Man opens "$700" Nagra battery, finds $30 worth of batteries inside

I'm a bit surprised that this video gets such negative comments here. I can understand such negativity on YouTube where amateurs don't understand what experience, R&D or economy of scale means but here? By the logical standards of the video we are all overpaid red button pushers (on recorders or cameras) - something that could be done by a minimum wage worker is being done by an experienced professional marking up his/her skills hundreds of percent. As such we all all idiots buying expensive pro gear and producers hiring us are imbeciles paying for our skills.
 
Sorry but $700+ (almost $800 at B&H) for the battery pack goes way past the ROI even for a small run.

What I expect might be the case is that they don't want you to buy replacement packs but to send them in for service and that that service is reasonable.

My experience was with the older two track digital Nagra and things were in the professional price range but not as over the top as this batt. pack.

We had a number of things added, changed to the recorder and the cost was reasonable. THe only one that was really inconvenient was a fix that was free but required the unit go back to the factory so it was out of service for over a month.

I have dealt with a lot of proprietary battery packs and even for Nagra I would expect a replacement to be under $300, 700+ is just silly.

To someone else's point, at least with earlier Nagras there were alternate battery packs that would accept other style batteries. I'm not sure if there was a NP1 holder but it's quite possible.

Historically it would be a real turn in the road for Nagra to make a part that was intended to be disposable, they have always been big on repairability and serviceability. And this is YouTube after all so I wouldn't take any of the "facts" as too chiseled in stone.
 
notice how only the green rimmed batteries are bad. it makes me wonder if this is a case of planned obsolescence.
 
All the cells are pink with a green rim. They are all quality Sanyo cells.
The two in the middle are facing the opposite direction compared to the other four cells.
 
Patryk_Rebisz said:
I'm a bit surprised that this video gets such negative comments here. I can understand such negativity on YouTube where amateurs don't understand what experience, R&D or economy of scale means but here? By the logical standards of the video we are all overpaid red button pushers (on recorders or cameras) - something that could be done by a minimum wage worker is being done by an experienced professional marking up his/her skills hundreds of percent. As such we all all idiots buying expensive pro gear and producers hiring us are imbeciles paying for our skills.
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I'll go one further...if a person is 3/4 water, and tap water costs a few cents per gallon, then you're only worth about a dollar.
 
You are forgetting the mineral content. And well the cost to distill the water. But really your missing the boat because you can part someone out for a LOT more...

I don't buy Patryk's argument because I can make a similar one. My hourly is about what the material cost of this battery pack is. They have R&D costs but so did I. So if I build in my 30+ years of experience and then argue that you know I'm not going to do thousands of projects and of course I had to buy quite a bit of gear, my hourly should be $700- $800 maybe more. I can't charge that because the markup is way too much. The ONLY reason someone would buy one of those battery packs is that they have no choice.
Or lets put it into Nagra perspective. THe recorder with a battery pack is just under $10,000. So the recorder is around $9,200. Can anyone reasonably argue that the battery pack costs 1/10th as much to make as the recorder? Even if you take for granted that the recorder is fairly priced the battery pack is significantly over priced.

I understand that Nagra lives in a special stratosphere with a few other high end tools and I don't have a big problem with that because they are building for a very specialized market and my experience with their gear has given me a lot of respect for the quality and stability they have built in. For what I mostly do the price/ value point means I'm not going to drop $10,000 on their recorder but I completely understand why someone in a different situation would. Even in that stratosphere the battery pack is marked up unreasonably.
 
Anyone remember the little metal washer that kept the tape reels on the nagra 4? Those were super mega expensive for a piece of machined metal, but that's the way it was. Nagra products are not cheap. They are high quality. If you are looking to purchase a Nagra product you know this full well going into the purchase. I'm not going to give my opinion on the cost of the battery pack, but when you buy gear, the cost of these kids of things are considered and as a purchaser, you should know this before you even buy the machine. If you are ok with it, then you buy a Nagra VI. If not, then you find something else.
Also, this is not unique to Nagra. The replacement battery for the Aaton Cantar X2 is $660 on LSC's website, and that machine uses TWO of them. Again, high quality product with high quality parts that you are aware of when you make your purchase of the machine.
 
