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Re: Cranky Kim
--- Kim Flint <kflint@loopers-delight.com> wrote:
> Just because something is beyond your budget doesn't mean it doesn't
>sell
> well. The Echoplex price might be more than you can afford, yet at that
> price they sold every single one they were able to make. That makes it
> really difficult to understand how the price was too high. It's an
>easier
> argument to say it was too low.
Or to say that they didn't make enough.
> >I base that on the ratio of people I hear talking about how cool the
>thing
> >is and how many actually have one.
>
> That's sort of anecdotal.
It's absolutely anecdotal. I don't do market survey studies on this, but I
do
talk to a lot of people, especially about things that I'm interested in.
> Look at it this way. They put the product out in
> the mid-90's. The sales have been good enough to support the company to
> this day, as it is their only product. It's available in all the major
> catalogs, it's in stores, and advertised in guitar magazines. In the
> musical instrument industry, that's pretty successful.
I've never seen one in a store. I've only seen it in one catalog (Musicians
Friend), and then only recently. I've never seen anyone actually using one
in
person. Yeah, I know...anecdotal.
> > As it is, the price alone relegates it to specialty market status.
>
> They only cost about $450! That's near the low end of music gear
>pricing.
Not according to the catalogs I look at. I see lots of "low end" stuff
that's
pretty powerful these days. Of course, most are missing that "one trick"
that
this "one trick pony" provides.
> Which part of "it sold out" isn't clear? They made all the ones they had
> capacity to make. They all got sold. 100% capacity used, 100% sold.
Very efficient, but that really doesn't say anything about the market. If
I make
10 widgets and I sell them all for $1000, that doesn't mean I couldn't
have sold
10,000 widgets at $500 if I'd made them. It also doesn't mean that I
couldn't
have sold 30 widgets at $1000 each, if I'd made that many. It only says I
managed
to find 10 people desperate enough for my widget to buy all I made at the
price I
sold it at. It doesn't speak to the rest of the market.
> I guess I'm baffled how you reach that conclusion. Look at the prices of
> other gear. Mid-range synths and samplers cost much more than the
>Echoplex.
> High end gear in other categories costs WAY more.
>
> So here you have what many people consider a high-end looper in the
> echoplex. The best there is in many people's eyes, and it costs $800.
> Alright, fine, you have to get two for stereo, but that also gives you
>some
> nice multi-loop functions. That's $1600 for a high-end stereo looper.
>Let's
> compare to street prices of other top gear:
>
> Eventide Eclipse: $2000
> Eventide Orville: $5000
> Eventide DSP7000: $3400
> Korg Triton 88key: $3400
> Korg Triton rack: $1450
> Korg D16XD: $2000
> Yamaha dig piano: $3500
> Yamaha 9000: $3200
> Yamaha Motif 88key: $2800
> Yamaha AW2816: $1800
> Yamaha RS7000: $1400
> TC finalizer: $2400
> TC fireworx: $1760
> TC G-Force: $1440
> TC M3000: $1500
> Gibson Les Paul Custom: $3200
> Access Virus C $1500
> Nord Modular: $1450
> Roland VS2480 $3800
> roland V-Synth $2300
> roland Fantom s88: $2900
> roland xv-5080 $2000
> roland mc-909: $1500
> Kurzweil K2661: $2400
> Lexicon PCM-81: $2000
> Lexicon MPXG2: $1450
>
> You see? It sits right in there pretty well. None of that stuff is
> affordable for you, yet it all sells well.
I don't think that's a fair comparison. With the exception of the Les Paul
(a
hand built craft item, not a mass produced piece of electronic gear), all
those
things perform more then one function. Do you think anyone would spend
$1440 for
a TC G-force if it only did delays? Apparently TC didn't, since they make
the
D-2, which sells for about $350. Likewise, with the exception of the Les
Paul,
they all employ current state of the art hardware technology, not stuff
designed
15 years ago.
re: repeater
> It was advertised in Guitar player and keyboard for about a year before
>it
> came out, and reviewed in all those magazines.
And frankly, I think that was part of the problem. They advertised it too
early,
when it wasn't available, and people got tired of waiting and moved on.
re: electrix scraps product line to produce repeater
> it sounded like desperation to me. Liquidate everything in a last ditch
> effort to get cash.
Oh yeah, obviously. But again, that doesn't have anything to do with the
market
viability of their product, or the price they sold it at (which I thought
was
what we were discussing). It just says they were undercapitolized for the
venture.
> One major mistake they made, related to another thread,
> is not realizing just how hard it is to develop a functional looper.
>They
> had no idea what they were getting into and didn't devote enough
>resources
> or time to it. So it was a year late, and they ran out of money.
Yes, totally agreed. It obviously was a bigger effort then they had
anticipated.
>
> > My
> >observation from talking to people is that a lot of them really like
>the
> >idea of
> >an advanced looper until they hear the price. At that point they say
>something
> >like "I think I can probably be happy enough with my DL4" or something
> >like that.
>
> if that is all the functions they need and they just want to dabble in
> looping a bit, then they are right. They would be happy with the DL4 and
> that is what they should buy. Why should they start out with the
>high-end
> product? As they learn more about looping they may start wanting a
>higher
> end product with more features. Then the price of an echoplex might be
> worth it to them.
I'm just saying that people would like a few more features then the DL4,
but
without having to pay several hundred more dollars for them. There doesn't
appear
to be anything in that marketplace. Is it worth $600 to get a feedback
control
for your loop? One feature? I think there's a market for something with the
looping capability of a DL4 or EchoPro with just another feature (feedback
control) or so. If the Echo Pro had feedback, I'd have one already. As it
is,
that makes it a tough decision, since the rest of it looks pretty good,
but it's
lacking that one thing I really like.
Greg
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