am a big believer in buying once - getting what you want - and enjoying the hell out of it. Some things I have planned for years and have never once been disappointed or had buyers remorse. In the end, you could be at break even with more satisfaction
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Sing me up. I’d buy it sight unseen. Only problem is rackspace. I cannot accommodate another piece of equipment in my rack. I’ll have to figure something out…
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I will get one too! However, I will resort to crime. I won’t hurt anyone, just simple burglary.
Peace
Bruce in Philly
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If you get caught, you can try a “necessity” defense (“Your Honor, I simply had to have a TSS DAC … I had no other choice.”). If that fails, try pleading insanity.
Just focus on edorr’s rack, both problems solved!
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Hi Ted, back in the early 80’s I used to program in BCPL which both B and C came from. What did you used to program in?
I can’t answer your question directly b-i-p, but awhile ago I saw commentary by a writer in one of the print audiophile pubs. The analysis made a lot of sense and went more or less as follows:
There is actually less business risk in manufacturing at the very high end rather than in a higher volume production scenario. When making an uber expensive piece of gear, you are likely to only be producing several dozens to maybe several hundreds of units per year. This can be accomplished with minimal amounts of resources, overhead, inventory and leverage. And you can still make an OK living because the profit per unit is sufficiently high.
On the other hand, mass marketing requires economies of scale - big factories, more staff, higher fixed costs, and so forth. You have to sell and support many, many more units. And now, in that arena, there are many more competitors and price competition becomes more acute. More risk and stress all around.
My own opinion now, but nothing in the latter scenario sounds like fun for a engineering geek who just wants to make the best sounding gear possible - and these dedicated folks are the ones who start these companies whose products we adore.
On the other hand, a “darker side” of high-end economics was revealed as I was touring the facility of a well-regarded electronics firm, which shall remain nameless. The owner was showing off their latest monoblock amps, which retail for north of $100,000/pair. To be fair, the build and sound quality was superb. But when asked why he thought why it was necessary to produce these given the performance level of the rest of their line, the answer was that one their Asian distributors demanded something “more expensive” because “we can sell a lot of these.” Not calling this outfit crooks. Far from it, as the quality and technology was definitely there. But it did strike me as a rather perverse example of designing to a price point.
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Forbes has pinned down a record 2,208 billionaires from 72 countries and territories including the first ever from Hungary and Zimbabwe. This elite group is worth $9.1 trillion, up 18% since last year. Their average net worth is a record $4.1 billion. Americans lead the way with a record 585 billionaires, followed by mainland China with 373. Centi-billionaire Jeff Bezos secures the list’s top spot for the first time, becoming the only person to appear in the Forbes ranks with a 12-figure fortune.
So count on selling 2,208 high end DACs?
Attention PS Audio: If Billionaire #766 purchases a TSS DAC with a personal check, wait for the check to clear before shipping!!
Yeah - that was my thought - probably a lower percentage of audiophiles or people who buy high end audio gear in that group than down here in the gutter with us ; )
Or even if it is not a lower percentage, it’s still a small as hell percentage.
I wrote programs for various programmable calculators (and later bought myself the TI SR-52 with money from my paper route.) For work I started with the Wang 2200 in BASIC in about '73 (near it’s introduction.) I wrote my first synthesizer on a 2200 and used a (“hard”) 8" floppy for the synthesized output. Then I had to write a machine coded routine on the 2200 GPIO card to play it thru an 8 bit DAC at 8kHz. (The 2200 BASIC was a little too slow to play the music in real time.) In '76 I used many languages (when I was cutting class at MIT): I remember some specific programs that I wrote in Algol, APL, Scheme, CLU and PL/M. I did the majority of my paid work in 8080 (and later Z-80) assembler at the time. I still remember the number of machine cycles for most of the instructions.
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I still have a Kaypro with a Z-80 in it. 
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I have a slide rule and bag of rocks.
Peace
Bruce in Philly
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In my closet I’ve got a machine that was essentially a Sun-350 that we designed and built at Cadnetix. I paid literally thousands of $s for 8 extra megabytes of ram (on a huge board). I wrote the kernel (in 68000 assembly), the file system and database for it (in C.) I think about firing it up now and then.