davefisk said:
Again, high quality product with high quality parts that you are aware of when you make your purchase of the machine.
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lol! That's what kills me about the "you get what you pay for" nonsense. I don't mind paying for high quality product, but what I've noticed is that it can also happen that you are just paying through the nose for substandard product. This battery is a case in point. They were using the cheapest batteries for that pack - this is not some custom or special edition or carefully sourced top of the line batteries - these were standard cheapo junk as the guy said, after reading the parts number (and finding them online), these were "the most economical you can get". These are not top of the line. I mean, if you're charging top price, at least deliver top quality. But no. So the bit about "high quality parts" is just funny, as you couldn't find lower tier cheaper parts if you tried (and as we've seen, they failed, lol). But as the guy said, maybe that block of foam was extra special so if you ever need that replaced you'd realize what an expensive foam they put in. And btw. the guy went through all those parts and it really looked like the circuit board and connectors were bog standard cheapo units you can order from anywhere. And that's the point: they are using standard off the shelf, lowest tier parts - nothing to justify the claim of "high quality parts". Of course, we will hear about how they had to design that battery pack, and boy that must have been expensive, even though from the breakdown of those you can see it was a standard design high school electronic class covers in one of those "build your own stereo" workshop classes and kids do in a day. But I bet the "design" was probably really time consuming and on a super high level, where the engineers would meditate and philosophize over every screw and it would take months of a slow process... I imagine it's like that scene from the beginning of Chinatown:


Maybe they design the same way: design a little bit, take a break, read Confucius, design a little bit more, go out and contemplate the moon, design a little bit more, get up and have a cigarette and so on and that process is so long and on such a lofty plane that what should take a high school student a couple of hours takes these philosophers a few years, so they have to charge accordingly.

Best joke: high quality parts, lol!
 
OldCorpse said:
lol! That's what kills me about the "you get what you pay for" nonsense. I don't mind paying for high quality product, but what I've noticed is that it can also happen that you are just paying through the nose for substandard product. This battery is a case in point. They were using the cheapest batteries for that pack - this is not some custom or special edition or carefully sourced top of the line batteries - these were standard cheapo junk as the guy said, after reading the parts number (and finding them online), these were "the most economical you can get". These are not top of the line. I mean, if you're charging top price, at least deliver top quality. But no. So the bit about "high quality parts" is just funny, as you couldn't find lower tier cheaper parts if you tried (and as we've seen, they failed, lol). But as the guy said, maybe that block of foam was extra special so if you ever need that replaced you'd realize what an expensive foam they put in. And btw. the guy went through all those parts and it really looked like the circuit board and connectors were bog standard cheapo units you can order from anywhere. And that's the point: they are using standard off the shelf, lowest tier parts - nothing to justify the claim of "high quality parts". Of course, we will hear about how they had to design that battery pack, and boy that must have been expensive, even though from the breakdown of those you can see it was a standard design high school electronic class covers in one of those "build your own stereo" workshop classes and kids do in a day. But I bet the "design" was probably really time consuming and on a super high level, where the engineers would meditate and philosophize over every screw and it would take months of a slow process... I imagine it's like that scene from the beginning of Chinatown:


Maybe they design the same way: design a little bit, take a break, read Confucius, design a little bit more, go out and contemplate the moon, design a little bit more, get up and have a cigarette and so on and that process is so long and on such a lofty plane that what should take a high school student a couple of hours takes these philosophers a few years, so they have to charge accordingly.

Best joke: high quality parts, lol!
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Think about it. Nobody is going to make a custom battery pack in their garage to work with the Nagra VI. If it were a profitable business people would be doing it. Yeah, they used off the shelf parts on the inside and put them in a custom designed case that only works with the Nagra VI. Just about every manufacturer that makes things with electronic components does this. That's a design choice that Nagra made that makes that part expensive. If you don't like that, then you don't have to buy a Nagra VI or their battery packs. There are other options out there.
Every line of products has the high end very expensive stuff, like cars, tv's...you name it. For some people it is worth it. For some, it isn't. I'm not trying to take a side here at all. I'm just pointing out that this expensive battery "issue" isn't much of an issue at all. I guess I can see the point of "really, that's what's in there?", but it's nothing earth shattering.
 
That's all fine, but it's still not true that they used "high quality parts". They used "low quality parts" (which failed). The claim was "high quality parts" - that claim is unsustainable. That's the point. Sure, one could claim that "design choices" is what made it all so expensive, but one still can't make the claim that it was the parts themselves that were expensive... because they could have put expensive parts in, and instead they put in lowest cost ones. So one can try to justify the high price due to the "design choices", (even if the "design" looks rather unimpressive to anyone who has ever built anything from parts). Which is why I made fun of how such expensive designs must have come about. But you've gotta use some Occam's Razor common sense here. Is it possible that the "design choices" were super expensive even if the parts are admittedly "lowest cost out there"? Sure, theoretically, but think about it. It's as if the wine expert sommelier made an elaborate show of uncorking, aerating, sniffing, swirling, sipping, and finally carefully pouring your glass of wine, at the end of which he sticks you with a giant bill. But here's the kicker - it transpires that even though the bill was $5000 for that glass of wine, the actual wine was the lowest cost plonk Thunderbird from the local 7-11. Suddenly, you feel ripped off and no amount of talk about the elaborate show is going to make that $5K go down smoothly. If you are going to do such an elaborate presentation, people are naturally going to assume that the wine is worth it. That's just Occams razor - who is going to do super elaborate "design choices" and then use garbage lowest cost parts (which failed!)? Odds are that the "design" was worth as much as the "parts", because if the design was really the result of deep R&D, it wouldn't use the lowest off the shelf components available. No jeweler is going to slave over a design of a ring, only to stick a piece of glass in where the diamond is supposed to sit... common sense.

I don't doubt that Nagra recorders or equipment are top of the line and worth every penny (to those who can use such quality). I don't doubt it's "high quality product". But I can most certainly aver that the battery component was a terrible oversight and a failure - if not outright ripoff. Because such things do happen. You mention "expensive cars" - funny, because that's very apt. Yes, the cars are expensive, and often high quality product - but sometimes with terrible subcomponents which result in a PR disaster. I remember a patch back in the 90's where Mercedes made an inexplicable "design choice" that rebounded to terrible effect. Mercedes had a great reputation as a quality design car that charged a premium - and people paid. But some bean counter somewhere, decided that as a way of extracting a little bit more profit, they'd do some parts of the dashboard and interior with cheap plastic parts... which unfortunately not only wore badly, but looked cheap (in addition to, you know, actually being cheap). There was a powerful backlash from the consumer. People were outraged. Why are we paying top dollar for a product where some elements are worse than on a cheapo domestic economy junker? Well, soon enough, Mercedes decided that this was not a good "design choice", and it was not worth diluting your brand with genuinely inferior elements in the pursuit of a few extra bucks. And they went back to higher quality components. And that's the lesson - if you charge top dollar, you must deliver top quality, and if you don't, people will feel ripped off... and no amount of talk about "design choices" is going to paper over that cracked plastic dashboard, or cheapo failed battery packs. You charge $500 or $700 for a battery pack? Stick some "high quality parts" in there for real, so people don't feel ripped off. Because really, what % of the cost of that $500 part was the battery pack? If you are sticking in a $27 battery pack in there, and asking for $500, that's the wrong place to economize. Put in a $60 or $80 or whatever actual "quality part" would cost. Instead, penny wise and pound foolish.

Bottom line: whatever you're paying for in that battery pack, the one thing you are NOT paying for is "high quality parts" - and that's a huge miscalculation at best and rip off at worst. You want to proclaim yourself top quality asking premium prices - then deliver top quality all along the line.
 
I would probably cut it down and put an NP1 holder where that super expensive foam went. Might put a V mount on it instead but the NP1 would fit better.
 
Greg_E said:
I would probably cut it down and put an NP1 holder where that super expensive foam went. Might put a V mount on it instead but the NP1 would fit better.
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I'm surprised we don't see that more often. The Deva II used an internal NP1 battery, as did the PD-4, and that was really convenient. Maybe it's a size/space issue? But that doesn't look to be the case with the Nagra VI.
 
Old Corpse (quite the name there), you are assuming facts not in evidence. Those Sanyo batteries are not low quality. In fact, they are considered some of the best of their type. They are excellent, highly regarded cells which are quite popular because of their quality. As a flip side corollary to this discussion, just because something is economical doesn't mean that it is no good. Likewise, that circuit board is absolutely a custom job. In the video it was pointed out that it uses a fairly common chip, but the board itself is in fact a custom unit. As is the secondary board for the connector to the recorder. The point about the expensive foam is superfluous as it is made clear that this battery brick design is built to accommodate two additional battery cell packs in another, more expensive model. And I note that the custom circuit board must be designed to accept multiple voltages that likely include some regulating circuitry to balance the load draw from multiple battery cell packs.

Unless you are in manufacturing and understand the business considerations that must be applied then I don't believe anyone here is qualified to lay judgement on this manufacturer as to whether this is a fair price for this device. I indicated what a number of these costs can involve, and many of them have absolutely nothing to do with the technical aspect of designing and constructing a battery pack. When you're Sony and can sell L-series bricks by the container load every day, the economies of scale change things. When Samsung puts a battery in a cell phone or tablet they can spread all of their costs over literally millions of units sold on an annual basis. It is an entirely different economy.
 
Hey Mitch,

You probably didn't mean to do this, but in fact, you pretty much dismissed the collective intelligence of the audio group as being uninformed or otherwise ignorant of manufacturing issues. You of course are on the inside, so you must know more right?

Of course you know nothing of our backgrounds, and what we have done in our lives to have the experience to discuss this. It is obvious this topic hit a hot button considering the many responses, and even the posters who aren't in the know, have a passion for the topic.

So you have been a company man for a while, and for some reason seem to be pouring some cool-aid in defense of what would appear to be a rip-off by conventional wisdom. Not sure what your background is before that. Have you designed products yourself, or done much cost accounting? What I can say is that I do have some background in manufacturing, posses a BS in an industrial discipline, and have owned 3 businesses over 30 years. two of them were technically oriented and involved the design and manufacture of a variety of complicated stuff, often producing only a single prototype unit. The point here is that some of us do understand what is involved and are calling this BS and greed. If you have some numbers on this so we can separate what we do know from what we don't, it would go a long ways towards proving your point.

I do know there is a lot of effort that goes into building any product, but charge circuits are pretty well worked out, formed or molded boxes are a mature industry, and we all know the cost of the off the shelf batteries. So if they can't build that battery for a reasonable cost, and charge a reasonable markup, they should have just used L series batteries like SD does.

Peace
Grant
 
ggrantly said:
Hey Mitch,
So if they can't build that battery for a reasonable cost, and charge a reasonable markup, they should have just used L series batteries like SD does.

Peace
Grant
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And yet SD seems to marking up those L batteries, according to you, unreasonably also.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/767846-REG/Sound_Devices_XL_B3_XL_B3_Lithium_Ion_Battery.html

If they're buying in quantity there can't be more than $3 worth of parts there. Looks exactly like a Sony L so no R&D, no need to make new designs, moulds, or machining necessary. Its $100 and thats quite the markup.
 
mico said:
And yet SD seems to marking up those L batteries, according to you, unreasonably also.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/767846-REG/Sound_Devices_XL_B3_XL_B3_Lithium_Ion_Battery.html

If they're buying in quantity there can't be more than $3 worth of parts there. Looks exactly like a Sony L so no R&D, no need to make new designs, moulds, or machining necessary. Its $100 and thats quite the markup.
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Where did I say that the L batteries were unreasonably priced. Not in this thread. I have issues with the cost of most all Li-Ion batteries.

There is no way that SD makes that battery, they resell another brand.

At least with the Sony or whatever other common battery was used, you have choices of whether to buy OEM or something else. If you look at the typical cost of Sony L series, SD is about average in cost, though they do come in differing sizes. And they aren't $700.



Grant
 
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I own a Sound Device 702 and one of the things that gives me the heebies about the recorder (in fact the only one) is that it uses those L batts and you cant change them without using a 'tool'.

(ok the tool is just a key or coin but they are things I strip out of my pockets before operating to stop any jangles or any chance of paying for anything on set)

L batts don't have power meters and (like 5d2 batts) create mayhem in your power workflow - they are like HDMI, close to banned on my productions

The SD702 can be powered with lemo but I quickly got a sketchy connection there, lemo is also annoying because all my monitors, leds, (and my GH4/yag) run from XLR4, which I have loads of spares.

I now run the recorder in the main from vlock (probably not the most ideal system, but the system Im invested in) via a dummy batt.. I now trust the unit but the mass/size/mess is significantly boosted.

I would say that Sound Devices and Convergent are both let down by 'bargain' battery solutions

S
 
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Morgan,

I don't disagree with you in any way. I don't power my SD stuff with L series either. I was using that as an example of avoiding a $700 battery. I would prefer the 4 pin xlr also as I have other devices that use it. At least for me, the lemo connector is good quality, and in my case, have cables to convert. One of the reasons I do this is to avoid having to support an additional battery system.
 
Lemo connectors are excellent at being small, but not the most rugged until you get into their large products. XLR while being somewhat large is certainly fairly rugged and an easy device to work on should it need to be fixed in the field. Any butane powered or electric powered soldering iron will have you back in business in ten minutes (assuming spare parts). Locking/threaded DIN connectors, while being really old school, certainly still work really well and about half the size of an XLR.

But all this talk makes me glad I can modify things to make them closer to what I expect they should be.
 
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